Taylorism in the socialism that really existed

Abstract

The principal objective of the present paper is to analyse the introduction of Taylorism, understood as a capitalist way of managing production and labour, in the former Soviet Union. The application of this capitalist model of production and management had strongly influenced the course of Socialism in the former Soviet Union. The study concentrates on the changes which occurred within the period 1917-1929, trying to highlight the factors that influenced the introduction of Taylorism in the former Soviet Union, specially the economic conditions of the country, the characteristics of the proletariat (ruling social class) and the peasantry (dominant social class), the limitations of the ruling role of the Bolshevik party, the macroeconomic and industrialization policies. Such trajectory has to be understood as strongly related to the modernist values struggling for predominance in the first socialist countries.