At Home with John and Debbie

I have just learned about the Stalin-era Soviet miner Aleksei Stakhanov, or rather the political movement of the time, which bore his name.

In 1935, word reached the Politburo in Moscow that, at his mine in East Ukraine, Stakhanov had hewed 102 tonnes of coal in 6 hours — 14 times a typical yield. Stalin and Molotov encouraged a Stakhanovite movement, where workers across the USSR were encouraged to attempt similarly impossible feats of productivity.

The word “Luddite” is bandied about all over the place, often by people who have forgotten what the mythical Ned Ludd really stood for. It seems to me that the word “Stakhanovite” could be very useful — I’m sure many of us can think of a time when management or authorities have expected people to work miracles.

So, why not drop it into conversation. “With all due respect, aren’t you being a bit Stakhanovite?”. At the very least you can smirk to yourself when they pretend to know what you mean.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 18:43 and is filed under Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.