Motivation of labor in the Siberian industry during the industrialization period of the late 1920s - 1930s: results and prospects of historical research

Pribytkova Karina Pavlovna ORCID: 0009-0005-7447-5476 PhD in History Senior lecturer; Department of National History; Altai State University 656049, Russia, Altai Territory, Barnaul, Lenin Ave., 61, room 315 i@karina-p.ru

Introduction

During the Soviet industrialization of the late 1920s - 1930s, a command and administrative model of the economy was formed, and with it a new system of labor motivation. By trial and error, the leaders of the Bolshevik Party tried to create such labor incentives that would attract millions of workers to industry and continuously maintain their labor enthusiasm, which was perceived as an important source for achieving the ambitious goals of the first five-year plans. The norms, practices and shortcomings of the established system of labor motivation for a long time influenced the content and results of Soviet labor policy, which determines the importance of the historical study of labor incentives during the period of industrialization.

In the USSR, decisions made by the state played a key role in the field of labor motivation. At the same time, the results of the application of specific incentives were influenced by many factors related to the peculiarities of the development of individual regions and industries.

The industrial development of Siberia in the late 1920s - 1930s. Due to its remoteness from the western borders, it aimed to increase the defense potential of the state by transferring industrial capacities to the east of the country. In turn, the region's wealth of natural resources should have made a significant contribution to the rapid growth of production.

Despite the rapid growth of coal mining, non–ferrous metals, the creation of chemical industry and mechanical engineering in the region, a significant place in the Siberian economy during the first five-year plans belonged to the light, textile and food industries - non-priority from the point of view of the strategic goals of the state related to the development of heavy industry. In the 1930s, a fifth of the workers of large–scale industry in Siberia worked in these industries (in 1932, 72 thousand people or 19.6%, in 1937 - 103.7 thousand or 20.4%, calculated according to ^{[1, p. 253]}). At enterprises of different industries, the system of labor motivation acquired its own characteristics. The workers worked in different production conditions, had different opportunities to obtain housing and supply necessary goods. In addition, in the early 1930s, the state set a course to establish strict differentiation in the remuneration of qualified and unskilled personnel, workers in heavy and light industry.

By the beginning of Stalin's industrialization, Siberia was mainly an agrarian region, therefore, the main source for providing industry with workers was rural residents – workers in the first generation, defined in modern historiography as carriers of traditional work ethics, which prevented their adaptation to regular and strenuous work in production ^{[2, pp. 69-71]}. The leaders of most Siberian enterprises, realizing the goals and objectives set by the party-state apparatus, could not rely on old industrial personnel and faced huge turnover, low discipline and productivity of workers.

The industrial backwardness of the region determined the underdevelopment of the urban social infrastructure, which made it difficult to attract labor to industrial construction sites and growing enterprises and its subsequent consolidation in the workplace.

It is impossible not to note the climatic characteristics of Siberia as a factor in stimulating labor. Prolonged and cold winters increased the demands of employees on the amount of material remuneration due to the need for additional expenses on food, clothing and, in many cases, fuel.

The listed features of the development of Siberia allow us to conclude that the study of the problem of labor motivation during the period of industrialization on the example of industries and enterprises in the region can provide a broader understanding of how labor incentives really worked in the Soviet economy, on what factors and to what extent their effectiveness depended, taking into account the noted regional specifics.

This article is aimed at characterizing the results of studying the problem of labor motivation in the Siberian industry in the late 1920s - 1930s and identifying promising areas for scientific research in the designated problem field.

Using a problem-chronological way of presenting the material, we will consider the theoretical approaches used in historiography to study the problem of labor motivation, and highlight the established research directions, and then present the results of an analysis of specific historical works devoted to individual components of the labor stimulation process in the Siberian industry in the late 1920s – 1930s.

Theoretical approaches and research directions

In Soviet historiography, despite the abundance of articles and monographs devoted to the history of the working class, the motivation of labor in the USSR industry was not formulated as a scientific problem. According to the "Bolshevik" paradigm, which was already established in the early 1930s ^[3], which determined both the content and conclusions of historical research, Soviet workers were motivated to work intensively by an internal desire to build a socialist and then a communist society. This aspiration was generally successfully supported and directed by party and trade union organizations that cared about the material well-being, educational and cultural level of workers.

Within the framework of the "Bolshevik" paradigm, Soviet authors could operate with a limited set of data that indicated exclusively positive trends in the development of the working class. Some problems related to the use of industrial personnel labor were noted by Soviet authors, but were not identified as the consequences of any shortcomings in the labor motivation system. They were explained by the low initial level of industrial development, the difficulties of building socialism in one country, as well as remnants of the "bourgeois past."

In modern Russian historiography, the development of theoretical approaches and concrete historical studies of the problem we are interested in received an impetus mainly due to the implementation in the 2000s of the Russian-Dutch scientific project "Motivation of labor in Russian industry, 1861-2000", headed by A.K. Sokolov, L.I. Borodkin and J. Lukassen. As a theoretical basis for the research, the project participants used the approach proposed by American historians and sociologists Ch. Tilly and K. Tilly ^[4] and supplemented by Dutch historians M. Van der Linden and J. Lucassen ^{[5; 6]}. The approach involves the identification of three groups of work incentives in terms of their content: 1) material remuneration, including direct payments (wages, bonuses), indirect (free medical care, housing, etc.) and latent (theft and illegal side jobs); 2) coercion and punishments implemented in the field of material, disciplinary and even criminal liability; 3) moral motives related to educational activities work, propaganda, and awards for labor achievements. According to the mentioned researchers, the listed groups of labor incentives in different combinations operated in any historical periods and conditions.

The presented approach was further developed in Russian historiography during and after the implementation of the Russian-Dutch scientific project. Thus, the authors of the collective monograph "Not a single ruble": Labor incentives for textile workers in pre-revolutionary Russia", applying the above-mentioned classification of labor incentives, also proposed to divide the methods of labor motivation depending on the goals they are aimed at achieving: 1) attracting employees to enterprises; 2) encouraging accepted personnel to work better at their workplaces ^{[7, p. 7]}.

Conducting specific historical research, scientists use a set of indicators to assess the effectiveness of labor incentives that were in effect during a certain period. Such indicators include staff turnover, the dynamics of labor productivity and losses from marriage (taking into account the influence of production factors on the last two indicators) ^{[8, pp. 13-14, 17-18.]}. As facts indicating a decrease in labor motivation or workers' dissatisfaction with any elements of the labor incentive system, historians interpret systematic labor violations disciplines ^{[9, pp. 198-199]}, as well as direct complaints of workers recorded in their speeches at trade union meetings ^{[8, pp. 137-138]}, materials of the periodical press ^[10], reviews and reports of state security agencies ^[11].

In modern historiography, as areas of research on the problem of labor motivation in the USSR, which are implemented on the basis of the described theoretical approach or outside it, it is possible to identify the analysis of labor policy, as well as the study of the process of stimulating labor at the local or micro levels.

The evolution of the policy of the Soviet state in the field of labor motivation from 1917 to the end of the 1980s was studied in a series of articles by A.K. Sokolov ^{[12; 13; 14]}. The historian identified the stages in the development of this policy based on the prevailing labor incentives at different times. In his opinion, during the period of industrialization, the leading role in stimulating labor was occupied by moral motives, including appeals to duty and calls to consciousness ^[12]. At the end of 1938, there was a turn towards coercion in state policy, associated with the introduction of workbooks and the requirement for enterprise managers to fire workers for absenteeism. The next step was taken in June 1940 with the establishment of criminal liability for employees for violations of labor discipline and unauthorized dismissals ^[13].

It should be noted that according to the conclusion of the Siberian historian S.A. Krasilnikov, obtained as a result of studying the implementation of labor policy in the Kuzbass coal industry, the state turned to coercion already in the early 1930s, when it began to use the practice of organized recruitment of labor and direct non-economic coercion – the work of a special agent ^[15].

The policy of the Soviet state in the field of wages, including during the period of industrialization, was studied by A.A. Ilyukhov, paying great attention to the wage reform implemented in Soviet industry in the early 1930s, and the measures taken at the same time in the field of labor rationing. The result of the reforms, according to the historian, was an increase in differentiation in the earnings of workers in different industries and industrial categories and a strengthening of the dependence of wages on their results. The latter made it possible to turn wages into a powerful incentive to increase labor productivity ^{[16, p. 327]}.

In post-Soviet historiography, local and microhistoric approaches are actively used to study the problem of labor motivation in various periods of the USSR's existence. At the same time, the conclusions obtained using these approaches are synthesized with the results of macroanalysis.

Labor incentives used in Soviet industry in the 1920s are being studied at the local and micro levels ^{[17; 18]}. Based on the materials of the Siberian region, the results of the state policy of the late NEP period (1925-1929) aimed at reducing the wage differentiation of industrial workers and employees are analyzed ^[19]. Discussions about the leading labor incentives and motives of Soviet workers are developing as part of the study of labor motivation during the Great Patriotic War, including in the industry of Siberia ^{[20; 21; 22]}. Currently, historians are increasingly interested in studying labor relations in the late USSR ^{[8; 10]}. To date, the stimulation of the work of Soviet workers at the stage of industrialization has been considered only in several studies carried out on the materials of enterprises in the central part of the country ^{[9; 23]} and the Ural region ^[24].

One of R.E. Romanov's articles ^[25] is devoted to the forced labor incentives that operated in the Siberian defense industry at the final stage of industrialization, while the author's main efforts are focused on studying the stimulation of industrial labor in the chronological framework of the Great Patriotic War.

We can conclude that the motivation of labor in the Siberian industry in the late 1920s - 1930s did not act as a subject of special and comprehensive historical research. At the same time, a number of components of this problem are reflected in the works of Siberian historians of the Soviet and post-Soviet times.

Attracting workers to the industry

The industrial development of Siberia took place in conditions of a shortage of labor resources. Their search in a sparsely populated agrarian region was an important and difficult task, attempts to solve which attracted and attract the attention of historians. Soviet scientists who studied the history of the Siberian working class actively studied the sources and methods (forms) of providing the region's industry with labor. In relation to the period of industrialization, these issues were investigated in the 1960s by A.S. Moskovsky ^[26], G.A. Dokuchaev ^[27] and R.A. Malkov ^[28].

Historians have drawn attention to the rapid growth in the number of the Siberian working class during the first five-year plans. In 1929-1936, the number of workers and employees employed in the region's industry increased from 115.3 to 526.3 thousand people, i.e. 4.5 times (while in the USSR as a whole, the number of the working class increased 2.4 times over the same period) ^{[26, p. 77]}. The researchers agreed that the main source of this growth was the Siberian village (the share of migrant peasants from other regions in the industrial staff was insignificant). So, in 1930, yesterday's peasants made up 80% of the new industrial workers in Western Siberia, in 1931 – 88%, in 1932 - 85%. During the construction of the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant – the main project of the first five–year plan - 90.5% in 1932. In subsequent years, the share of peasants in new additions to the working class was uneven. In 1937, among those who arrived in 23 cities of Siberia, immigrants from the village made up 53.2% ^{[26, pp. 85-87]}, in 1939 among new residents of the cities of the Novosibirsk region – 80.1% ^{[27, p. 94]}. It is obvious that during the rapid industrial development of the region, most of the peasants who moved to the cities became employees of industrial enterprises.

As Soviet historians have proved, another important source of labor during the period of industrialization was the unemployed population, mainly female housewives. In Siberia, the process of their involvement in production outpaced the growth rate of the total number of workers and employees. According to calculations by A.S. Moskovsky, in the industry of Western Siberia, the number of the working class increased 3.3 times from 1929 to 1933, and the number of female workers increased 6.5 times. In Eastern Siberia from 1927 to 1932 – 9.2 times. In 1936, the proportion of women in industry in Western Siberia was 29.3%, in Eastern Siberia – 27% ^{[26, p. 92]}.

According to V.I. Isaev, who studied the domestic situation of Siberian workers in 1926-1937 in the late 1980s, an important factor contributing to the involvement of women in industrial production was the creation of a wide network of institutions that took over part of the work of running a household and raising children: canteens, laundries, nurseries and kindergartens. The work of these institutions allowed the workers to reduce the time spent on domestic work ^{[29, pp. 61-65]}.

The vocational education system was of less importance in providing Siberian industry with labor. According to R.A. Malkov, the network of educational institutions, primarily schools of factory training (FZO), which grew during the period of industrialization, at the expense of its graduates was not able to meet the needs of enterprises for qualified labor, and most of the new personnel mastered working professions directly in production ^{[28, p. 137]}.

Based on the data of the trade union census of 1932-1933 and departmental statistics, Soviet historians pointed to the high proportion of young people in the Siberian workers. Thus, in the first half of the 1930s, in various industries of the region, the share of workers under the age of 23 ranged from 28.1 to 39.4%, and together with workers under the age of 29 – from 50 to 61.3% ^{[26, p. 95]}.

The data collected by Soviet historians allow us to conclude that the majority of employees of Siberian enterprises during the period of industrialization had experience only in peasant or domestic work or were just starting an independent life and work activity. This circumstance expanded the range of tasks of the labor motivation system – it was necessary to provide housing for workers who arrived at production, train them in a profession, and in many cases also educate them by instilling norms of disciplined labor.

As ways (forms) of attracting labor to industrial enterprises, Soviet authors noted organized recruitment and "spontaneous flow", i.e. free hiring of workers.

The organized recruitment was the recruitment of workers in collective farms on the basis of concluding contracts with future workers for a certain period of time. The Soviet state turned to this method of providing enterprises and construction sites with labor in 1931. A.S. Moskovsky evaluates the organ set as an effective tool for securing labor in production. In 1932, 36% of new workers arrived in the industry of Western Siberia as part of organized recruitment, and in 1933 – 86%. Since 1934, the value of the organ set has been decreasing in favor of free hiring ^{[26, p. 105]}.

Beyond the scope of research by Soviet authors, there was the attraction of forced labor to industrial construction sites and enterprises, the so-called "special contingent": prisoners of the GULAG system, special settlers and rear residents. Their labor was actively used in logging, coal mining, gold mining, and the construction of facilities at the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine.

The characteristics of the harsh living and working conditions of the special agent of Siberia are given in the studies of K.A. Zabolotskaya ^[30], S.A. Papkov ^[31], M.M. Khatylaev ^[32], R.S. Bikmetov ^[33], V.N. Uymanov ^[34].

Without justifying the use of forced labor, the authors highly appreciate the contribution of prisoners and special settlers to the economic development of the Siberian region in the 1930s. The basis for such an assessment is data on the number of special contractors at individual enterprises and construction sites.

Modern historians study the process of attracting industrial personnel to the Siberian industry in the late 1920s - 1930s through the prism of modernization theory, which interprets the development of society as a movement from the traditional agrarian state to the modern industrial-urban one. According to popular opinion in historiography, Stalin's modernization (as well as previous ones in Russian history) was of a mobilization nature, that is, it was carried out due to the leading role of the state, which sought to use all available resources, including labor, to achieve its goals. A.I. Timoshenko and R.E. Romanov consider ways to provide Siberian industry with labor as mobilization solutions and practices aimed at the implementation of strategic plans for the industrial development of the region. Historians refer to such solutions and practices as the use of centralized resettlement, organized recruitment, special agent labor, the creation of a labor reserve system in 1940, as well as the adoption of legislative acts at the turn of the 1930s - 1940s aimed at attaching employees to enterprises ^{[35; 36]}. Despite the impressive growth in the number of the Siberian working class noted above, according to A.I. Timoshenko, these practices did not allow solving the problem of shortage of industrial personnel in the region, especially qualified ones, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War ^{[35, pp. 27-28]}.

Securing personnel in production and financial incentives

The shortage of labor in the Siberian industry was exacerbated by the huge turnover of personnel. It has already been cautiously mentioned by Soviet historians as a problem of industrial development, but they did not provide systematic data on the number of annual layoffs in various industries. For the Siberian industry of the first five-year plans, these data are not available in modern historiography.

In an environment where rural migrants were the main source of labor for Siberian enterprises, one of the main reasons for the high turnover was the lack of housing. Housing construction in the USSR was part of the social policy of the state, while the provision of living space to employees in the framework of studying the problem of labor motivation can be considered as an indirect financial incentive.

During the period of industrialization, state, departmental (at the expense of enterprises) and individual housing construction was carried out in the country. The latter was the construction of houses by the workers themselves, including on the basis of receiving cash loans from the state and assistance from enterprises in the purchase of building materials.

Soviet historians noted a systematic increase in government spending on housing construction in Siberia during the first five-year plans. At the same time, they were in solidarity in assessing the pace of this construction as high, but insufficient to solve the problem of shortage of living space in conditions of rapid growth in the number of the working class. A.S. Moskovsky drew attention to the small average living area per person in Siberian cities: in 1937 in Novosibirsk it was 3.3 m2, in Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, Anzhero-Sudzhensk – 3.1 m2, in Leninsk – 2.5 m2. The historian also pointed out that local authorities and enterprises in Siberia built mainly temporary lightweight premises (barracks), which mitigated the housing problem, but did not solve it definitively ^{[26, pp. 168-169]}. In the studies of Soviet authors, it was also noted that most of the housing was built by the workers themselves ^{[29, p. 46]}. This means that the basis of the housing stock of Siberian cities were dugouts and adobe houses unsuitable for the cold Siberian climate.

In modern historiography, more categorical assessments of the state of the housing problem during the period of industrialization are given. Based on the materials of Siberia, this issue is most fully investigated in the monograph by S.S. Bukin and V.I. Isaev ^[37]. The authors focus on the residual principle of state financing of housing construction. This principle persisted throughout the 1930s and forced local authorities and businesses to build temporary housing.

Modern historians studying the social aspects of industrialization agree that by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the housing problem in Siberian cities could not be solved ^{[37, p. 75; 38, p. 44; 39, p. 13]}. The main type of residential buildings remained individual dwellings and barracks, most of them unsettled. According to V.A. Isupov, in the 1930s, the urban communal infrastructure was in its "infancy". In 1936, in the capital of the West Siberian Territory, the city of Novosibirsk, only 36% of houses under the jurisdiction of city councils, as well as enterprises, organizations and institutions, were provided with water supply, 29% with sewerage, 25% with central heating. In the smaller city of Omsk, the listed indicators were 19%, 9% and 13%, respectively ^{[40, pp. 19-20]}.

S.S. Bukin and V.I. Isaev point out an important consequence of the housing problem in Siberia – housing in barracks and dugouts began to be perceived by workers as the norm ^{[37, pp. 68-69]}. According to M.M. Efimkin, the housing crisis hindered the process of industrial adaptation of the population ^{[39, p. 13]}, which means that it not only contributed to staff turnover, but also provoked violations of established norms of behavior at home and at work. The problem of low labor discipline in the Siberian industry has already been mentioned by Soviet authors, noting absenteeism and drunkenness among workers ^{[27, p. 191; 29, p. 134]}. If we leave aside the cliche about "bourgeois remnants", the interpretation of the causes of these deviations presented in Soviet historiography will turn out to be close to the modern one – the behavior of the workers was associated with their peasant origin. Rural youth needed labor socialization, education and cultural upbringing. The success of the labor socialization of workers, according to the opinion also expressed in Soviet historiography, was directly dependent on the improvement of their housing and living conditions ^{[29, p. 212]}.

In Soviet historical literature, low average earnings of workers and employees at the initial stage of industrialization were identified as the reason for staff turnover in the Siberian industry. At the same time, historians have noted a continuous increase in nominal wages. Thus, according to A.S. Moskovsky, the average annual salary of industrial personnel in Western Siberia increased by 79.7% in the first five–year period, and almost doubled in the second ^{[26, p. 129]}. The historian notes that during the first five-year plan, the level of real incomes changed slightly due to rising prices in conditions of shortage of food and household goods, but during the second five-year plan the problem was solved ^{[26, p. 165]}. G.A. Dokuchaev gave fragmentary data on the growth of nominal wages in the late 1930s and in the as evidence of the improvement in the financial situation of employees, he cited the doubling of retail turnover in the second half of the 1930s ^{[27, pp. 99, 101]}.

According to A.S. Moskovsky, another reason for the high staff turnover at the beginning of the first five-year plan was the shortcomings of the material remuneration system, due to which the salaries of workers in leading industries (coal, metallurgical, machine-building) were lower than in light industry. Thanks to the work of trade unions, as the historian believes, already in the early 1930s these shortcomings were eliminated ^{[26, pp. 128-129]}. A.S. Moskovsky was referring to the wage reform implemented in Soviet industry, one of the directions of which was to increase tariff rates for employees of leading industries. The results of this reform have not been studied on the materials of the Siberian region. Without data on wages in the sectoral context, the historian's conclusion cannot be considered convincing. The issues of sectoral and professional differentiation of wages in the Siberian industry during the period of industrialization remain unexplored. In turn, the difference in earnings of workers from different industries, professions and qualification categories was of great importance for solving the problem of securing personnel in production and forming their attitude to the material incentives used.

In their works, A.S. Moskovsky and V.I. Isaev characterized the components of Soviet social policy, which, along with providing housing for workers, we can attribute to indirect financial incentives aimed at securing personnel in production. Namely: the creation of closed distributors and work supply departments at enterprises to provide workers and employees with necessary goods, the organization of individual and collective vegetable gardens, the provision of free medical care and sanatorium treatment at the expense of public consumption funds. Historians have shown positive quantitative results of these activities. For example, on October 1, 1930, there were 17 closed distributors in Eastern Siberia, as of May 1 of the same year – 479. In 1932, 44.5% of workers and employees had individual vegetable gardens in Kemerovo, 22% in Omsk, and 31% in Prokopyevsk ^{[26, p. 130]}. Health care costs per person in Siberia in 1929 amounted to 2.2 rubles, in 1936 – already 17.7 rubles. Resorts, sanatoriums and rest homes were visited by 35.7 thousand workers of Western Siberia in 1931, and about 100 thousand in 1936 ^{[29, p. 52]}.

This kind of data still does not allow us to understand to what extent the material needs of people were met. An interesting question, in our opinion, is how serious the differences in the financial situation of employees of different enterprises and industries were due to the implementation of these incentives.

For A.S. Moskovsky, whose research is limited to 1937, the problem of staff turnover is generally assessed as solved during the second five-year plan due to the improvement of the financial situation of workers and employees. In turn, G.A. Dokuchaev, who studied the development of the Siberian working class during the third five-year plan, pointed out the persistence of the problem in the late 1930s, citing as an example the situation at the Kuznetsk Combine, at various sites of which in 1938 the number of dismissed workers exceeded the number of accepted or was close to it ^{[27, pp. 133-134]}.

Thus, with the help of direct and indirect incentives, the task of securing personnel in the Siberian industry during the period of industrialization was not solved.

Increasing the intensity and productivity of work

The main way to solve this task of the labor motivation system is wages, but only in the case of a strict dependence of its size on the results of workers' work. According to A.A. Ilyukhov, in the 1930s this dependence was seriously strengthened in Soviet industry ^{[16, p. 327]}, but this conclusion remains unconfirmed based on the materials of Siberian enterprises. The historical literature mentions the spread of piecework, piecework-progressive and premium forms of wages in the region's industry ^{[26, p. 53]}, but there is no connection between the application of each of them with the dynamics of labor productivity.

In Soviet industry, another way to improve the results of workers' work was the socialist competition, which included the movements of strikers, Stakhanovites, inventors and innovators of production. Soviet historians primarily identified moral incentives in the competition, defining the enthusiasm of the workers and their conscious desire to increase production as the basis of various movements. In this vein, A.S. Moskovsky described in detail the development of various forms of competition in the Siberian industry during the period of industrialization ^[41].

Soviet historiography also mentions the material incentives to participate in the competition. The predominant supply of drummers in the conditions of the card system was noted by V.I. Isaev ^{[29, p. 37]}. According to A.S. Moskovsky, in the second five-year plan, "thousands of Stakhanovites and strikers earned from 600 to 2 thousand rubles or more per month." At the same time, in 1937, the average monthly salary of workers in various industries in Siberia ranged from 200 to 325 rubles ^{[26, p. 165]}. Fragmentary examples do not allow us to assess the stimulating effect of social competition on the results of the work of the majority of workers. In addition, with the growing number of participants and winners of various movements, the amount of financial incentives inevitably decreased.

In the post-Soviet historiography of socialist competition, the Stakhanov movement, which arose in 1935, is in the center of attention. Scientists offer different approaches to understanding its purpose: the movement is considered as an attempt to strengthen the Stalinist regime ^[42], an instrument of industrial socialization of yesterday's peasants ^[43], a way of labor intensification that allowed factory managers to revise production standards based on the achievements of advanced workers ^{[24, pp. 73-75]}. Critical assessments of the Stakhanov movement prevail among historians, according to which the majority of workers sabotaged this form of competition ^{[24, p. 87]}, and at best it did not have a serious impact on the development of industry ^[44].

Drumming, the Stakhanov movement and other types of competition at industrial enterprises in the Siberian region have not been studied on the basis of modern approaches. In our opinion, in the framework of studying the problem of labor motivation, along with the above interpretations, socialist competition can be considered as a channel of professional mobility, an instrument for organizing individual or collective labor, a way of communication between authorities and production managers.

The periodical press – all-Union, regional and factory - called for more intensive work of Soviet workers. Newspaper materials encouraged to improve the results of work in order to contribute to solving problems of national importance, and also formed a model of a worker (often a Stakhanovite or a drummer), which should be equaled. Attempts to influence the consciousness of workers with the help of periodicals to achieve the goals of industrial development are studied on the basis of the application of the content analysis method in the works of N.V. Razdina ^[45], M.A. Klinova ^[46], N.V. Soloshchenko ^[47] and at the same time remain an unexplored aspect of the problem of labor motivation in the Siberian region.

Conclusion

In modern historiography, a theoretical approach has developed to study the problem of motivation of industrial labor in various periods of the USSR's existence. Its basis is the division of incentives into material, compulsory and moral, as well as the idea that stimulating work solves two tasks: attracting workers to production and encouraging them to improve work results. When studying the problem, historians use a local and/or microhistoric approach to take into account the impact of various factors on the implementation and effectiveness of labor incentives.

During the industrialization period of the late 1920s - 1930s, the foundation of the command economy was laid in the USSR, an integral part of which was the motivation system for industrial labor. The historical study of this system at the present stage is characterized by territorial limitations. Within the framework of Siberia, historians have considered only certain components of the labor incentive process.

Our review shows that Soviet and post–Soviet historiography has accumulated a wealth of factual material related to solving the first task of labor motivation in the Siberian industry - providing enterprises with labor. We have a fairly detailed understanding of the sources of growth in the number of workers and employees, the ways that the state used to attract labor, and the factors that prevented the consolidation of personnel.

At the same time, the implementation of the state policy in the field of material remuneration in the industry of the region requires special study. The purpose of this policy in the early 1930s was to increase the differentiation in wages of workers in different industries, professions and qualification categories, necessary to solve the problem of staff turnover and consolidate workers in leading industries. The historiography of the problem of labor motivation currently does not provide a convincing answer to the question of whether it was possible to achieve this goal in the industry of Siberia.

The solution of the second task – encouraging industrial workers to improve their work results, which was carried out through transformations in the field of material remuneration, socialist competition, materials from regional and factory periodicals – based on modern theoretical approaches and techniques was not the subject of systematic analysis within the territorial framework of the Siberian region.

In addition to studying the listed tools for solving the second task of stimulating labor, it may be interesting to identify practices that production managers used to correct the shortcomings of the motivation system, retain staff and complete planned tasks. Noteworthy are the labor strategies that workers developed in response to the incentives applied to them, including in order to adapt to difficult living and working conditions – the costs of accelerated industrial development.

We also note that we have only fragmentary information about the level of staff turnover, the dynamics of wages and their differentiation, as well as labor productivity in the Siberian industry. The historical literature provides average data or examples that characterize the development of industries and enterprises of heavy industry. As a result, we have an incomplete understanding of the development of labor relations in the region.

In our opinion, a comprehensive study of the problem of labor motivation in the Siberian industry in the late 1920s - 1930s, as well as the study of certain aspects of this problem, will make an important contribution to historiography.