> On Feb 5, 2026, at 10:27, Marv Gandall via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17087715.pdf > <https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17087715.pdf>(emphasis > mine)
Thanks, that's interesting and references that cover all or most of Lenin's references to Taylorism. ... > > However, in this article, Lenin takes his analysis one step further. Rather > than merely criticizing the use of Taylorism under monopoly capitalism, Lenin > argues that Taylorism would be quite an aid to workers if it could be > separated from its attachment to capital and administered by workers’ > organizations as well as implemented “in the distribution of labour in > society as a whole” rather than being confined to each individual factory. And the USSR did that experiment and Taylorism did not help the Soviet working people democratize their workplaces. Lenin claimed that it could be "properly controlled and intelligently applied by the workers themselves." That is not what happened and it is left to us to consider why. Why did the soviet union collapse (rather than when :) without a significant response by the Soviet workers who Lenin thought would manage the factories and the introduction of Taylor methods. The article you cited, and the articles it cited, show that Lenin understood that Taylorism was rooted in capitalist social relations in the factory, but I haven't any discussion of de-skilling, which is the subject of Gramsci's writings on "American Taylorism." But it is clear that Lenin and the Bolsheviks viewed the productive forces as adaptable to the conditions of war communism, and later the NEP; there is no historical evidence for that outcome. Lenin just happened to choose one of the most toxic capitalist technologies for Soviet industry; it's a productive force that flattens workers rather than lifting them up. I think this reinforced what I quoted in https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40516: "...classical Marxism’s more technically neutral view of technology ... holds that a socialist society could simply use the machines developed by capitalism for different purposes." The productive forces of our time include transportation and housing arranged in suburbs and exurbs connected to cities and other suburbs and exurbs; several million miles of roads made of GHG-causing concrete and asphalt connect our highly-distribute housing subdivisions. Our major industries are fossil-fuel intensive, especially agriculture. The current state of the productive forces in the US poses choices of feeding ourselves or driving to our jobs and not causing runaway global warming. Will freeing these productive forces keep us below 1.5C? Mark_._,_ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40540): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40540 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117439078/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
