What is stakhanovism?

Stakhanovism was a productivity movement initiated in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, named after Alexei Stakhanov, a coal miner who set a record for coal production in a single shift. The goal was to increase productivity and efficiency by incentivizing workers through increased wages and benefits. Stakhanovites, or workers who exceeded production quotas, were celebrated as heroic examples of socialist achievement. The movement became highly influential in Soviet culture and led to the creation of numerous competitions between workers to see who could produce the most output in the shortest amount of time. However, critics argued that Stakhanovism created an unhealthy and unsustainable work environment, as workers would push themselves to the brink of exhaustion in order to meet ever-increasing quotas. The movement gradually lost momentum in the 1950s and was eventually disbanded after the fall of the Soviet Union.