Work

The Shchekino Method: Flexible Production with Socialist Characteristics

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The article examines efforts to improve socioeconomic conditions in the Soviet Union during the late twentieth century. It does so to understand Soviet socialism’s capacity to evolve. Drawing on national and regional archival documents and newspapers, it contests the argument that the Soviet system was too rigid to survive in the world of computerised, post-Fordist ‘flexible’ production. Focusing on the enterprise level, this article demonstrates that the Communist Party inaugurated its own variation of flexible production; in doing so, it inadvertently created the conditions of possibility for the transition from state socialism to capitalism on the factory floor.
Institution: New York University
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4410132691
FWCI: 4.02
Cites:
Cited by: 1
Related to: 10