Experience of Material Incentives for Workers of Military Factories in the Early Years of the NEP (on the Example of the Tula Cartridge Factory)

Abstract

Based on the methodology of the activity approach, the article examines the processes of material incentives for workers in the early years of the NEP. It deals in detail with the issues of material incentives for workers in the conditions of the NEP economy on the example of a large industrial enterprise - the Tula Cartridge Factory. How did the gradual tightening of rationing took place at this time? How did this process affected different groups of workers? What practices at the workshop level were used to regulate earnings? The purpose of the article is to clarify these and other interrelated issues affecting the stimulation of labor. In his research, the author proceeded from the principle of historicism and the methodology of the activity approach, according to which attention is focused on the practical activities of people, the mechanisms of their interaction. The scientific novelty of the study is determined by the fact that it comprehensively highlights the process of organizing financial incentives for employees at a large military enterprise in the early period of the NEP, which is of particular relevance in the context of modern challenges. In the initial period of the NEP, the Tula Cartridge Factory underwent a general improvement of production processes. An important part of this work was to restore the effectiveness of material incentives in relation to labor productivity, primarily by increasing production standards. As it appears on the example of the TPZ, within the historical context of the early NEP, a relatively acceptable level of material incentives for industrial labor was achieved in Soviet industry.