K U Z N E T S K METALWORKERS LAUNCH

NEW C O M P E T I T I O N C A M P A I G N

N. P e t u n k i n a *

Fig. 1. Steelmaker tG F. Shabalov (fore- ground), Hero of Socialist Labor, and ini- tiator of many labor innovations and ini- tiatives, is shown here at work while a furnace heat is in full swing.

Socialist competition is undergoing expansion and consolidation at the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine. Brought into being by the creativity of the masses, socialist competition has become transformed into a mighty movement drawing upon the participation of tens of thousands of Kuznetsk metalworkers. Several forms of secial- ist competition are flourishing at the combine: the traditional competition of the three largest metallurgical enter- prises in the nation (the Magnitogorsk, Kuznetsk, and Nizhnii Tagil combines), based on the principles of friendship and comradely mutual assistance; the competition between the Kuznetsk and Magnitogorsk metalworkers which took shape back during the period of construction of the two industrial giants; competition for achieving a commu- nist relationship to labor, etc,

Competition to meet the yearly assignments in all indices and categories has ~ e n undergoing development at the plant. The workforce of Communist Labor of the No. 1 open-hearth furnace department, upon reviewing the available reserves, decided to reduce end-process scrap by 15%, to improve the service life of furnace roofs to 400 heats, to shorten furnace downtime by 0.2%, and to make 55,000 tons of steel over the quota set in the five-year plan. Similar obligations were taken on by other departments and services.

k joint resolution adopted by the party committee, the plant trade-union committee, and the management, with the object of improving the organization of socialist competition and strengthening work cadres in the com- bine, approved the statement on the awarding of the honorary title "KMK Labor Veteran" and "Recipient of the KMK Prize." By the time the Day of the Metalworker arrived, the "KMK Labor Veteran" title had been awarded to 220 metalworkers in the combine, and 53 of the combine personnel had been awarded the KMK Prize.

The principal problem confronted under the new five-year plan, as laid down by the XXIV congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, is to achieve an appreciable increase in the material and cultural living standards of the people on the basis of higher tern- pos of development of socialist production, improved production ef- ficiency, scientific and technical progress, and speeded-up rises in labor productivity. Socialist competition, the struggle to improve the utilization of internal production resources, and intensification of savings and economies in the national economy, are all called upon to play a major role in solving this problem.

Changes have been introduced, at our combine, in the content and in the form of collective and individual socialist obligations; personnel accounts of economies and savings under the five-year plan are being kept at the level of production units, shifts, work teams, production sections, lines of production, and individuals; creative assignment plans are being implemented for engineering and tech- nical workers, and so forth.

During the period of discussion and study of the resolution adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist parl:y of the

*Senior Engineer, Division of Scientific Organization of Labor and Management, Kuznetsk Metallurgicai Combine

(ONOTiU, KMK).

Translated from Metallurg, No, 4, p, 3, April, 1972.

01973 Consultants Bureau, a division of Plenum Publishing Corporation, 227 ~/est i7th Street, /Vew i [ York, N. Y. 10011. All rights reserved. This article cannot be reproduced for any purpose whatsoever i mithout permission of the publisher. A copy of this article is available from the publisher for $15.00o j

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Fig. 2. This photo was taken over four decades ago. The photographer recorded an outstanding event in the life of the Kuznetsk metallurgical combine and Magnitogorsk metallurgical combine: the signing of the first socialist emulation agreement between the construction workforces of the nation's first industrial giants. A sociopolitical agreement was concluded at Magnitogorsk at a well- attended meeting in 1929, on the initiative of the Kuznetsk workers. The con- struction workers at the Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk combine construction sites pledged to work so that the bIast furnaces would be blown in a full year ahead of the schedule set by the government, in the course of making a worthy con- tribution to fulfilling the assignments and quotas of the first five-year plan ahead of time. The Ural metalworkers and Siberiar{imetalworkers fulfilled their pro- mise. The competition between the two workforces, launched at the very dawn of Soviet industrialization, has continued to the present day.

Soviet Union on improvements in the organization of socialist competition at the combine, a new initiative came to the fore: the personnel serving the No. 2 open-hearth furnace pledged to overfulfill the yearly assignments in all categories, and to meet the X congress of trade-unions of workers in the metallurgical industry with a labor gift: making 1500 tons of steel over the quota by the day the congress opens.

Training of workers in economics is being carried on a broad scale at the combine, with the object of im- proving labor effectiveness and improving the organization of socialist competition, and over 50 schools of com- munist labor and ~0 schools teaching the fundamentals of economic knowledge have been set up.

At the present time, a study is being made of the operating experience of advanced metallurgical enterprises, which is under review by the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR and by the Central Committtee of the Trade-Union of Workers of the Metallurgical Industry; proposals are being drawn up on reducing the basic indices for the workforces of various departaments, lines of production, metallurgical production units, work teams, and production sections; measures are being taken to improve the forms, methods and means of publicity associated with the competition campaign

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