Editing Socialist emulation (section)

== History ==

Vladimir Lenin was the originator and promoter of the idea of socialist emulation as a means for organising "the majority of working people into a field of labour in which they can display their abilities, develop the capacities, and reveal those talents".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/HOC17.html|title=How to Organise Competition?|website=www.marx2mao.com|access-date=2020-02-04}}</ref> His milestone article was "How to organize the emulation?" ("{{Lang|ru|Как организовать соревнование?}}"), in which among the important goal of the emulation was discovery of persons with organizational and management skills, to replace [[tsarist]]-era specialists. Also, he was the first to set "socialist emulation" against "capitalist competition". Lenin's article however repeatedly highlights the need for strictest "accounting and control" (Russian: ''"учёт и контроль"'') at all levels for the socialist society, postulating mutual "accounting and control" between all layers of the government and supply chain.<ref>{{Cite web|title=How to Organise Competition?|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/25.htm|access-date=2021-02-19|website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

{{See also|Trust, but verify}}

Later, [[Joseph Stalin]] wrote in his streamlined style:

:''Principles of (capitalist) competition: defeat and death of ones and victory and dominance of the others.''
:''Principles of socialist emulation: friendly assistance to lagging ones by the leading ones in order to achieve a common rise.'' ...etc.

While criteria of socialist emulation were easy to set, understand, and quantify in production areas, it was not so in non-production areas: medicine, education, work of clerks, etc., where significant formalism took place and among the criteria a significant weight was attributed to "social activism", not related to the work done.{{Citation needed|date=April 2013}} Social activism, among other actions, meant:

* Participating in all CPSU and Komsomol activities
* Recruitment of future CPSU members in their workplaces or hometowns
* Election campaigns for deputies for the Union and Republican Supreme Soviets and Soviets of People's Deputies
* Active work during national holidays

Attempt to add a "moral" aspect to daily work was a common feature among 20th century socialist governments, with ''Arbeitskult'' ("work cult") in Germany, which "stressed the patriotic potential of labour, comparing industrial work with the task of a soldier defending the Fatherland" and ''Yan’an heroes'' in Maoist China.<ref name=":0" />