site.btaAugust 29, 1952: Stakhanov-Style Speed Bricklaying Competition in Bulgaria

On August 29, 1952, the southern Bulgarian town of Kardzhali hosted a speed bricklaying competition. This was in line with a broad labour campaign called "Stakhanov movement" that encouraging workers to excel and overshoot their performance targets in the name of "socialist progress". The movement was named after Aleksei Stakhanov, a Soviet coal miner who, in 1935, reportedly mined 14 times his quota in a single shift. 

The movement originated in the Soviet Union and quickly spread in other Soviet bloc countries, including Bulgaria, in the 1950s.

It aimed to boost productivity without additional capital investment, promote discipline, initiative, and loyalty to the party, serve as propaganda showing the success of the socialist system over capitalist models. It was rooted in the idea that, with ideological motivation and the right "consciousness," workers could dramatically increase productivity.

Original caption to the photos in this collection reads "Moments from a speed bricklaying demonstration by teams of speed masons under the leadership of the Stakhanovite Fredi Stoimenov, who has set a new national record for speed bricklaying, Kardzhali, August 29, 1952 (BTA Photo/L. Kostov)".