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Taylorization of Lenin:rhetoric or reality?Daniel A. WrenUniversity of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA, andArthur G. BedeianDepartment of Management, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge,Louisiana,
Walter Nicholas Polakov was born in Luga, Russia in 1879, and educated asa mechanical engineer at the Royal Institute of Technology in Dresden(Saxony) and in psychology and industrial hygiene at the University ofMoscow. He and his wife and children Xed Russia following the 1905revolution, emigrating to the USA where he learned English and used hisengineering skills to get a job at the American Locomotive Company. There hemet Gantt, who was consulting with the company. Polakov would eventuallywork in Gantt�s Wfnl before launching his own consulting company.Polakov arrived in his native land in December 1929 and remained until May1931. Polakov began with one factory to demonstrate to Russian managers howGantt charts, such as daily-order-of-work charts, machine-record charts,man-record charts, and progress charts, could improve planning. From hissuccessful demonstration of Gantt charting, Polakov moved to otherassignments at the direction of Vesenkah. It is not known how manyinstallations he made, but his work was praised at Russia�s First Conference ofIndustrial Executives (February, 1931) as �warmly recommended�for all Sovietenterprises. It was reported that the Gantt chart method had produced anannual savings of one million rubles (approx. $250,000 in 1930) in a machinetool plant, which also reported a 400 percent increase in output. A VesenkahofWcial said that Russian plants were using the Gantt technique to report totheir �headquarters� (i.e. �trust� or regional departments) and, in turn, theheadquarters units used them to report to the central government. Polakov wasthe only person to succeed in installing a scientiWc management technique inRussia (Wren, 1980).
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