Nikita S. Khrushchev

Virtually every manufactured item was in short supply in the Soviet Union prior to World War II. Since demand far exceeded supply, it was necessary for factories to produce as much as they could as fast as they could. Workers who exceeded their individual production quotas received special recognition and access to rare consumer goods. Managers whose factories exceeded their overall quotas were promoted into the upper echelons of the Communist Party. Consequently, workers and managers were constantly looking for shortcuts that would increase production.

Nikita S. Khrushchev was first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964. In 1939, the year the incident in this selection occurred, he was first secretary of the Ukrainian Party Central Committee, in effect the governor of the Ukraine. Here he sheds light on the deleterious effect high production quotas...