SCRIPTURA

Room · Gastev and the Central Institute of Labour

How to Work

Как надо работать

The first complete English translation. Russian beside English, all 105 sections.

Start reading →The sixteen rules
ЦИТ · CIT · 1920Strokes · 0007
Fig. 1 · Chronocyclogram · the blow of the chisel
Sections
105
Paragraphs
3,617
Languages
Russian · English
Edition
Moscow 1972 → 2026

Alexei Kapitonovich Gastev · 1882–1939

The poet of the machine.

A metalworker, revolutionary and poet, Alexei Gastev founded the Central Institute of Labour in Moscow in 1920 and set out to teach a whole country how to work: timed movements, chrono-cards, the culture of the workbench. He called the Institute his last work of art. He was arrested in 1938 and shot in 1939. This book is the 1972 Moscow anthology of his writings on labour: the manifestos, the rules, the norms and methods, the letters to Ford.

From the rules · § 7

How to work.

All sixteen rules →
EN

Whether we work at the office desk, whether we file with a file in the fitters’ shop, or, finally, plough the earth — everywhere it is necessary to create labour holding-out and gradually to make it a habit.

RU

Работаем ли мы за канцелярским столом, пилим ли напильником в слесарной мастерской, или, наконец, пашем землю – всюду надо создать трудовую выдержку и постепенно сделать ее привычкой.

Five places to start

Where to begin.

  1. § 7Our Practical MethodologyThe sixteen rules for every labour, from thinking the work through to tidying everything away.
  2. § 9The Hour Strikes“It is time to cease waiting”: out of the wreckage that remains, everything made with one’s own hands.
  3. § 16TimeTime in five parts, from agitation to method.
  4. § 71CIT–Ford correspondence (1928)The Institute’s correspondence with Henry Ford.
  5. § 72Marx and Ford“Two names — Marx and Ford — now stand as two historical figures in opposition to one another.”

Gastev on the shelf

The books.

  • How to WorkAlexei GastevAll 105 sections, Russian beside English, in the first complete English translation.Read →
  • A Pack of OrdersAlexei GastevGastev’s 1921 poem in ten orders, to be read at one speed, like instructions fed to a machine. Russian beside English.Read →

Russian: А. К. Гастев, Как надо работать, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Ekonomika, 1972). English translation © 2026 S. Alexander Laurent. All rights reserved.