PROCEEDINGS
OF THE TOMSK ORDER OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
AND ORDER OF THE RED BANNER OF LABOR
POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
named after S. M. Kirov

Vol. 292 1974

THE PLACE AND FUNCTIONS OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL LABOR IN THE SYSTEM OF THE SOCIAL DIVISION OF LABOR

L. I. KURILENKO

The growing role of engineering and technical labor in social production makes its analysis necessary. In recent years a number of interesting studies have appeared devoted to various socio-economic aspects of the use of engineering and technical labor¹. At the same time, however, many questions require further study. In the economic literature there is no clear conception of the specificity of engineering and technical labor; there is no precise theoretical substantiation of the very concepts of “engineer” and “engineering and technical workers,” which gives rise, among economists and economic managers, to disputes over whom to include among engineering and technical personnel². Thus, the authors of the Statistical Dictionary classify as engineering and technical workers all employees of enterprises who carry out the organization and management of the production process at these enterprises and occupy positions requiring the qualifications of an engineer or technician³. But, in turn, the term “engineer” is used in different senses. For example, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia states that an engineer is a person who has received higher technical education in a particular specialty⁴. That is, here the indication is not of the character of the activity itself, but only of preparedness for it, of the character of the education received. In practice, the title of engineer is often assigned on a formal basis, guided not by the functional role of the worker in production, but by the presence, in the name of the position occupied, of the word “engineer.” The relation between such concepts as “engineer” and “specialist” has not been defined. The development of a precise set of tools connected with the category of engineering and technical workers may be aided by consideration of the questions of the origin, place, and functional role of engineering and technical labor in the system of the social division of labor.

The methodological basis for considering the above-mentioned problems is the analysis of the theoretical propositions of the classics of Marxism-Leninism on the interrelation of the material and personal factors of production. Revealing the interaction of technology and the human being, K. Marx wrote: “Modern industry never views or treats the existing form of the production process as final. Its technical basis is therefore revolutionary. By means of machinery, chemical processes, and other methods, it constantly revolutionizes the technical basis of production, and with it the functions of the workers and the social combinations of the labor process.”⁵ Under definite economic and historical conditions, the division of the general functions of the human being takes place, and their social consolidation occurs both on the scale of society as a whole and within the framework of the collective worker. Several stages may be distinguished in the development of this process.

Before the emergence of machines, the worker in the sphere of production had to perform, in the main, the following functions: executive, energetic, and logical, which constituted an inseparable whole.⁶ This means that in the labor process the whole complex of human capacities was used, both physical and mental. But different aspects of the labor process were connected with different functions. If mental labor is connected mainly with spiritual activity and performs the logical function—that is, planning, controlling, organizing, and similar operations—then physical labor performs directly producing functions. In this qualitatively different role there is already contained the possibility of dividing labor into mental and physical and of assigning it to separate groups. But for this possibility to become an objective reality, definite material conditions were necessary. And they arose. As F. Engels wrote, already “at a comparatively early stage of the development of production, human labor power becomes capable of yielding considerably more products than are necessary for the producer’s existence, and this stage of development is precisely the stage at which the division of labor and exchange between individual persons arise.”⁷ That is, the emergence of the surplus product also serves as the material precondition for the division of mental and physical labor. But in the present case the issue is the separation and assignment to particular persons of spiritual potentialities on the scale of the whole of society, and not in the sphere of the immediate labor process. People engaged in mental labor at this stage of development, as a rule, did not participate in the process of developing and improving material production, since production did not need this.

But the development of the productive forces and production relations introduces first quantitative, and then qualitative, changes into the content and character of labor, into the social forms of its organization, and into the combination of the physical and spiritual powers of the human being in production. The precondition for the separation of mental labor in the sphere of material production was the replacement of handicraft production by cooperation of labor and the emergence of a unitary division of labor. This process takes place especially intensively at the stage of manufacture and large-scale machine production.

Manufacture, as a form of labor cooperation, had an enormous influence on changes in the instruments of labor: their differentiation takes place,

specialization and simplification, which gives rise to profound qualitative changes in the content of workers’ labor. Labor becomes increasingly specialized, which is accompanied by personification—the assignment of separate production functions to individual producers. The narrow specialization of labor in manufacture leads to the need for a direct and immediate (planned) connection between separate partial kinds of labor. The function of organizing production was performed at first by the capitalists, and later by their representatives—managers and overseers.^8 But engineering and technical labor at this stage in the development of production still had no place, for the technical basis of manufacture remained craft tools of labor, albeit narrowly specialized ones.

The development of manufacture in the direction of the narrow specialization of tools of labor ultimately exhausts itself, but this gives rise to the emergence of a qualitatively new form of tools of labor—the machine—and, in connection with this, to a change in the place of the immediate producer in the labor process: “The application of machinery increases the division of labor in society, multiplies the number of separate branches of production and independent spheres of production.”^9 Large-scale capitalist machine production leads to the final separation of mental and physical activity directly within the production process. If in craft production and manufacture the immediate producer subordinates the tool of labor to himself and himself determines the rhythm of work, then in machine production the opposite is the case. The worker transfers part of his functions—namely, the energetic function and the function of acting upon the object of labor—to the machine, which not only did not ease the workers’ labor but further intellectually impoverished it. The content and rhythm of work are now determined by the machine; “work in the factory leaves the worker only the knowledge of a few techniques; therefore the laws on apprenticeship were abolished...”^10 That is, the worker is transformed into a living appendage of the machine.

At the same time, however, the application of machinery led to the technical and organizational complication of production, required greater attention to the observance of the principle of continuity of the production process, and created the need to maintain certain proportions in the quantity and quality of labor within the factory. The creation, improvement, and use of machines required special knowledge, which, under capitalist production, the main mass of workers could not possess. Therefore, in the production process, alongside the worker, there now appears “a quantitatively insignificant personnel occupied with the supervision of all the machinery and with its constant repair: for example, engineers, mechanics, carpenters, and so on. This is a higher stratum of workers, partly scientifically educated, partly of a craft character, standing outside the circle of factory workers and merely attached to it.”^11 That is, the social division of labor at the machine stage of capitalist development led to the division of labor into mental and physical labor within the production process itself and to the separation of engineering and technical labor. Parallel to this process, socioeconomic differences arise and deepen between these kinds of activity, for separate participants in social production become fixed not simply to definite kinds of labor, but to economically heterogeneous kinds of labor.

^8 K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 23, pp. 342, 343–344.
^9 K. Marx, “Machinery. The Application of Natural Forces and Science,” Problems of the History of Natural Science and Technology, 1968, issue 23, p. 6.
^10 K. Marx, “Machinery. The Application of Natural Forces and Science,” Problems of the History of Natural Science and Technology, 1968, issue 23, p. 6.
^11 K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 23, p. 431.

The process of the emergence of engineering and technical labor was accompanied by an expansion of the composition and a change in the structure of the aggregate worker. Initially, the labor of engineering and technical workers constituted an insignificant part of the labor of the aggregate worker; physical labor remained the chief factor of development and growth. But as the scale of machine production grows and as it becomes more complex, the share of specifically engineering and technical labor in aggregate social labor increases.

What, then, is the specificity of engineering and technical labor?

1. Engineering and technical labor is labor that is predominantly mental and does not act directly upon the object of labor.

2. It is labor which, in social production, performs definite functions inherent only in this kind of labor. These functions are very diverse, but in the main they may be reduced to the following:

a) the techno-economic and organizational preparation of production, the design of the production process;

b) the techno-economic and organizational support of the production process;

c) management of the production process.

1. To a considerable degree the labor of engineering and technical workers is creative labor, which is conditioned by the functions they perform.

The position of engineering and technical workers, as a special category of workers, in capitalist society is twofold. On the one hand, engineering and technical workers form part of the aggregate worker and at present constitute, in the industrially developed capitalist countries, a very significant group. Thus, in the USA in 1966 there were 954.6 thousand scientists and engineering and technical workers employed directly in industry, of whom one third performed production functions, 37.8% carried out scientific-research and design-engineering work, and the rest were engaged in management, sales, etc.^12 Such a saturation of production with highly qualified personnel is explained solely by the requirements of social production under conditions of the development of scientific and technical progress. F. Engels’s statement that “if the bourgeoisie concerns itself with the existence of the workers only insofar as this is necessary to it, then there is no need to be surprised if it gives them education only to the extent that this corresponds to its interests” is applicable to the present case as well and remains true to this day. Moreover, engineering and technical workers, participating in productive labor alongside other groups of workers, are exploited by capital. This brings them closer to the working class.

But, on the other hand, it would be a mistake not to notice the serious socio-economic differences between engineering and technical workers and workers. They stem above all from the fact that the socio-economic heterogeneity of their labor, which arose at the initial stage, has been preserved and strengthened up to the present time. This is also facilitated by the fact that, in performing the functions of management and organization of production, engineering and technical workers—especially their higher, privileged stratum—participate in the exploitation of the working class. Taking all these factors into account—that is, the role of engineering and technical labor in the organization and management of the production process, the character and content of the labor itself, the level of its remuneration, and the participation of the upper stratum of engineering and technical workers in the exploitation of the working

^12 S. N. Nadel. The Scientific and Technical Intelligentsia in Modern Bourgeois Society. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1971, p. 69.

class, etc., one may conclude that in capitalist society there are substantial differences between engineering and technical workers and workers⁸.

The place and role of engineering and technical labor in socialist production are determined by the new type of production relations. This was pointed out by the classics of Marxism-Leninism. “For the emancipation of the working class,” wrote F. Engels, “engineers, chemists, agronomists and other specialists are needed, because the point is to take into one’s hands the management not only of the political machine, but of all social production as well, and here... sound knowledge will be required”⁹.

Under socialism the functions and sphere of application of engineering and technical labor expand; its influence on the development of the productive forces and production relations is strengthened. This is manifested above all in the rapid growth in the number of engineering and technical workers. In recent years the rate of growth in the number of engineering and technical personnel has continually outstripped the rate of growth in the number of workers and employees, and this has been accompanied by an increase in the share of engineering and technical labor in aggregate social labor. Thus, if in 1928 engineering and technical workers made up 3% of the total number of industrial-production personnel, by 1960 this share had increased to 11%, and at present it is 12.1%¹⁰. And in the current five-year plan, the training of engineering and technical cadres, according to the plan for the development of the national economy, will be carried out on a broad scale. The ever-expanding use of engineering and technical labor is a means of overcoming the division of aggregate social labor into mental and physical labor that became entrenched in pre-socialist formations. But even under socialism, socio-economic differences between engineering and technical workers and workers remain; these consist above all in differences in the character and content of their labor, as well as in the resulting differences in their cultural-technical and educational level. This makes it possible to single out engineering and technical workers as a specific socio-economic group under socialism as well. But under socialism the process of transition from one social group to another has no economic or social restrictions, which promotes the formation of a new social structure of socialist society and the elimination of the opposition between representatives of different kinds of concrete labor. The complete overcoming of socio-economic differences between mental and physical labor will become possible only under communism. Therefore engineering and technical workers, as a special social stratum, will remain a “special” stratum until “the very highest stage of development of communist society” is reached¹¹.

1. See: V. Z. Milner, V. M. Demchenko, Specialization of Engineering Labor, Moscow, “Ekonomika,” 1969; M. A. Ivanova, M. A. Samarina, Technical Progress and the Structure of Engineering and Technical Personnel and Employees, Moscow, “Ekonomika,” 1970; collection Problems of Engineering and Technical Labor in the Period of the Modern Scientific and Technical Revolution, Voronezh, 1972, and others. ↩

2. See: G. V. Kotyuzhinsky, Planning and Accounting of Labor at Ferrous Metallurgy Enterprises, Moscow, “Metallurgiya,” 1965; V. I. Olgin-Nesterov, The Effectiveness of Managerial Labor in Industrial Production, Moscow, “Ekonomika,” 1965; S. A. Kugel, O. N. Nikandrov, Young Engineers, Moscow, “Mysl,” 1971. ↩

3. Statistical Dictionary, Moscow, “Statistika,” 1965, p. 201. ↩

4. See: Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 18, p. 152. ↩

5. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 23, 2nd ed., pp. 497–498. ↩

6. On the question of the classification of the basic functions of the production process there is no single opinion. See the collected articles Man and Technology, 1965; the collected articles Technology, Labor, Man. Makhachkala, 1970, and others. ↩

7. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 21, p. 175. ↩

8. A detailed examination of this question is given in the book: S. N. Nadel, The Scientific-Technical Intelligentsia in Contemporary Bourgeois Society. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1971. ↩

9. K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 22, p. 432. ↩

10. National Economy of the USSR in 1970. Statistical Yearbook. Moscow, “Statistika,” 1971, p. 158. ↩

11. V. I. Lenin, Complete Collected Works, vol. 44, p. 351. ↩