Workers’ invention in the USSR: the search for approaches to development (1920-1930)

The article reviews the semantic content of the concept of “worker inventor”, as well as the main approaches to this notion before and after the revolution of 1917. It is noted that the party leaders used the interest of the population in technical creativity and sought to give workers' invention a mass character. It was seen as one of the sources of economic development; a new ideology of working class labor under socialism; a way for workers to obtain technical knowledge in a short time. The main work to ensure working invention was carried out by technical specialists. Along with the official party opinion, there is an approach to invention as a special type of creative activity, formed before the revolution among the technical intelligentsia. In Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, scientific research on psychotechnics was conducted in order to identify potentially talented workers. This trend contradicted the attitude of the party towards mass character and was not developed in the USSR.