Socialist emulation

[4] Socialist emulation was nominally voluntary everywhere where people worked or served: in industry, in agriculture, in offices, institutions, schools, hospitals, army, etc.

Material awards were money, goods, or perks specific to socialist systems, such as tickets to resorts, authorizations for a trip abroad, right to obtain a dwelling, or a car outside the main queue, etc.

Moral awards were honorary diplomas, honorary badges, and/or putting winners' portraits on the "Board of Honor" (Доска Почета); work collectives were awarded with the "Transferable Red Banner of the Socialist Emulation Winner" (Переходящее знамя победителя в социалистическом соревновании).

Vladimir Lenin was the originator and promoter of the idea of socialist emulation as a means for organising "the majority of working people into a field of labour in which they can display their abilities, develop the capacities, and reveal those talents".

[6] Later, Joseph Stalin wrote in his streamlined style: While criteria of socialist emulation were easy to set, understand, and quantify in production areas, it was not so in non-production areas: medicine, education, work of clerks, etc., where significant formalism took place and among the criteria a significant weight was attributed to "social activism", not related to the work done.