Alexei Stakhanov was born on the 6th of January 1906 in a small town near the village of Livny, in the Oryol Oblast of Russia. He started working in the Tsentralnaya-Irmino mine as a young man.
On the 31st of August 1935, it was reported that he had mined 102 tonnes of coal in 5 hours and 45 minutes – this was 14 times his quota. He then went on to set a new record, mining 227 tonnes of coal in a single shift on the 19th of September.
Why was he important?
Alexei was working in a time when Stalin first introduced the infamous Five Year Plans. Alexei was held up as an example to all of what they could be achieving. He inspired the Starkhanovite movement, in which workers would model themselves after Alexei and take pride in their ability to produce more goods than their quotas asked for. The movement began in the coal industry and then spread to other industries. However, it did eventually face resistance when the increased productivity produced impossible demands on the workers.