Traumatism

TRAUMATISM professional, more correctly industrial T., since under it should be understood T., caused by production-related causes or conditions closely connected with production and labor processes, and being the result of industrial accidents. As the founders of Marxism have shown with full clarity on the basis of extensive factual material and deep theoretical analysis, industrial T. is an inevitable companion of the capitalist system. The very essence of capitalist relations, based on the capitalist's striving to squeeze as much surplus value as possible from the worker with complete disregard for his interests in general and his health in particular, inevitably leads to a huge number of deaths and maiming among workers. Every year hundreds of thousands of lives are sacrificed to the capitalist factory, millions of members of workers' families are left without breadwinners, or what is materially even heavier for them, with disabled non-working persons on their hands, receiving at best only meager allowances or pensions. In Volume I of 'Capital,' Marx points out that among the constant suppliers of relative overpopulation are in particular 'the victims of industry, the number of which constantly increases with the spread of dangerous machinery, mining, chemical factories, etc...' ('Capital,' Vol. I, 1920 ed., p. 662). The essence of industrial T. under capitalism Marx reveals as follows: 'The savings in the means of social production, which for the first time reach full maturity under the factory system, in the hands of capital turn into systematic robbery of the worker engaged in the labor process of all conditions necessary for life: space, air, light, as well as all means protecting the worker from life-threatening or unhygienic conditions of the production process-as for devices for the worker's convenience, there is nothing to speak of. Is not Fourier right in calling factories 'a softened penitentiary'?' (ibid., pp. 421-422). 'In conflict with 'public opinion' or even with the sanitary police, capital does not hesitate at all to justify partly dangerous, partly humiliating conditions in which it places labor and the home life of the worker, by the consideration that this is necessary for the more profitable exploitation of the worker. Such is the state of affairs when it renounces devices for protection from dangerous machinery on factories, renounces ventilation and protective measures in mines, etc.' (ibid., pp. 686-71). In Volume III of 'Capital,' again returning to the problem of T., Marx writes: 'Capitalist production, if we consider it in isolation, abstracting from the process of circulation and the devastation caused by competition, relates extremely carefully to labor, already social, embodied in commodities. On the contrary, it to a much greater degree than any other mode of production is a squanderer of human living labor, a squanderer not only of body and blood, but also of nerves and brain' ('Capital,' Vol. III, Part 1, p. 55, 1929). In Engels' 'The Condition of the Working Class in England' we read: 'In all accidents the blame ultimately falls on the manufacturer and from him at least lifelong maintenance should be demanded for the worker who has lost his capacity to work, and in case of his death-for his family. In the first period after the emergence of industry accidents occurred relatively much more frequently than now, because the machines were worse, smaller, placed closer together and were almost completely unguarded. But, as the facts cited above show, the number of these accidents is still very large, so large that one cannot help seriously reflecting on such a state of affairs in which so many maimings and injuries occur for the interests of a single class and so many hardworking workers are condemned to poverty and hunger because of an accident that befell them in the service of the bourgeoisie and through its fault. What a glorious collection of diseases has this disgusting greed of the bourgeoisie created! Women are deprived of the ability to give birth, children are maimed, the male organism is weakened, body parts are crushed, entire generations perish, exhausted and infected with all sorts of diseases-and all this in order to fill the pockets of the bourgeoisie' (Marx and Engels, Complete Works, Vol. III, p. 455). Hypocritical 'scientific' apologists of capitalism in every way try to prove that as a result of the successes of technical progress and attention to labor protection issues by bourgeois governments and entrepreneurs themselves, T. is decreasing. Social-fascist theorists and practitioners likewise assert that great successes can be achieved in this area even under conditions of capitalist society. The actual reality, however, especially of recent years, undoubtedly proves the opposite. During the so-called capitalist 'rationalization,' which led to an unprecedented intensification of labor and the exhaustion of the last strength of the worker on the basis of the 'scientific system of sweat squeezing' (Lenin's words about Taylor's system), we still see a significant increase in industrial traumatism in all capitalist countries, which is confirmed by the following examples. The movement of the number of accidents in Austria is depicted by the following figures (per 1,000 insured): Table 1. Years Number of cases Years Number of cases 1922 1923 1924 1925 45.1 48.9 55.4 61.3 1926 1927 1928 1929 66.0 78.2 no data 95.8 Data on the dynamics of T. 1920-29 according to Germany (per 1,000 insured) are given in Table 2. Table 2 1 Years Number of cases Years Number of cases 1920 1921 1922 1926 45.1 47.8 44.6 75.60 1927 1928 1929 85.38 87.95 85.05 The tables show a sharp increase (approximately twice) in T. over these years, as capitalist rationalization inevitably leads to a sharp increase in exploitation, increased wear and tear of the body and an increase in accidents. Data for 1930-32 are not given, as they are completely incomparable with previous years not only because of the falsification of official statistics, but also because in conditions of crisis due to a number of circumstances (incomplete work week, incomplete loading of enterprises, a different range of products and mainly the fear of losing work and as a result the cessation of reports by workers about minor injuries, finally the deterioration of insurance legislation) the registered figures decrease, but by no means the actual indicators of traumatism. Also very telling is the table on the increase in major disasters and fatal accidents in the coal industry of the USA for 1915-26: Table 3. Years Number of mine disasters with number of deaths Total number of deaths in the largest disasters 5-24 25-100 1915-19 1920-24 1925-26 39 38 47 5 11 13 933 1,139 1,257 In particular the last two years (1925-26) gave a higher figure than the previous five-year period. The problem of professional T., and therefore the struggle against it, in the USSR, under conditions of socialist construction, is posed and resolved fundamentally differently than in capitalist countries. From the moment of the October Revolution, Soviet power, trade unions and the party as a whole have paid special attention to the struggle against professional T. As a result, huge successes have been achieved, explained by the very essence of the Soviet system. If under capitalism T. is an inevitable companion of it, then under conditions of socialist construction professional T. is, on the one hand, a legacy of the capitalist system, and on the other-a transient phenomenon, constantly decreasing in its quantitative and qualitative significance with the successes of building a new society. Socialist production not only fully utilizes all the achievements of capitalist science and technology-not only fully realizes all the latent possibilities in them, not finding sufficient application due to the capitalist fetters associated with the contradictions of class society-but also transforms this technology on the basis of full account of all requirements of health and comprehensive normal development of the worker, on the basis of maximum attention to the problems of hygiene and safety of labor. The reconstruction period, associated with fundamental shifts in the technology of our advanced enterprises both built during the period of heroic fulfillment of the first five-year plan in four years, and radically re-equipped during this period, the elimination of the exploitation of labor with the characteristic capitalist striving for unlimited intensification of labor, 8-, and then 7-hour working day, transition to 6- and 5-day week, a sharp increase in the material and living conditions of the working class, grandiose achievements in the field of labor protection (see Labor) and finally the increased attention in recent years to the decisive problems of labor organization on the basis of six conditions of Stalin's,-have given sharp shifts in the dynamics of industrial T. Table 4 gives the dynamics of T. in the main branches of industry in the USSR for the years of the first five-year plan. The table indicates that in all productions, first of all in the leading branches of heavy industry, there is a significant decrease in T., starting approximately from 1929-30. Similar data also exist for many individual enterprises.

The picture of a sharp and, above all, general reduction in T. is also clearly seen from Table 5, compiled from data of Tsusstrakh and industry insurance funds, which shows the number of cases and the number of paid days for disability per 100 insured persons in different industries by group of injuries (including domestic injuries, the number of which has changed little). Our Soviet data on traumatism cannot be compared with Western European ones due to different conditions of registration and payment (in America there is no state statistics of traumatism at all, and in European capitalist countries only traumatism starting from 4-6 days of disability is usually registered; in a number of countries injuries are not fully registered by one system of insurance bodies; there are a number of restrictions regarding payment of injuries, etc.). For some comparison, data on fatal accidents in mining for 1929 (the last year for which at least somewhat comparable and reliable figures can be obtained) are provided. Per 1,000 workers there were fatal injuries: in the USA - 4.5, in Japan - 3.4, in Prussia - 2.0, and in the USSR - 1.7. Thus, the USSR gives the lowest indicator of fatal traumatism. Table 4. Number of injuries (including mild ones, without loss of working capacity), related to production, per 1,000 fully insured (30,000,000 man-days worked) for 1928-32 by industries of the USSR (according to data of social insurance bodies and TsUNKhU). Industries of the USSR Coal mining ...... Ore mining (iron and manganese) ........... Metallurgy........ Machine building...... Electrical engineering . . . . Basic chemistry...... rubber.......... Match .......... Sawmill-plywood . . . Textile......... Sewing........... Leather......... Footwear ......... Construction (RSFSR) . . 1928 1929 465.0 334.2 821.8 320.2 219.3 311.0 306.0 274.5 74.4 109.2 259.5 183.6 196.4 509.3 314.4 337.6 298.6 230.1 94.9 273.4 281.5 67.8 130.1 239.9 184.5 167.1 1930 1931 1932 In % 1928 477.0 327.8 315.6 307.6 168.8 215.4 110.9 300.9 268.1 76.9 111.1 219.8 183.9 166.0 341.1 330.3 256.3 268.1 150.0 235.0 98.3 261.6 252.7 72.6 114.3 204.6 158.1 136.1 282.3 223.7 209.4 180.1 127.2 157.9 78.6 184.6 186.3 55.4 57.1 146.7 111.1 93.0 60.7 66.9 65.1 56.2 72.0 70.8 60.3 67.9 74.5 52.3 56.5 60.5 47.6 in the year with the highest indicator 55.4 66.9 62.0 56.2 75.4 67.2 70.8 60.3 66.2 72.0 40.5 56.5 60.2 47.6 On the basis of these successes, the task of basically eliminating professional traumatism has now been set before all state and professional organizations of the USSR ('Second Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR'). Great successes in reducing traumatism in the first five-year period and the grandest program for completing the technical reconstruction in the second five-year period, along with further achievements in socialist organization of labor, create all the necessary prerequisites for its implementation. Registration and accounting of accidents. The main basis for accounting for professional T. in the USSR are the decrees of the NKT USSR of 11/III and 31/XII 1929 (for railway transport of 8/IV 1932 and for water transport of 6/XII 1929) and the form of notification of an accident, approved by TsUNKhU USSR at the end of 1933. All without exception accidents, both with and without loss of working capacity, both mild and severe, are recorded by the administration of the enterprise in a special book, the form of which is established by NKT USSR. Enterprises and farms with fewer than 10 hired workers are exempt from the obligation to keep accident books if they do not have an engine. The entry in the accident book is made by law no later than 48 hours after the accident. According to the decree of NKT, the injured workers themselves are also obliged to report accidents that happened to them to the administration of the enterprise, and for failure to comply with this requirement, the guilty party can even be subjected to a fine. Usually, health centers also account for all accidents without loss of working capacity (though only those that necessitated seeking medical help). Reports on professional T. without loss of working capacity are not sent to higher authorities. Notifications of accidents are sent to labor inspection on special forms by all without exception enterprises, institutions and farms, regardless of the number of hired workers employed in them, but these notifications are sent only about accidents with fatal outcome or loss of working capacity for a period of at least one day. These notifications are sent to the labor inspector no later than 5 days from the moment of the accident or from the moment the administration receives a report about it. The notification is prepared by the head of technical safety at the enterprise, and he is obliged to preliminarily investigate the given case and check the correctness of the preparation of the notification. In the absence of a head of technical safety, the notification is signed by another responsible representative of the administration. The notification is also signed by a representative of the labor protection commission or the local factory committee (or mine committee, local committee, etc.). Notifications about accidents that caused death or serious injury, as well as about mass accidents, are sent on an emergency basis (by special messenger, telegraph, etc.). The mark about the professional or domestic nature of the accident is made by a doctor at the health center. In order to ensure the most complete and correct registration of accidents of a production nature and their consequences, the Soviet accident registration system establishes a constant connection between insurance points and health centers and the administration in the process of accounting and mutual verification of the sick leave slip and notifications sent to the labor inspector. Subsequently, insurance funds and in the center (previously NKT, now VTsSPS) process current data on professional T. to determine its general dynamics, and scientific institutes (previously the Central Institute of Labor Protection, and now a number of institutes for individual industries) conduct in-depth processing of this data to determine mainly the detailed production-technical causes of accidents in individual industries. The above-mentioned legislative acts consider accidents of a production nature (i.e., subject to special registration under the above-mentioned system) to be the results of sudden incidents in cases when they are directly or indirectly related to the work performed by the victim or to the presence of the victim at the workplace, as well as occurred as a result of an act pursued in criminal proceedings (theft, intentional damage to equipment, hooliganism, etc.). In the latter case, for the accident to be recognized as of a production nature (industrial injury), it is required that these accidents did not occur with the perpetrator himself, but with other persons, and were not at the same time connected with the victim's presence in the production environment, occurred on the territory of the enterprise or in another workplace even with persons foreign to this production. In this case, the workplace is considered to be the territory of the enterprise, institution or farm, and when work is performed outside the specified territory - the place where the victim was in connection with the work performed. (By the resolution of the Secretariat of VTsSPS of 5/VII 1934, these cases are no longer registered as professional accidents.) Thus, our broadest labor legislation in the world interprets the concept of accident very broadly, significantly expanding its beyond the limits of purely production etiology (this is done in the interests of the insured, who in case of disability from an accident receive a significantly higher pension). At the same time, from a medical point of view, professional T. as a result of industrial accidents is interpreted very broadly (in any case much broader than the concept of mechanical injury).

According to the legislation of the USSR, all cases of violations of the integrity of tissues or the proper functioning of organs occurring under the conditions specified above should be registered as industrial accidents, which include: a) cuts, incisions, punctures, abrasions and other damage to the skin, muscles, ligaments, fractures, dislocations, contusions, eye contamination, burns, frostbite, blindness from bright light, rupture of the eardrum from loud noise, etc., drownings and suffocations; b) hernia, if it appeared immediately with signs of strangulation requiring immediate medical attention; c) acute poisonings caused by sudden violations of sanitary and technical working conditions; d) general concussions of the body (concussion of the brain, shock, electric shock without visible signs of damage, etc.). Thus, in classifying an accident as industrial, the fact of the suddenness of the event, which is the etiological moment in the occurrence of bodily injury, is decisive, and the connection between them must be sufficiently indisputable, one could even say obvious (this explains why acute poisonings, when they cannot be linked to sudden violations of normal working conditions, or in all cases, cold diseases are not registered as accidents). All the above-mentioned features of accounting for professional traumatism in the USSR, along with the fact that in capitalist countries TRAUMATISM, only accidents with a duration of 3-5 days or more of disability are usually registered, and moreover, workers themselves are not interested in their registration, since they are not paid full wages during sick leave, not to mention the fear of losing work in conditions of perpetual and constantly increasing unemployment, make it completely impossible to compare the absolute level of traumatism in the USSR and other countries. Accounting for professional traumatism is carried out according to the following two main indicators: frequency coefficient and severity coefficient. The frequency coefficient determines the number of accidents in relation to the number of workers. By the most primitive method, it is obtained if the divisor is simply the list of workers of an enterprise or industry on one (or the average of two) date. Much more accurate is the coefficient per 1,000 full-time workers (or insured), per 300 man-days worked by them, and even more accurate is the calculation of the coefficient per 1,000,000 man-hours worked (in the second case, labor turnover, temporary decreases or increases in the number of workers, etc., are eliminated, and in the third case, also the different number of working hours in different enterprises, among different groups of workers, etc.). The severity coefficient is determined as the average duration (number of calendar days) of disability per 1 victim of an accident. According to 1932 data, it ranges from 7 days (in the sewing industry) to 13.9 days (in metallurgy).

The fight against professional traumatism. To this day, in the literature and among many practitioners, a prejudice is still widespread, the roots of which are embedded in the specific bourgeois, class-interested approach of capitalists to the problem of traumatism, that the main material causes of accidents are engines, transmissions and operating mechanisms, i.e. all kinds of machines. Capitalists actively propagated this point of view, as it gave them the right to speak of the 'inevitable risk' inextricably linked with machine production. This same point of view was also actively propagated on Soviet soil by some authors, who, being captives of these bourgeois theories, transferred these views hostile to socialist construction to our Soviet soil, objectively directed against the industrialization of the USSR. This assertion is absolutely false. Statistics clearly show that the bulk of accidents occur in non-mechanized manual work, transport. In 1931/32, the causes of traumatism at Moscow machine-building plants were directly studied by a special brigade of the Central Institute of Health and Labor Organization together with the State Planning Committee of the RSFSR. The following data were obtained, showing the proportion of manual work (in %): Compressor . . . .45.6

Im. Kalinin . .46.0 Im. Malenkov . . 36.4

"Krasny Proleta- "Krasnaya Presnya" 44.0

Presnensky mecha- Parostroystroi . . . .41.5

psychic.....42,6 Thus, on a number of factories, manual work alone accounts for almost up to ^L,₂ of all accidents. It is clear that the mechanization of production, so widely carried out according to the decisive directive of Comrade Stalin on all our new and re- «49 constructed enterprises and according to the resolution of the 17th Party conference, which must go first and foremost along the lines of heavy and harmful work, must also lead to a sharp reduction in T. We already have from the experience of the first Five-Year Plan a number of proofs of the closest connection between mechanization and the reduction of professional T. According to relatively old data by Dr. Macedonov (Hygiene of Labor, 1929, No. 6), at the Marten furnace N of the combine, there were 662 accidents per year on old non-mechanized furnaces, while on the new (mechanized) marten only 107, or six times less. The fundamental reconstruction of metallurgy carried out during the first Five-Year Plan (mechanization of charging, electric cars and tractors, introduction of mechanical charging, tamping and knockout of tapholes, casting machines, skip hoists, etc.) has radically changed the face of our blast furnace installations. The traditional accidents that gave a very high level of traumatism have almost completely disappeared. In the open-hearth shop of the Kharkov Locomotive Factory in 1928 (before mechanization), there were 704 accidents per 1000 chargers, while in 1930/31 (after mechanization) there were only 112. According to data from metallurgical plants of the Ukrainian SSR, for one blast furnace with manual charging, there were 1.1 fatal accidents per year, 11.4 other accidents with loss of working capacity, 135 professional poisonings (suffocations), while with mechanized loading, there were only 0.1 fatal accidents and 1.9 other accidents, 4 professional poisonings per furnace. The importance of mechanization in the coal industry is evident from the following comparison: in 1931, there were 61.2 accidents (per 1,000) among miners, 39.2 among machine operators and their assistants, i.e., with mechanized coal mining, traumatism is at least 7z less than with manual labor (according to some data the difference is even greater). From all of the above it is quite obvious that in the USSR during the second Five-Year Plan, the further introduction of new technology and its mastery, reconstruction and mechanization of production processes must lead to a sharp reduction in T. It should also be noted that among accidents caused by mechanisms, drive mechanisms and, first and foremost, belt transmissions are of great importance. Although the number of accidents caused by them may not be so great in absolute figures, they usually cause very severe injuries. Since individual drives from one or several electric motors for individual machines are now being more widely introduced into our industry, and in the future it is planned to combine some operating mechanisms with motors (for example, the already implemented design of the Soviet inventor - the electric cardan shaft), the danger of injuries in case of breakages and capture by belts, ropes and other transmissions will completely disappear in the near future. The widespread use of various types of conveyers, both as elements of continuous production flow and as transporters, naturally significantly reduces the danger of work involving lifting and carrying various kinds of heavy loads. Proper organization of labor and production is of great importance in the fight against professional T. (establishment of proper supervision over work, impeccable signaling, correct placement of workers, clarity in the distribution of all work operations, complete elimination of anonymity in the management of dangerous processes and servicing of dangerous mechanisms, etc., timely removal of finished products, absence of raw material stockpiles, cluttering of passages, control over the condition of all mechanisms and tools, etc.). Among all accidents, these causes, according to detailed data, accounted for 29.6% in metallurgy, 28% in machine building, 24.6% in the electrical industry and 27.7% in the chemical industry of all accidents in 1932. - Next come measures for technical safety itself (see). At the same time, the old methods and principles of the so-called "protective technique" are now playing an ever smaller role, which devoted all its attention to attaching various "guards" to mechanisms, not organically connected with them and often reducing the speed of work and labor productivity and generally creating a number of inconveniences for workers, who therefore willingly remove them from the workplace. But even in those cases where they will still be necessary, completely new principles will be laid in their construction during the second Five-Year Plan, such as, for example, the principle of blocking developed by the Central Institute of Labor Protection in a number of structural guards, which consists in the fact that a given mechanism cannot be started until the guard is installed, and the latter cannot be removed during the operation of the mechanism. Furthermore, the principle should always be implemented that a guard should always be part of the production mechanism, not just a foreign appendage to it, that it itself should perform some production function and, as far as possible, facilitate the worker's labor and increase his labor productivity. The resolution of the NKT and VSNKh USSR, issued on April 13, 1925, plays a very important role in the fight against professional T., according to which all machines and tools produced at Soviet machine-building plants must be equipped with structural guards and safety devices required by the corresponding resolution of the NKT, and when ordering machines and tools abroad, economic bodies are obliged to include in the contracts conditions for compliance with these requirements. Machines that do not meet these requirements are not permitted to be installed in enterprises. The special equipment related to labor safety is manufactured by the "Technical Safety" all-union trust founded in 1930. Labor hygiene institutes are now actively participating in the development of safe designs of machines and mechanisms. At the same time, the NKT USSR (and now the VTsSPS) has issued a number of general and special (for individual industries) mandatory resolutions, carefully regulating issues of technical safety in relation to individual production processes, individual mechanisms, etc. Special, very significant funds are annually allocated for technical safety (see Labor, Labor Protection). Supervision over their proper use is entrusted to the labor inspection and technical inspection (see Labor, Labor Inspection). Individual protective devices also have a certain significance in the fight against professional T. (see). The fight against labor turnover was also of great importance, as a number of studies (by the Central Institute of Labor Protection, the Leningrad Institute of Technical Safety and Labor Hygiene, etc.) have irrefutably proven that the less turnover, the longer the general work experience of workers and, in particular, on a given operation, on a given machine, the less professional T. in this professional group. Furthermore, the extensive organization of mass educational work in the field of labor safety (reports, conversations, lectures), careful instruction of workers on labor safety issues, organization of courses, especially for beginners, special training of workers for dangerous jobs, inclusion of relevant provisions in the rules of internal order, dissemination of popular literature, mass posters, organization of exhibitions, etc., are very important. The resolution of the USSR Council of People's Commissars on the technical minimum, issued in the summer of 1932, specifically stipulates the inclusion of elementary information on work safety in the technical minimum and special training of workers in particularly dangerous professions. Doctors of health posts play a very serious role in conducting and ensuring the proper quality of this educational work in the fight against professional T. The worker's self-activity, initiative and inventiveness play a big role in reducing professional T. in our factories. For example, 5,685 worker proposals were collected in a year from 25 machine-building plants in the Leningrad region, the economic efficiency of which, according to very incomplete data, amounted to 1,340 thousand rubles per year, which contributed to a significant reduction in T. in these plants. Finally, it should be pointed out to the enormous importance of socialist competition and shock work in the fight to reduce the level of T. between individual plants, individual shops and individual groups of workers, as well as between individual workers. In places where such socialist competition was organized, the results obtained were particularly bright and very effective. Lit.: Fight against industrial traumatism and its consequences, ed. by A. Syuein, Veiger, etc., M., 1927; Fight against industrial traumatism, coll., ed. by I. Zheltov, M., 1930; Kaplun S, Sanitary statistics of labor, M., 1924; ibid., Fight against traumatism and tasks of trade unions, Questions of the labor movement, 1933, Jft 6; ibid., Problems of reducing traumatism in the 2nd Five-Year Plan, Questions of health in the 2nd Five-Year Plan, publ. of the USSR State Planning Committee, M., 1935;

Kozlov P., Statistics of Industrial Traumatism, Safety Engineering Cycle, M., 1931-32; Industrial Traumatism and the Fight Against It, collection edited by S. Kaplun and P. Sinev, M.-P., 1930; Rubashova, Occupational Traumatism and the Fight Against It, Minsk, 1934; Reytinberg D., Socialist Competition for the Reduction of Industrial Accidents, M., 1931; Statistics of Professional Traumatism, edited by S. Kaplun, Works of the Institute of Labor Protection, vol. 4, M., 1932; Traumatism in Ukraine in 1927-1933, edited by S. Kagan, Kharkov, 1934; Stromberg Ya., Methodology for the Study of Industrial Traumatism, Tiflis, 1934. See also literature for the article Safety Engineering.