Socialist competition or socialist emulation (, "sotsialisticheskoye sorevnovanie", or , "sotssorevnovanie") was a form of competition between state enterprises and between individuals practiced in the Soviet Union and in other Eastern bloc states. Competition vs. emulation The first variant is a literal translation of the Russian term, commonly used by Western authors. The second form is an official Soviet translation of the term, intended to put distance from the "capitalist competition", which in its turn was translated as , "kapitalisticheskaya konkurenciya". Implied was that "capitalist competition" only profited those that won, while "socialist emulation" benefited all involved. In Soviet practice, according to Victor Kravchenko and Mikhail Heller, the competition between workers and industries was, however, not voluntary and much fiercer than the Western one. It was enforced by the collective pressure orchestrated by state security services (KGB) and local Communist Party representatives using collective responsibility and laws on dronery or wrecking. The race between teams and team members for overcompletion of the five-year plans led to increasingly unrealistic targets, which could only be satisfied with cheating, double accounting, hoarding of resources, and shturmovshchina (last-minute cramming)—which, in the long term, led to a collapse of the supply chain in the economy. This was the dark side of Stakhanovism, udarniki, and the subbotnik. In 1987, Soviet economist Nikolai Shmelov estimated that out of 450 billion roubles worth of inventories of raw materials and parts, around 170 billion was kept as surplus, with the sole purpose of securing the successful completion of plans. Organization Socialist emulation was nominally voluntary everywhere where people worked or served: in industry, in agriculture, in offices, institutions, schools, hospitals, army, etc. With the natural exception of the armed forces, committees of the trade unions were in charge of managing the socialist emulation. An important component of socialist emulation was "socialist self-obligations" (). Whilst the production plan was the major benchmark, employees and work collectives were supposed to put forth "socialist self-obligations" and even "enhanced socialist self-obligations" () beyond the plan, both either as a collective or individually. In Soviet practice, workers were however often underpaid, undernourished, and their sacrifice was the Party's method of choice to "circumvent the technical inadequacy". Deadlines for tallying up the results of a socialist emulation were usually set at major socialist and communist holidays or notable dates, like the birthday of Vladimir Lenin or the anniversary of the October Revolution. Winners were awarded