Shock brigade

An udarnik (Russian: уда́рник, IPA: [ʊˈdarnʲɪk]; English plural udarniks or udarniki), also known in English as a shock worker or strike worker (collectively known as shock brigades or a shock labour team) was a highly productive worker in the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and other communist countries. The term derived from the expression "udarny trud" for "superproductive, enthusiastic labour".

In the Soviet Union, the term was linked to Shock worker of Communist Labour (Ударник коммунистического труда), a Soviet honorary title, as well as Alexey Stakhanov and the movement named after him. However, the terminology of shock workers has also been used in other communist states, most notably in the People's Republic of China,North Korea, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The ideology behind promoting shock labour was that through socialist emulation the rest of the workforce would learn from the vanguard.

In People's Republic of Poland a similar title was przodownik pracy (translated into English as "model worker"), a calque from another Soviet/Russian term peredovik proizvodstva, literally "leader in production", which was also a formal title of merit. Seen as the Polish version of the Stakhanovite movement, famous Polish workers given the title of przodownik pracy included Piotr Ożański () and especially the "Polish Stakhanov" Wincenty Pstrowski (), a miner who in 1947 achieved 270 percent expected efficiency per month. Later Pstrowski died due to misconducted dental intervention, but in popular opinion (and official propaganda), it was due to deadly exhaustion.

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