For the last thirty years, enterprises in Capitalist countries have been fostering among their staff a sense of engagement and participation in the life of the company. Self improvement techniques are being actively promoted: once intended only for managers, nowadays they are compulsory for all workers. The article shows how the Soviet Union pioneered this move. From the outset, the Bolsheviks set great store by work on the self, which was obligatory for those running both enterprises, and the country itself. Political and industrial achievement depends not only on the amount of physical and mental effort put in, but also on the energy spent on self improvement, which is necessary in any institution. The bureaucracies of the twentieth century were not that impersonal after all, human subjectivity playing a direct part in their creation and functioning. The paper examines subjectivity in a historical context: the different uses of the word «I», the choice of one particular «I» due to one’s activity, the reflexive «I», and the Communist ‘party «I», which tries to subjugate all other «I»s, whether or not Communism is in power.