Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization

Abstract

About the book-Magnitogorsk used as a case study demonstrating the search for socialism and the problems encountered in pursuit of that goal: the creation of a new "Soviet" man, a new economic structure, and an industrialized civilization. -In context with the historiography of the subject. Synthesizes elements from both revisionist and totalitarianist interpretations, retaining an active view of the subject but at the same time acknowledging the significance of Bolshevik ideology. -The history of the USSR needs to be reincorporated into European history, not excluded as a bizarre anomaly. He draws a continuity from the Enlightenment.

Soviet housing: who built what and when? The case of Daugavpils, Latvia

“…20 'Housing in the USSR may have been a public good,' Stephen Kotkin notes, 'but public goods were considerably lower priorities than state imperatives, such as steelmaking.' 21 The result was a housing shortage of significant magnitude that made many workers employed in urban industry face the rather stark choice between commuting in from under-serviced extraurban settlements ordto the extent that they were not prevented from doing so by administrative restrictions on urban in-migrationdaccepting the appalling living conditions of communal apartments, crowded barracks and ill-maintained pre-socialist structures. 22 Given that other work, including that by German and Hungarian social scientists, 23 established that better housing, 15 T. Sosnovy, The Soviet housing situation today, Soviet Studies 11, 1 (1959) 1-21; L.M.…”

Guilt by Association? The Hazards of Linking the Concept of the State with Violence

“…His analysis places the connection between the brutality of the USSR and the notion of the welfare state in the foreground; 'Rather than being viewed as a pathological case' , he argues, 'the USSR in a narrative of the welfare state might appear as the standard whose uncanny success challenged the rest of the world to respond' and therefore that the USSR 'shaped part of the bedrock of the world in which we live'. 55 The corresponding subjective message in such interpretations has been the equation of the welfare state with coercion. This has fostered the habitual acceptance of the argument that the role of the state must be minimised, which, in turn, makes it easier to argue for the reduction of activity by the state apparatus in areas where it has been historically successful, such as public health.…”

The First Five-Year Plan and the Geography of Soviet Defence Industry

“…Rail lines had to be laid or improved to supply remote factories with everything not produced locally; the first rail shipments to the new industrial complex at Magnitogorsk took 70 days to arrive. 31 Finally, workers who had familiarity with machines and experience of working by a clock had to be found. In short, it was much easier to publish a decree shifting industry to the East than to do the shifting itself.…”