1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136645603321

Autore

Coopersmith Jonathan

Titolo

The Electrification of Russia, 1880-1926 / / Jonathan Coopersmith

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, NY : , : Cornell University Press, , [2016]

©2016

ISBN

1-5017-0537-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Disciplina

333.79320947

Soggetti

HISTORY / Russia & the Former Soviet Union

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations and Russian Terms -- CHAPTER 1. Introduction: The Shaping of a Technology -- CHAPTER 2. Government and Growth in Imperial Russia, 1870-1886 -- CHAPTER 3. Electrification, 1886-1914 -- CHAPTER 4. The Rise of Electrification, 1914-1917 -- CHAPTER 5. Feasting Eyes, Hungry Stomachs, 1917-1920 -- CHAPTER 6. GOELRO: The Creation of a Dream, 1920-1921 -- CHAPTER 7. The NEP Years, 1921-1926 -- CHAPTER 8. Conclusion: Shifting Grounds, Shifting Goals -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

≤p≥he Electrification of Russia, 1880-1926 is the first full account of the widespread adoption of electricity in Russia, from the beginning in the 1880s to its early years as a state technology under Soviet rule. Jonathan Coopersmith has mined the archives for both the tsarist and the Soviet periods to examine a crucial element in the modernization of Russia. Coopersmith shows how the Communist Party forged an alliance with engineers to harness the socially transformative power of this science-based enterprise. A centralized plan of electrification triumphed, to the benefit of the Communist Party and the detriment of local governments and the electrical engineers. Coopersmith's narrative of how this came to be elucidates the deep-seated and chronic conflict between the utopianism of Soviet ideology and the reality of Soviet politics and economics.