1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996248099603316

Autore

Kotkin Stephen

Titolo

Magnetic mountain : Stalinism as a civilization / / Stephen Kotkin

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, CA : , : University of California Press, , [1997]

©1997

ISBN

1-280-08078-7

9786613520258

0-520-91885-1

0-585-36356-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xxvi, 639 pages)

Disciplina

947.87084

Soggetti

Communism

Magnitogorsk (Russia)-- History

Soviet Union

Communism - Case studies - Soviet Union

Magnitogorsk (Russia) History

Soviet Union Politics and government 1917-1936

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- USSR Organizational Structure, 1930's -- Note on Translation -- Introduction: Understanding the Russian Revolution -- Introduction -- 1. On the March for Metal -- 2. Peopling a Shock Construction Site -- 3. The Idiocy of Urban Life -- Introduction -- 4. Living Space and the Stranger's Gaze -- 5. Speaking Bolshevik -- 6. Bread and a Circus -- 7. Dizzy with Success -- Afterword: Stalinism as a Civilization -- Note on Sources -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Photograph Credits -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This study is the first of its kind: a street-level inside account of what Stalinism meant to the masses of ordinary people who lived it. Stephen Kotkin was the first American in 45 years to be allowed into Magnitogorsk, a city built in response to Stalin's decision to transform the predominantly agricultural nation into a "country of metal." With



unique access to previously untapped archives and interviews, Kotkin forges a vivid and compelling account of the impact of industrialization on a single urban community. Kotkin argues that Stalinism offered itself as an opportunity for enlightenment. The utopia it proffered, socialism, would be a new civilization based on the repudiation of capitalism. The extent to which the citizenry participated in this scheme and the relationship of the state's ambitions to the dreams of ordinary people form the substance of this fascinating story. Kotkin tells it deftly, with a remarkable understanding of the social and political system, as well as a keen instinct for the details of everyday life. Kotkin depicts a whole range of life: from the blast furnace workers who labored in the enormous iron and steel plant, to the families who struggled with the shortage of housing and services. Thematically organized and closely focused, Magnetic Mountain signals the beginning of a new stage in the writing of Soviet social history.