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Title: Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel by John Scott, Stephen Kotkin ISBN: 0-253-20536-0 Publisher: Indiana University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating
Comment: This book is a first-person account of work life in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Disenchanted with opportunities in Depression America in 1931, Scott takes off for the Workers' Paradise. He finds a job as a welder building the massive steelworks in the new Soviet city of Magnitogorsk in the Ural Mountains. Altogether, he spent six years living and working in Magnitogorsk until he lost his job due to Stalin's purges.
The conditions that Scott found himself working in are simply incredible. He rose well before dawn and went to work outdoors in -30 degree temperatures with no breakfast. Lunch, the major meal of the day, was a hunk of bread and some watery soup with perhaps a slice of tough meat. Work place injuries were extremely common, due to the cold, lack of food and lack of training or safety equipment. For example, Scott describes an incident where he was working high above the ground and saw something, or rather, somebody, go sailing past only to the pipes below. As a foreigner, Scott knew some first aid, so he was always called on to care for such injuries when they occurred at the work site. In addition to describing work life and living conditions, Scott also discusses the educational and training systems that were in place and spare time activities such as vacations. He also includes some anecdotes about ex-pat workers who he met in Magnitogorsk.
Scott remains objective throughout the book, making the message of the book extremely powerful, much more so than if he had pressed political arguments or personal viewpoints. A particularly interesting facet of the book is its discussion of the purges of the 1930s and speculation on their cause. Few other outsiders were living inside Soviet society at the time, so Scott's views can be uniquely enlightening about how Soviets perceived what was happening to their society and why. Scott identifies several possible causes for the purges, but seems to place great emphasis on the fear of foreign saboteurs and does not mention Stalin's personality at all as a possible cause. Area specialists and historians will find much of interest in this book, as will casual readers.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Real Magnitogorsk
Comment: This is a great first hand accont of Stalinism at work. John Scott five year experience in Russia gives us a fairly good overview of some of the accomplishments (such as increase production of pig iron three fold in a decade) and also the problems usually involving poor planning or lack of materials. Scott as an American working in Russia gives us an unusual perspective that is quite refreshing. His writing is easy to read and includes many entertaining and revealing anecdotes. Also his writing is not bogged down by the didactic language and relentless facts that plague most works of history. True there is a history of Magnitogorsk that drags a bit but it is over soon enough. Generally, this is considered the definative work on everyday Stalinism
Rating: 3
Summary: An Interesting Look
Comment: John Scott gives us the reader an interesting point of view of Stalin's Soviet Union. His epic journey is not one to bew taken lkightly. He was in an era when disillusionment was high -- the Great Depression and he believed in the fream of work, even in the figid vastlands of the Urals. Scott gives a good account of what wlife was like, but the book goes by either very quickly or very slowly and does not capture a medium of speed that is accpetable to some readers. However, it is a brittlant account of first hand experence if you are looking for suh an account, Scott is your man.
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Title: Journey into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg ISBN: 0156027518 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within by Geoffrey Hosking ISBN: 0674304438 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the Ussr, and the Successor States by Ronald Grigor Suny ISBN: 0195081056 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
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Title: The Stalin Revolution: Foundations of the Totalitarian Era by Robert Vincent Daniels ISBN: 0669416932 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $25.16 |
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Title: Russia After the War: Hopes, Illusions, and Disappointments, 1945-1957 by Elena Zubkova, Hugh Regsdale ISBN: 0765602288 Publisher: M. E. Sharpe Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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