Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a CivilizationThis 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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 74
Page xviii
... Cultural Section of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow ; the Russian State Archives in Moscow and the State Archives Affiliate in Magnitogorsk ; the Magnitogorsk City Mu- seum ; the American Section of the former Soviet Ministry of Higher Ed ...
... Cultural Section of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow ; the Russian State Archives in Moscow and the State Archives Affiliate in Magnitogorsk ; the Magnitogorsk City Mu- seum ; the American Section of the former Soviet Ministry of Higher Ed ...
Page 3
... Cultural Revolution , " by which she meant the mobilization of class - based radicalism when higher education was ... culture , pur- porting to explain its philistine tastes , puritanism , acceptance of pervasive state intervention ...
... Cultural Revolution , " by which she meant the mobilization of class - based radicalism when higher education was ... culture , pur- porting to explain its philistine tastes , puritanism , acceptance of pervasive state intervention ...
Page 5
... Cultural Revolution , a revival of the Civil War's anticompromise spirit . She has emphasized , furthermore , this re- versal's apparently logical development , essentially benign nature , and long - term stability , while he has argued ...
... Cultural Revolution , a revival of the Civil War's anticompromise spirit . She has emphasized , furthermore , this re- versal's apparently logical development , essentially benign nature , and long - term stability , while he has argued ...
Page 14
... cultural dimension is criti- cal . Our understanding of the revolution must not be reduced to the onset of the Bolshevik political monopoly and its internal debates , even though almost all expression of revolutionary values and beliefs ...
... cultural dimension is criti- cal . Our understanding of the revolution must not be reduced to the onset of the Bolshevik political monopoly and its internal debates , even though almost all expression of revolutionary values and beliefs ...
Page 15
... culture of the revolution in the early years was ' utopian ' . " By unashamedly adopting such an idealistic approach , Stites was able to reclaim much of the revo- lution's captivating power . Stites's panoply of everyday ...
... culture of the revolution in the early years was ' utopian ' . " By unashamedly adopting such an idealistic approach , Stites was able to reclaim much of the revo- lution's captivating power . Stites's panoply of everyday ...
Contents
1 | |
27 | |
THE LITTLE TACTICS OF THE HABITAT | 147 |
Stalinism as a Civilization | 355 |
Note on Sources | 367 |
Notes | 375 |
Select Bibliography | 599 |
Photograph Credits | 609 |
Index | 611 |
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Common terms and phrases
According accused administration April Archival file Nariad arrested August authorities barracks became blast furnace Bolshevik Borba building called capitalist Central Committee Cheliabinsk chief city newspaper city soviet city's coke Communist construction culture December decree dekulakized documents E. H. Carr economy Eliseeva example factory February Five-Year Plan GARF gorkom gorsk housing Ibid industrial istorii January John Scott Khitarov Kirov district Komsomol kulak labor colony leadership Lewin living space Lominadze Magnitka Magnito Magnitogorsk newspaper Magnitogorsk procuracy Magnitogorskii metall Magnitostroi March McKee Metallurgical MFGACHO Moscow Moshe Lewin mud huts nitogorsk NKVD obkom October official open-hearth Ordzhonikidze party cards party members party organization party's peasants percent political population Pravda production regime revolution revolutionary RSFSR rubles Russian September Settlement shock workers social socialist city Sorokin Soviet Union Sovnarkom Stakhanovite Stalin steel plant supply terror tion trade University Press Urals urban USSR Vesenkha workers wrote Zaveniagin