Magnetic Mountain

Stalinism as a Civilization

Stephen Kotkin

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English

California Uni Pr Trade
27 February 1997

History; European history; Social & cultural history; Urban communities; Industry & industrial studies

"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."

By: Stephen Kotkin
Imprint: California Uni Pr Trade
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 41mm
Weight: 1.043kg
ISBN: 9780520208230
ISBN 10: 0520208234
Pages: 728
Publication Date: 27 February 1997
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Illustrations and Tables Acknowledgments USSR Organizational Structure, 1930s Note on Translation Introduction: Understanding the Russian Revolution I. BUILDING SOCIALISM: THE GRAND STRATEGIES OF THE STATE 1. On the March for Metal 2. Peopling a Shock Construction Site 3· The Idiocy of Urban Life II. LIVING SOCIALISM: THE LITTLE TACTICS OF THE HABITAT 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

Stephen Kotkin is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and author of Steeltown, USSR (California, 1991).

Reviews for Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization

"""One of the most influential of the post-Soviet books . . . a study of the steel city of Magnitogorsk, the U.S.S.R.’s answer to Pittsburgh, as it was constructed in the shadow of the Ural Mountains in the early nineteen-thirties. . . . A sharp-elbowed intervention in the decades-old debate between 'totalitarian' historians, who saw in the Soviet Union an omnipotent state imposing its will on a defenseless populace, and 'revisionist' historians, who saw a more dynamic and fluid society, with some portion of the population actually supporting the regime."" * New Yorker *"