Abstract
Nothing was more generally or readily agreed among Bolsheviks than the proposition that Russia needed massive industrial growth in order to achieve a socialist society. While sharing this concensus, Stalin did not distinguish himself as an early or emphatic advocate of rapid industrial growth, once pre-war levels of production had been achieved in 1926. In that year he even opposed a proposal to undertake construction of a huge dam on the Dnieper River, comparing this to the folly of a peasant who invested precious savings in a gramophone when he should have used it to repair his plough. Perhaps Stalin, influenced by Bukharin, did indeed believe that the best investment strategy at that point was the renovation of existing plants rather than the expansion of electric power production before there was a market for it. Or he may merely have opposed the dam because Trotsky had proposed it.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
L. D. Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926–27) (New York, 1980) 222–3. Stalin also may have been influenced by the Soviet engineer Shatunovsky, who considered the project a poor investment (W, XI, 281; W, XIII, 17–19 ).
K. E. Bailes, Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin ( Princeton, NJ, 1978 ) 69–121;
A. I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (New York, 1974–8)I, 376–407; The Case of N. P. Vitvitsky, V. A. Gusev, A. W. Gregory et al. (Moscow, 1933).
N. Jasny, Soviet Industrialization 1928–1952 (Chicago, 1961) 51–69.
E. Zaleski, Planning for Economic Growth in the Soviet Union 1918–1932 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1971) 117; W, XII, 323–4; Istoriia SSSR s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (Moscow, 1967) VII, , 468.
L. Shatunovskaia, Zhizn’ v Kremle (New York, 1982) 72–3. This memoirist commands respect when speaking of things that she knew from direct personal experience, though in some other matters she seems to be merely passing on the anecdotes of her set. Her reliability on matters that she knew at first hand gains credibility in that there is actually a letter from Stalin to her husband in W, XIII, 18–20, confirming her assertions that the Boss communicated with this middle-level official. An unrelated case of Stalin’s arbitrary assignment of a worker to a technically demanding post appears in A. G. Zverev, Zapiski ministra (Moscow, 1973 ) 142–3.
Yu. Flakserman, Gleb Maksimovich Krzizhanovskii (Moscow, 1964) 172.
T. Kirstein, ‘Das Ural-Kuzneck-Kombinat (UKK) als objekt einer Entscheidungsprozessanalyse’ in G. Erler and W. Süss (eds), Stalinismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1982) 167–85; KPSS, IV, 398–404.
J. Miller, ‘Soviet Planners in 1936–1937’, in J. Degras and R. W. Davies (eds), Soviet Planning (Oxford, 1964 ) 120.
See p. 129 above; N. A. Ivnitsky, Klassovaia bo’rba v derevene i likvidatsiia kulachestva kak klassa (1929–1932) (Moscow, 1972 ) 298.
M. Gorky et al. (eds), Belomor (New York, 1935) 329; Solzhenitsyn (1974–8) II, 75;
P. H. Solomon, ‘Soviet Penal Policy, 1917–1934; a Reinterpretation’, Slavic Review, no. 2 (1980) 195–217.
I. Averbakh, Ot prestupleniia k trudu (Moscow, 1936 ).
P, 14 July 1930, 11 February 1934; P. Reiman, Die Geburt des Stalinismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1979) 237–46;
R. W. Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution ( Cambridge, Mass., 1960 ) 376–7;
S. F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (New York, 1973 ) 349–50.
See p. 121 above. R. A. Medvedev, Let History Judge (New York, 1971) 142. Kirov publicly stated that Syrtsov and Lominadze had been removed from their positions (P, 2 December 1930 ).
R. W. Davies, ‘The Syrtsov-Lominadze Affair’, Soviet Studies, no. 1 (1981) 29–50;
M. Buber-Neumann, Von Potsdam nach Moskau (Stuttgart, 1957) 232.
Stalin. Sbornik statei k piatidesiatiletiiu so dnia rozhdeniia (Moscow, 1929) especially 167, 258–68; J. L. Heizer, The Cult of Stalin 1929–1939 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1977) 65–8, 81–98.
Heizer (1977) 109; G. Alekseev, ‘Kolichestvennye parametry kul’ta lichnosti’, SSSR. Vnutrenie protivorecheniia, no. 6 (1982) 9.
Arkhiv, x, kn. 1, 260–1; R. A. Medvedev, ‘New Pages from the Political Biography of Stalin’, in R. C. Tucker (ed.), Stalinism. Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York, 1977) 119.
P, 28 June 1933; P, 13 August 1933; Iskusstvo, no. 1 (1934) 99, 112; no. 1 (1935) 7; I. Rabinovich, ‘Obraz Vozhdia v proizvedenniakh zhivopisi i skulptury’, Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 12 (1939) 11–21, which sustains the thesis that not much painting and sculpture were devoted to Stalin before 1933.
R. C. Tucker, ‘The Rise of Stalin’s Personality Cult’, American Historical Review, no. 2 (1979) 347–66;
J. Barber, Soviet Historians in Crisis (New York, 1981) 126–36;
A. Nekrich, Otreshis’ of strakha (London, 1979 ) 17–20;
L. Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism (Oxford, 1978) III 73–6; W, XI, 128–34.
S. Fitzpatrick (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia 1928–1931 ( Bloomington, Ind., 1977 ) 207–40;
S. F. Starr, Melnikov: Solo Architect in a Mass Society (Princeton, NJ, 1978 ).
A. Fadeev (ed.), Vstrechi s Stalinym (Moscow, 1939) 84–93;
V. A. Vesnim et al., ‘Nezabyvaemye vstrechi’, Arckhitektura SSSR, no. 12 (1939) 6–10.
Fitzpatrick (1977) 237; A. Kopp, Town and Revolution (New York, 1970 ).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1988 Robert H. McNeal
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McNeal, R.H. (1988). Builder. In: Stalin. St Antony’s. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07461-7_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07461-7_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-07463-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-07461-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)