24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating, July 18, 2002
This review is from: Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel (Paperback)
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.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Real Magnitogorsk, October 10, 2001
This review is from: Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel (Paperback)
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
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An amazing first-hand account of Stalin's Russia, January 6, 2010
This review is from: Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel (Paperback)
This is an amazing first-hand account of Stalin's Russia, written by a young American who went to work in 1932 at the great new steel city of Magnitogorsk in the Urals. It contains much first hand evidence on working and living conditions, on social moods, on corruption, on repression and on heroism.
One key question is how reliable a witness is Scott? It is clear that he is trying to present a generally upbeat picture, but he is also willing to depict enormously harsh conditions at Magnitogorsk, especially in the early years. He paints a mood of simultaneous suffering and Gung Ho spirit, where living conditions were appalling, working conditions wildly unsafe, muddle and waste abounded, but where all this was seen as a temporary and necessary transition to a better future.
This was written in 1942, after Scott returned to the US. Scott praises the great foresight of Stalin in building an immense industrial complex in the Urals ("Stalin's Urals Stronghold") beyond the reach of invading German armies. He emphasizes both the enormous sacrifices in building Magnitogorsk and other Urals plants and the vast industrial power of these new factories. Given the dark context of 1942, this was probably a very welcome message in both the USSR and the USA.
I was surprised by the liveliness that Scott describes in plant meetings. Criticism of the system itself, or of the high leadership, seems to have been entirely taboo. However, vigorous grassroots criticism of local plant management, or production methods, or specific social problems (such as the workers canteens) appears to have been common and even seems to have been encouraged, perhaps partly as a safety valve or as a way to spur on mid-level leaders.
Another surprise was the importance of financial incentives. Higher work grades earned significantly higher pay, so workers studied industriously to qualify for the higher grades. (Improved education was a key goal of the regime, so the incentives here were clearly deliberate.) But income was also tied to production. If the group targets were exceeded, pay could be boosted (even doubled). But if the targets were missed, pay could drop. At a higher level, the overall plant income and expenditures were tracked assiduously, although at the very top, Moscow seemed more interested in total raw production than "profit".
In the originally published text, Scott often comes across as well intentioned but distinctly naïve. However, this enlarged edition also includes some private notes that Scott provided to the US Moscow Embassy in 1938. These show a considerably more skeptical and insightful side, for example in analyzing the different groups at Magnitogorsk and explaining how some groups, such as the former kulaks, were permanently embittered against the regime. He is also explicit in describing the impact of what we now call the Great Terror. "Life is cruel in the Soviet Union and the regime knows no pity."
Scott, like other foreign workers, was eventually forced to leave Magnitogorsk as the Soviet authorities became increasingly fearful of foreigners in the later 1930s.
Overall, I found this a fascinating study. When reading this, I think we have to be watchful that Scott, even when skeptical, still tends to see events through somewhat rose-tinted glasses. When he describes horrific conditions, or even major purges, he will often quickly assert that these were necessary steps to a greater end. (And perhaps, in the dark context of 1942, that view is understandable.) Similarly, as a former Soviet resident, he often unthinkingly accepts the regime's official positions, for example in believing that the secret NKVD trials are "fair", without himself having any evidence of them. But, if we keep those rose glasses in mind, this is still a fascinating source of raw primary data for life in a heroic but almost impossibly harsh age.
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