Magnetic Mountain by Kotkin Stephen;

Author:Kotkin, Stephen; [Kotkin, Stephen;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 1995-04-19T23:00:00+00:00

THE ENDURANCE OF PIETY

Overall, the effects of the terror, as John Scott observed, were paradoxical. Industrial production declined dramatically, and literal chaos often ensued (in 1937, coke plant construction did not fulfill its plan for a single month, sinking to a low of 27 percent in December).331 But as Scott also noted, “officials and administrators who had formerly come to work at ten, gone home at four-thirty, and shrugged their shoulders at complaints, difficulties, and failures, began to stay at work from dawn till dark, to worry about the success or failure of their units, and to fight in a very real and earnest fashion for plan fulfillment, for economy, and for the well-being of their workers and employees, about whom they had previously not lost a wink of sleep.”332

For these reasons Stalin was long held in high esteem, the leader who knew how to deal with provincial bosses and bureaucrats, ruling with an iron fist and keeping them in check through fear. Herein lay no doubt one of the principal effects of the terror, an effect that was connected to the terror’s class aspect. But at the same time, many people appear to have been appalled at such methods and at the general leveling tendency that Stalin allowed free reign. This leveling tendency and its rueful consequences were apparent in the senseless disappearance of the Magnitogorsk’s well-known poets, Boris Ruchev and Mikhail Liugarin, as well as the secretary of the local writer’s union branch, Vasilii Makarov—the chief figures in the local “artistic intelligentsia.”333

The terror rent deep and lasting divisions within the society and shook Magnitogorsk to its foundations. But many—perhaps most—people tried to prevent it from undermining everything else that had taken place.334 Their country had been through a great deal and had achieved much, signs of which were there to see. Plebiscitary elections, complete with celebratory mass marches, continued to be held.335 And hundreds of workers and lower-level officials continued to receive medals and awards, from the Order of the Red Banner to the Order of Lenin, the state’s highest honor.336 Even more crucial in this regard was the irreplaceable experience of the decade-long socialist construction.

In February 1938 the city newspaper published the following commentary of a Magnitogorsk engineer, Burylev, the new deputy chief of open-hearth construction:

Soon it will be seven years that I’m working in Magnitogorsk. With my own eyes I’ve seen the pulsating, creative life of the builders of the Magnitogorsk giant. I myself have taken an active part in this construction with great enthusiasm. Our joy was great when we obtained the first Magnitogorsk steel from the wonderful open-hearth ovens. At the time there was no greater happiness for me than working in the open-hearth shop. Work in the open-hearth shop of the Magnitogorsk factory for me, a Soviet engineer, has been and is a new wonderful school. Here I enriched my theoretical knowledge and picked up practical habits, the Stakhanovite experience of work. Here as well I grew politically, acquired good experience in public-political work.

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