The generation of power : the history of Dneprostroi /

Rassweiler's succinct work describes the history of Dneprostroi dam project. Built in 1927-32 as the first of Stalin's gigantic economic projects, the dam was an effort to realize Lenin's dream of an electrified, modern Soviet Russia. The author notes the key role of Ukrainian Bolsheviks in securing the project's approval late in 1926, confirming that large-scale central planning preceded the Stalin era. A prime example of socialist planning, Dneprostroi, with its delays, squabbles, huge cost overruns, and excessive labor force, represented a microcosm of the first Five Year Plan. It became enmeshed with Stalin's many grandiose schemes for rapid industrialization by forced draft methods. Exceeding all planned estimates, Dneprostroi's huge work force created grave problems of housing and food supply. The author describes well labor and living conditions, management, and the party's increased role in the project, and she provides a balanced verdict on the result. She made good use of varied published primary materials, newspapers, and secondary works, but lacked access to Soviet archives. The book is clearly written but unexciting. Prolific and painstaking footnotes are redolent of the typical doctoral thesis. With its many graphs and complete notes and bibliography, the book will prove most useful to students at the upper-division undergraduate level and above. -D. MacKenzie, University of North Carolina at Greensboro