Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European) Book PDF, ePub eBook
Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European).pdf
File Name: Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European).pdf
Size: 22.10 MB
Uploaded: 2017-05-2 04:11:18
Status: AVAILABLE Last checked: 27 Minutes ago!
Rating: ★★★★★ 89 out of 100 based on 16568 user
Book Descriptions:
Heralded by Soviet propaganda as the “Path to the Future,” the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM) represented the hopes and dreams of Brezhnev and the Communist Party elite of the late Soviet era. Begun in 1974, and spanning approximately 2,000 miles after twenty-nine years of halting construction, the BAM project was intended to showcase the national unity, determination, skill, technology, and industrial might that Soviet socialism claimed to embody. More pragmatically, the Soviet leadership envisioned the BAM railway as a trade route to the Pacific, where markets for Soviet timber and petroleum would open up, and as an engine for the development of Siberia.
Despite these aspirations and the massive commitment of economic resources on its behalf, BAM proved to be a boondoggle-a symbol of late communism's dysfunctionality-and a cruel joke to many ordinary Soviet citizens. In reality, BAM was woefully bereft of quality materials and construction, and victimized by poor planning and an inferior workforce. Today, the railway is fully complete, but remains a symbol of the profligate spending and inefficiency that characterized the Brezhnev years.
In Brezhnev's Folly, Christopher J. Ward provides a groundbreaking social history of the BAM railway project. He examines the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of workers from the diverse republics of the USSR and other socialist countries, and his extensive archival research and interviews with numerous project workers provide an inside look at the daily life of the BAM workforce. We see firsthand the disorganization, empty promises, dire living and working conditions, environmental damage, and acts of crime, segregation, and discrimination that constituted daily life during the project's construction. Thus, perhaps, we also see the final irony of BAM: that the most lasting legacy of this misguided effort to build Soviet socialism is to shed historical light on the profound ills afflicting a society in terminal decline.
Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European) by Christopher J. Ward
From reader reviews:Jason Urso:
The book Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European) gives you the sense of being enjoy for your spare time. You may use to make your capable much more increase. Book can to be your best friend when you getting pressure or having big problem with the subject. If you can make reading a book Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European) to become your habit, you can get far more advantages, like add your own personal capable, increase your knowledge about a few or all subjects. You could know everything if you like available and read a publication Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European). Kinds of book are several. It means that, science publication or encyclopedia or other folks. So , how do you think about this book?
Ethel Ellis:
What do you consider book? It is just for students because they are still students or the idea for all people in the world, what the best subject for that? Merely you can be answered for that query above. Every person has distinct personality and hobby for each and every other. Don't to be obligated someone or something that they don't want do that. You must know how great in addition to important the book Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European). All type of book are you able to see on many options. You can look for the internet sources or other social media.
Jeremy Reed:
Nowadays reading books be a little more than want or need but also turn into a life style. This reading addiction give you lot of advantages. The benefits you got of course the knowledge the rest of the information inside the book which improve your knowledge and information. The details you get based on what kind of guide you read, if you want have more knowledge just go with knowledge books but if you want really feel happy read one along with theme for entertaining including comic or novel. The Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European) is kind of reserve which is giving the reader erratic experience.
Justin Tran:
A number of people said that they feel bored when they reading a reserve. They are directly felt the item when they get a half parts of the book. You can choose the actual book Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European) to make your reading is interesting. Your skill of reading talent is developing when you like reading. Try to choose easy book to make you enjoy to learn it and mingle the idea about book and examining especially. It is to be initial opinion for you to like to open up a book and go through it. Beside that the book Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pitt Russian East European) can to be your new friend when you're feel alone and confuse in what must you're doing of their time.
How it works:
- 1. Register a free 1 month Trial Account.
- 2. Download as many books as you like (Personal use)
- 3. Cancel the membership at any time if not satisfied.
