'Projects of the Century' in Soviet History: Large-Scale Technologies from Lenin to Gorbachev

摘要

The Soviet Union embraced large-scale technologies with an energy that belied its economic backwardness. Its leaders saw technology as a means to convert this largely agarian, peasant society into a well-oiled machine of workers dedicated to the construction of communism. They believed large-scale technologies would marshal scarce resources efficiently and provide the appropriate forum for the political and cultural education of a burgeoning working class. Constructiv-ist visions of the communist future found expression in Lenin's electrification, Stalin's canals and hydropower stations, Khrushchev's atomic energy, and Brezhnev's Siberian river diversion project. There were glorious chapters in the history of large-scale technology in the USSR, including the pioneering conquests of the atom and the cosmos.