"Why, If Things Are So Good, Are They So Bad?" Magnitogorsk, Stalin’s Five-Year Plan, and American Engineers, 1928–1932

Authors

Landen J. Kleisinger, University of ReginaFollow

Abstract

This article focuses on Magnitogorsk, the Magnetic Mountain, the practical and symbolic crux of Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. To Stalin, the Magnetic Mountain and the instant industrial city of Magnitogorsk would help materialize the radical dream of the Soviet Union and eventually save it from invaders from the west. American involvement in early Soviet technological expansion has been historically hidden and ignored by American’s and Soviet’s alike. This article argues that while Stalin called for industrial expansion to outstrip the West, paradoxically it was Western engineers that made his progress possible.

First Page

68

Last Page

78

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Kleisinger, Landen J. (2018) ""Why, If Things Are So Good, Are They So Bad?" Magnitogorsk, Stalin’s Five-Year Plan, and American Engineers, 1928–1932," Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History: Vol. 8: Iss. 2, Article 5.
DOI: 10.20429/aujh.2018.080205
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol8/iss2/5