In the Name of the Great Work : Stalin's Plan for the Transformation of Nature and its Impact in Eastern Europe

Author: Olsakova, Doubravka

Eastern Europe

Published on 21 June 2019 by BERGHAHN BOOKS in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Environment in History: International Perspectives' series.

Beginning in 1948, the Soviet Union launched a series of wildly ambitious projects to implement Joseph Stalin’s vision of a total “transformation of nature.” Intended to increase agricultural yields dramatically, this utopian impulse quickly spread to the newly communist states of Eastern Europe, captivating political elites and war-fatigued publics alike. By the time of Stalin’s death, however, these attempts at “transformation”—which relied upon ideologically corrupted and pseudoscientific theories—had proven a spectacular failure. This richly detailed volume follows the history of such projects in three communist states—Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia—and explores their varied, but largely disastrous, consequences.