This study is the first of its kind: a street-level inside account of what Stalinism meant to the masses of ordinary people who lived it. Stephen Kotkin was the first American in 45 years to be allowed into Magnitogorsk, a city built in response to Stalin's decision to transform the predominantly agricultural nation into a "country of metal." With unique access to previously untapped archives and interviews, Kotkin forges a vivid and compelling account of the impact of industrialization on a single urban community.

Kotkin argues that Stalinism offered itself as an opportunity for enlightenment. The utopia it proffered, socialism, would be a new civilization based on the repudiation of capitalism. The extent to which the citizenry participated in this scheme and the relationship of the state's ambitions to the dreams of ordinary people form the substance of this fascinating story. Kotkin tells it deftly, with a remarkable understanding of the social and political system, as well as a keen instinct for the details of everyday life.

Kotkin depicts a whole range of life: from the blast furnace workers who labored in the enormous iron and steel plant, to the families who struggled with the shortage of housing and services. Thematically organized and closely focused, Magnetic Mountain signals the beginning of a new stage in the writing of Soviet social history.

Stephen Kotkin is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and author of Steeltown, USSR (California, 1991).

"Kotkin . . . transports us to the 'periphery' (as Russians call everything outside Moscow) and gives us the story of the steel town of Magnitogorsk during the ten years that 'built socialism,' from the beginning of Stalin's first Five-Year Plan in 1929 to the end of this Great Terror in 1939. . . . Most original."—Washington Post

"Describes how the Bolsheviks brought the revolution to Magnetic Mountain, an area rich in iron ore southeast of the Urals, and how the inhabitants of the resultant urban center, Magnitogorsk, took part in the creation of Stalinism."—Journal of Economic Literature

"[An] exceptional book. . . . Rich in detail, insightful in analysis and interpretation, and reflective of the everyday experience of an urban center developing out of a wilderness. . . Exhaustively documented. . . . An extraordinary book, one that opens new doors to understanding the nature of Stalinism, and one that provides a better picture of the life of the newly urbanized Soviet workers of the 1930s than any other study."—William Richardson, History

“In a breathtaking history of the construction of the great Soviet iron and steel complex, Kotkin has . . . produced the most significant microhistory of Stalinist reality yet. He has also substantially advanced our understanding of the origins and nature of Soviet society.”—Misha Glenny, The Guardian

"A meticulously researched case study of the Ural 'Magnetic Mountain City,' Magnitogorsk, in the 1930s. The city is analyzed in the context—and as a particularly suitable representation—of Stalin's version of a socialist civilization. . . . The author's analytical approach and ability to generalize from the particular contribute to understanding Stalinism."—Choice

"A kind of archaeological analysis of Soviet life during the momentous years of Stalinist industrialization."—Lewis Siegelbaum, Michigan State University