 | In the Name of the Great Work: Stalin''s Plan for the Transformation of Nature and its Impact in Eastern Europe Subjects: Environmental policy -- Europe Eastern -- History -- 20th century; Environmental policy -- Soviet Union -- History; Stalin Joseph 1878-1953 -- Political and social views; Socialism -- Environmental aspects -- Europe Eastern -- History -- 20th century; ; 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. Doubravka Olsáková is a senior researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, where she leads a working group on environmental history. Her publications include the book Science Goes to the People! (2014), which examines mass indoctrination and the dissemination of science in communist Czechoslovakia. |
