- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press (1 Nov 1993)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0674354362
- ISBN-13: 978-0674354364
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,440,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Stalin ordered his execution, but here Peter Palchinsky has the last word. His ghost leads readers through the miasma of Soviet technology and industry, pointing out the mistakes he condemned in his time, the corruption and collapse he predicted, the ultimate price paid for silencing those who were not afraid to speak out. The story of this visionary engineer's life and work, as Graham tells it, is also the story of the Soviet Union's industrial promise and failure. Palchinsky is shown in pre-Revolutionary Russia, immersed in protests against the miserable lot of labourers in the tsarist state; protests which were destined to echo ironically during the Soviet worker's paradise. Exiled from the country, pardoned and welcomed back at the outbreak of World War I, the engineer joined the ranks of the Revolutionary government, only to find it no more open to criticism than the previous regime. Palchinsky's turbulent career offers us a window on debates over industrialization. Graham highlights the harsh irrationalities built into the Soviet system, such as: the world's most inefficient steel mill in Magnitogorsk; the gigantic and ill-conceived hydro-electric plant on the Dnieper; the infamously mislocated construction of the White Sea Canal. Time and again, we see the effects of policies that ignore not only workers' and consumers' needs, but also sound management and engineering precepts. And we see Palchinsky's criticism and advice, persistently given, consistently ignored, continue to haunt the Soviet Union right up to its dissolution in 1991.
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Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exclude the human element from planning at your peril., 23 Aug 1998
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (Russian Research Centre Studies) (Russian Research Center Studies) (Paperback)
The Soviet Union became the worldıs second largest industrial power, resisted and defeated Hitlerıs armies in World War II, and finally launched the first artificial satellite and first human into Earth orbit. Despite these achievements the Soviet Union collapsed short of the 75th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution.This small book looks at the Soviet failure from an engineering view, specifically one engineer, Peter Palchinsky. From the beginning of his career in 1905, Palchinsky firmly believed that engineers should consider economic and social conditions along with their technical calculations. Although he was not a Marxist, Palchinsky was a radical who drew many of his social and economic ideas from Kropotkinıs writings. Palchinsky didnıt support the Bolsheviks but he did welcome the opportunity to help socialist development in Russia. Palchinsky wanted to keep western capitalists out of Russia as much as possible but he did see that in some circumstances western equipment and knowledge were necessary.
The industrialization policy started by the Bolsheviks and carried further by Stalin emphasized gigantic projects controlled directly from Moscow. Some of the characteristics of the soviet projects included no consideration for local conditions, safety sacrificed to output, rushed tempo of the work, and finally no criticism or debate was allowed. Palchinsky did continue criticizing what he considered a disastrous industrialization policy until he was arrested in the middle of the night in 1928 and finally executed in 1929.
The author offers three examples of gigantic ill-conceived engineering projects in the early Soviet Union and three projects of the 1970ıs and 80ıs. These projects included worldıs largest steel mill in Magnitogorsk, the worldıs largest hydroelectric dam on the Dneiper River, and finally the disastrous White Sea Canal built entirely by prisoners. Palchinsky was involved with the steel mill project and a sever critic of the other two projects. Chernobyl is given as a latter day example to show that the Soviet Union never learned its lesson.
After Palchinsky, engineering training in the Soviet Union became narrower and strictly technical after the 1920ıs. Despite the narrowing of the views of engineering profession in the Soviet Union, engineering training became one of the surest ways of securing government positions. After World War II most Soviet officials came from an engineering background, Brezhnev himself was a graduate of an engineering institute.
The lessons of this book go beyond the experience of the Soviet Union. Any political-economic system that centralizes control, stifles debate and criticism, and ignores human conditions may do so at its peril.
3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
School book..., 14 May 2002
By nychen - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (Russian Research Centre Studies) (Russian Research Center Studies) (Paperback)
I read this for my History, Technology and Science class in college. It is quite intriguing a life that Palchinsky leads. The book starts off telling about his life in general and how it ended, and his influences on Russia. But then halfway through the book, the focus shifts to descriptions of technological failures the Soviet Union encountered and how they struggled to beat other countries in the engineering field.I don't think this book really gives Palchinsky the credit he desrves and this book certainly isn't all about him, just brief historical facts.
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