Industrial Life in a Limiting Landscape: An Environmental Interpretation of Stalinist Social Conditions in the Far North

Abstract

SummaryThis paper offers an environmental history of a group of forced migrants who were sent to work on a Soviet industrial project in the far north during the 1930s. As part of the drive to industrialize the country rapidly, the Soviet state deported thousands of peasants who had been declared class enemies to the previously desolate Khibiny Mountains in order to serve as the labor force for a new socialist mining town. These forced migrants became known as “special settlers”. I argue that the integration of the environment as a dynamic force in the social history of Stalinism enriches current explanations for why the Soviet state was often unable to carry out its intentions during industrialization. I also maintain that through the pursuit of the global process of industrialization, the Soviet government contributed to making the special settlers in the Khibiny Mountains vulnerable to natural hazards.