The Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization

Abstract

In this ground-breaking study, Lynne Viola - the first Western scholar to gain access to the Soviet state archives on collectivization - excavates a lost chapter in the history of the Stalin revolution. This book affords an intimate look at the campaign of the '25,000ers', the industrial workers who were sent into the Soviet countryside to implement collectivization during the 1930s. The first social history to present an 'on the scene' line of vision, it brings its readers one step closer to penetrating the elusive Soviet mind at a critical historical moment.