In the Name of the Great Work by Olšáková, Doubravka;

Long description:

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.

Table of Contents:

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Acknowledgments
List of Tables
Abbreviations

Introduction: The Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature and the East European Experience
Paul Josephson

Chapter 1. Kafkaesque Paradigms: The Stalinist Plan for the Transformation of Nature in Czechoslovakia
Doubravka Olšáková and Arnošt Štanzel

Chapter 2. Untamed Seedlings: Hungary and Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature
Zsuzsanna Borvendég and Mária Palasik

Chapter 3. The Conspiracy of Silence: Stalinist Plan for the Transformation of Nature in Poland
Beata Wysokińska

Conclusion: Environmental History, East-European Societies and Totalitarian Regimes
Doubravka Olšáková

Name Index
Local Index
Subject Index