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I've been thinking of Magnitogorsk lately. Now, those of you who know what a Magnitogorsk is (yes, both of you!) may think it's a silly-ass thing to be thinking of. Those of you who don't probably wonder what one is. Presumably also, if you clicked this entry, you're interested in knowing what I'm thinking about it.
Magnitogorsk is a city. It is a city in Siberia. It lies next to a huge mountain that was once composed almost entirely of iron. In the 1930's, as part of the first Five Year Plan, Comrade Stalin decided to convert what was at the time a sleepy old Imperial village into a monumental city that was to be one of the showpieces of the new order and a vibrant expression of the power of the Party, and also incidentally the largest iron and steel producing center in the world (at the time).
Why does it capture my attention? Because it became a focus of attention for young idealistic children from all over the world, who voluntarily left their homes and travelled thousands of miles to sleep in the mud, struggle with unfamiliar tools, demanding environmental conditions (heat, cold, dust), poor sanitation, poor housing, poor food, impossible work quotas, lack of safety regulations, planning that was outmoded from the get-go, and in general just impossible conditions, to ultimately build something tremendously big, incredibly ugly, and environmentally disastrous. And also magnificent, terrible, and symbolic... which is now, barely a lifetime later, pretty much unknown except to its citizens and environmentalists. Capitalism run riot, except that this was the USSR.
When the job was finished, those children who came from everywhere to give their all were cast aside, forced to leave, and Magnitogorsk was declared a closed city in 1937.
The story of the building of this city would make a novel worthy of treatment by a Michener, an oral history worthy of a Terkel. Alas, the children who built it are now dust, and their voices are silent. Because it happened in the USSR, it is a little-known episode in the US, and perhaps fittingly so. You can pick up John Scott's and Stephen Kotkin's books about it at Amazon (as it happens, I haven't read either), and that is about it. It should probably go without saying that neither is a best-seller. :) I've read a few memoirs and bits and pieces here and there over the course of a mis-spent life, and it has always struck me as one of the great unknown epics of the 20th century.
Why is that, Mal? Because it was a channel for youthful idealism, quite blatantly exploited, abused, and used up, idealism cynically and greedily manipulated by political powers to achieve economic and political ends... and the children who built the city almost literally from nothing cared nothing about this, and gloriously and selflessly spent themselves and their idealism and enthusiasm in the pursuit of something they thought had value. Or, as Herbert Morrison would say, "Oh, the humanity."
Consider how we so often lose sight of the humanity. Consider what might be some of the typical reactions to the story of Magnitogorsk, and my thoughts about it: the many who would dismiss or ridicule it simply because it occurred in the USSR and involved Communists, the many who would point to the cynical exploitation and mock the idealists who allowed themselves to be used (shouldn't they have known better? I mean, really), not to mention the people who would mock or ignore it because it happened before their lifetimes and is thus now safely within the environs of that useless thing called "history," which is of interest only to people who haven't got a life in the here-and-now. Or those who would dismiss me and this post as a piece of romanticism and/or propaganda, either out of touch with the real world or created for ulterior, manipulative motives. Oh, the humanity.
So I'm thinking of Magnitogorsk. And I'm thinking of OWS. And I'm thinking of Camelot -- the musical -- and the line from the title song: "For one brief shining moment..." For a brief shining moment today -- brief in the course of history -- the children (and we are all someone's child) are focussing their idealism. They are spending themselves, gloriously, selflessly, pouring themselves out in the name of something greater than themselves. They are not Communists, not hippies, not even fat and complacent white middle-class spoiled brats: they are part of something that has always existed, is ever-renewing, and is the source of all hope and history. They are human beings. And, yes, Virgina, the fly is in the ointment: today's Stalins are ready to seize that energy, that idealism, that glorious willingness to give and give, with joy and without fear, without counting the cost; these modern-day manipulators wait in the wings to exploit what they cannot suppress.
The children who built Magnitogorsk are largely forgotten now. What will be the fate of the children of today's Magnitogorsk?
-- Mal
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