Author Description

This work provides an in-depth case study of decision-making in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era. It focuses on the development of a rail transport policy, upon which the entire economy as well as the entire country's defence were so crucially dependent. It analyzes the role of the institutional lobbies in shaping policy, sheds new light on the Stakhanovite movement and analyzes the impact of the Great Purges on the railways. The work provides a critical examination of the adequacy of existing conceptualizations of the Stalinist state.