Theres a pretty good book about Soviet era mega-project disasters, and how the soviet answer to "thats impossible" was always "nah we will just throw more people at it, itll work" It was kind of their MO, they were well practiced for Chernobyl.
>Joseph Stalin had an ideological outlook for economic advancement in the Soviet Union that set unrealistic goals that required massive human effort. Stalin emphasized that all industrial establishments should be of great size (preferable the largest in the world). This came to be known as "gigantomania" by the Western observers. The results of taking on these astronomical industrial establishments were high accident rates and shoddy production. The high death rate and exposure to disease was an acceptable cost for Stalin. Stalin's motto was that "technology decides everything" no matter at what cost. After Peter's death, in 1929 the Soviet Union launched the first five-year plan, a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the economy.
>Three of the monumental projects in the early Five-Year Plans were the building of the world's largest hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River, the construction of the world's largest steel plant (Magnitogorski) and the digging of the White Sea Canal. These Soviet industrialization projects were greatly flawed and wasteful, costing many people who worked both voluntarily and involuntarily their lives.
>Many engineers, including Peter Palchinsky warned the USSR not to rush and go ahead with the building of the dam. They argued that the water flow was ultimately going to be too slow and no good studies had been made of the flow patterns of surface and underground water in the area. Ultimately, 10,000 farmers were forced out of their farmland with little or no compensation
>Construction began in 1929 at the site of one of the country's richest iron deposits, known as Magnetic Mountain. Peter Palchinsky published articles in 1926 and 1927 complaining that the Soviet government was going ahead with plans for the construction of the mining plant without adequate studies of geological resources, availability of labor, economics of transportation and supplying proper housing for the work force.
If one wants to delve deeper into the murkiness and absurdist hilarity ot the society in the freshly minted Soviet empire, I can't recommend Ilf and Petrov more, their books about the charming and combining hustler Ostap Bender are a great read for entertainment alone but also a good picture of the 20s and the great changes that the Revolution brought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_of_the_Executed_Engi...
>Joseph Stalin had an ideological outlook for economic advancement in the Soviet Union that set unrealistic goals that required massive human effort. Stalin emphasized that all industrial establishments should be of great size (preferable the largest in the world). This came to be known as "gigantomania" by the Western observers. The results of taking on these astronomical industrial establishments were high accident rates and shoddy production. The high death rate and exposure to disease was an acceptable cost for Stalin. Stalin's motto was that "technology decides everything" no matter at what cost. After Peter's death, in 1929 the Soviet Union launched the first five-year plan, a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the economy.
>Three of the monumental projects in the early Five-Year Plans were the building of the world's largest hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River, the construction of the world's largest steel plant (Magnitogorski) and the digging of the White Sea Canal. These Soviet industrialization projects were greatly flawed and wasteful, costing many people who worked both voluntarily and involuntarily their lives.
>Many engineers, including Peter Palchinsky warned the USSR not to rush and go ahead with the building of the dam. They argued that the water flow was ultimately going to be too slow and no good studies had been made of the flow patterns of surface and underground water in the area. Ultimately, 10,000 farmers were forced out of their farmland with little or no compensation
>Construction began in 1929 at the site of one of the country's richest iron deposits, known as Magnetic Mountain. Peter Palchinsky published articles in 1926 and 1927 complaining that the Soviet government was going ahead with plans for the construction of the mining plant without adequate studies of geological resources, availability of labor, economics of transportation and supplying proper housing for the work force.