HIST 3203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Non-Ferrous Metal, Quality Control, Magnitogorsk
Document Summary
At the outbreak of wwi there had been 3 million factory workers. Because of the war and civiil war, this number shrunk to 1 million by 1921. People left the cities to make the ends meet. By the start of the second five year plan, however, a massive transformation happened. 23 million factory workers were there by 1932. There was a huge influx of peasants from the countryside, causing problems. It was impossible to train them properly, and thus the accident rate was horrendous. John scott, an american worker who went there during the great depression, described working in these factories. Every few minutes he claimed a peasant would fall by the window off of the roof. You work intensively for short periods of time in the country, and worked by the rhythm of the seasons.
