Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Christopher J. Ward. Brezhnevs Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. xiv, 232 pp. $50.00.
This monograph offers a fascinating account of what Soviet leaders called the construction project of the century. This third attempt at building the Baikal-Amur Railway
(BAM), which lasted from 1974 to 1984, involved half a million people, two-thirds of
whom belonged to the Komsomols. It was to foster socialist ideals among young people
and exploit more effectively the natural resources of eastern Siberia, thus bringing
about a society of tomorrow for the Soviet Union. Brezhnevs Folly uses state,
Communist Party, and Komsomol archives in Moscow and Irkutsk, press materials, and
oral interviews to explore dynamic social and political processes taking place in the
Brezhnev era, the so-called era of stagnation. It considers how the BAM construction
zone magnified this eras social and political problems.
Brezhnevs Folly highlights the BAM construction projects contradictory environmental politics. Soviet media and Moscow policy makers glorified the transformation
of the eastern Siberian wilderness by BAM construction workers, the bamovtsy. They
drew on Promethean themes of overcoming nature that had resounded in earlier mass
construction projects. However, an embryonic ecological movement (p. 40) emerged
among scholars and those immediately involved in BAM construction efforts. Local
journalists, Komsomol activists, BAM construction leaders, and members of the AllRussian Society for the Protection of Nature (VOOP) criticized the ecological damage
caused by railroad construction and related industries. Their criticisms, hedged in the
rhetoric of Soviet socialist ideals, failed to discourage polluters. BAM leaders and bamovtsy belittled environmental protection campaigns by the VOOP, the Komsomols, and
BAM construction leaders. However, local criticisms of polluters highlighted the
peripherys role in fostering ecological consciousness in the Brezhnev era.
There were glaring discrepancies between publicity about the bamovtsy and their
actual behavior in the BAM construction zone. Central press materials lauded bamovtsy for bringing about a society of tomorrow and a twenty-first century civilization. However, bamovtsy failed to uphold the values of a Communist morality. Despite
attempts at self-policing by local Komsomols, hooliganism, theft, black market speculation, violence, drunkenness, rape, and fleeing the construction zone strained law
enforcement and Komsomol resources. BAM leaders engaged in graft. Corrupt law
enforcement and a lack of adequate leisure facilities made such behavior problems
worse. By the time of BAMs supposed completion in 1984, the BAM zone had become
a magnet for people of questionable character.
Contradictions over gender, nationality, and cooperation with socialist and Third
World states surfaced in the BAM zone. Soviet media portrayed female bamovtsy as
heroines, while women occupied less skilled jobs and men dominated management
and skilled labor. A lack of appropriate childcare facilities discouraged female bamovtsy
from staying. Sexism at the workplace was rampant, as seen in incidents of rape, sexual
harassment, and rude jokes about female bamovtsy. BAM officials turned down letters
by enthusiastic young women who had wanted to join the project. The 1984 dismissal of
the BAM zone musical director revealed prejudices against women in positions of
authority. Despite claims that the BAM forged solidarity among the Soviet Unions
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013
DOI 10.1163/221023912X642808