Terror in Soviet Industry: Tensions between Managers, Workers, and the Secret Police, 1930s

“Terror in Soviet Industry: Tensions between Managers, Workers, and the Secret Police, 1930s” understands the nature of terror—a wave of arrests, purges, investigations, and death sentences in the Soviet industrial sector against management in the 1930s and contributes to the debate of who is responsible for the terror that was carried out. Behind the Urals by John Scott written in 1942, an American welder who worked in the Soviet Union, provides detailed insight on his experiences of working in Soviet industry: including terror, unsanitary housing conditions for workers, and the grueling workdays. Scott’s American industrial skillset earned him a well-respected position working in Soviet Industry. This source draws on the perspective of a valuable industrial worker who witnessed the terror of his supervisors and Scott’s personal discussion on how the secret police interrogated the managers within industry