The White Sea Canal; being an account of the construction of the new canal between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea

London: John Lane / The Bodley Head. Very Good. [1935]. First English Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [a good sound copy, blemished only by some uneven fading to the covers and a slight bump to the lower front corner; one-time owner's name in pencil on front endpaper]. (B&W photographic plates, map) An English translation of the official USSR-sanctioned history of the construction of the 141-mile canal between the White Sea and Lake Onega, which is further connected to the Baltic Sea. Today known as the White Sea-Baltic Canal, it was initiated by Joseph Stalin and built in twenty months between 1931 and 1933. The English-language introduction, somewhat delicately, calls it "a ticklish engineering job, in the middle of primeval forests, [accomplished] by tens of thousands of enemies of the State" -- which is to say, political prisoners, performing forced labor. According to Wikipedia, various estimates of the death toll of workers range between 12,000 and 25,000, but you won't find a discussion of that part of the project in this volume, which hews to the Party line and makes this astonishing statement at the end of Chapter I, "The Problem": "And by whose work is all this to be accomplished? Ths sounds the most Utopian part of the plan, for the work is to be a double one; the task is to be attempted not by tried heroes of the revolution, but by the very men who have set themselves to work against it; the men are are to forge this new tool for the Five Year Plan are themselves to be re-forged." In other words, the official line was that this was really a rehabilitation/re-education project, with the promise of the prisoners being returned to civilian life with newly-acquired skills (and attitudes) at the end of their ordeal; all they had to do was live through it. (At least the authorities made good on that promise, for the survivors: "After the successful construction, 12,484 prisoners were freed as reward, and 59,516 prison terms were shortened." (Wikipedia)). The whole enterprise was a propaganda bonanza for the Soviet regime (and Stalin himself), of which this book was more or less the culmination: much of the material for it was gathered by the so-called Writers Brigade, a small army of writers who were given what was no doubt a carefully-choreographed visit to the construction site in August 1933; it's generally believed that the writers, under the leadership of Maxim Gorky (who was no doubt selected as the figurehead due to his great popularity, but did not himself participate in the 1933 site visit), were not made fully aware of the less savory aspects of the project. The book, published in 1934, was an unqualified rave; in its final chapter, "Maxim Gorky Sums Up," the writer lauds the whole thing as "one of the most brilliant victories of human energy over the bitterness and wildness of nature [and] more than that: it is also a splendidly successful attempt at the transformation of thousands of former enemies of Soviet society [into] qualified helpers of the working class." "This labour reform policy," he continues, "this policy of education by teaching the truths of Socialism through socially useful labour, has been splendidly justified." (Historians still dispute how much Gorky was aware of the horrendous conditions under which the laborers were working, but it's undeniable that he was a big fan of most Soviet policies, forced labor included. It's interesting to note that for this English edition, the frontispiece photo is of Gorky rather than Stalin, as in the Russian edition; Uncle Joe's photo is still there, but in the book's final chapter.) The book was a big bestseller in the USSR, and plenty of copies in Russian are in the marketplace today; the English version, not so much. This copy has a small printed card laid in: "With the Compliments of the Season, from Black Sea & Baltic General Insurance Company Ltd., 106 Fenchurch Street, London, E.C.3." .