The United States that we live in makes it very hard for us to fathom what a struggling nation is like to live in. In the United States, we are socialized to believe that America is the most superior of all the countries and our prosperity will continue to grow. We are very fortunate to be born into a relatively high standard of living as a society, thus we cannot comprehend what it is like for countries trying to build societies from the bottom up. John Scott portrays this brilliantly in his book "Behind the Urals" as he examines individual people and their struggles as they worked in Magnitogorsk. These citizens worked in the most inhumane conditions, all with the intention to help their country develop under the new system of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had just gone through an entire turn around in their political, social, and economic spheres as they went from one extreme to another. The old Czarist government was always out to serve the rich landowners, while treating the peasantry as second-class humans rather than equals. However, when the Russian Revolution came to a head, and the Red Communists or Bolsheviks defeated the White Czarists, Russia was left with an entirely new system of thought in its government. This ideology viewed the working class and peasantry as the main citizens in their society, while the rich landowners were not nearly as powerful as they once were. Thus the workers of Magnitogorsk held a very important position as they had the responsibility to help the Soviet Union take flight as a country that could compete with other powerful countries of the world, all while working under the most inhumane conditions. John Scott moved to the Soviet Union leaving the United States and in his eyes, its unsatisfactory capitalistic way of governing. Scott may have been aided in making his decision as he saw the United States slip into the Great Depression, a time when the conditions in America reached ...
