It’s a shame this review didn’t find time to discuss, or even, really, mention, any of the Soviet Union’s “many faults”.
I think it is possible (just about) to find value in the cultural and artistic output of barbarous regimes and institutions (I’ve admired plenty of castles and cathedrals in my time), but you should at least acknowledge their socio-economic context.
I haven’t read the book being reviewed, but for the reviewer to write about the post-1920s Soviet Union and conclude that it was characterised by, or offers inspiration for, “workers building, literally, the world they want for themselves” seems, let’s say, a bit off.
What were the working conditions of the construction workers who built these buildings, I wonder? Did they have independent unions? What would have happened to them if they had attempted to organise strikes?
The Soviet Union’s was an economy based on hyper-exploitation and, frequently, semi-enslaved labour. However good its design values were, if you lose sight of that, you lose touch with basic political morality.
Possibly some of that is in the book. If so, it would’ve been nice to get some suggestion of it in the review. Anyway... here’s some Irving Howe on forced labour in Stalinist Russia. This is not a society that gives us a vision for a better world. marxists.org/history/etol/w…
