Late last summer Stalin proclaimed Russia's most ambitious hydroelectric and irrigation program: huge dams at Kuibyshev and Stalingrad on the Volga, at Kakhovka on the Dnieper, and at Takhia-Tash on the Amu Darya; canals connecting the Ukraine with the Crimea, and the Caspian Sea with the Amu Darya.
Last week, analyzers of Russian propaganda texts found that in each of the projects, "Comrade S. Y. Zhuk" had the job of "prospecting and research." Zhuk, longtime NKVD man, was a top boss on the infamous Baltic-White Sea canal project (1931-33) and the Moscow-Volga (1932-37) canal project—in which thousands of prisoners were...
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