Published by the Harvard University Press in 1993, it describes the life of Peter Palchinsky, in whom it personifies the struggles and misfortunes of Soviet industrialization.

Joseph Stalin had an ideological outlook for economic advancement in the Soviet Union that set unrealistic goals that required massive human effort.

[2] After Peter's death, in 1929 the Soviet Union launched the first five-year plan, a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the economy.

Destroyed and rebuilt twice after World War II, it has been expanded several times and is still in operation today as one of six hydroelectric dams on the Dnieper River.

Peter Palchinsky published articles in 1926 and 1927 complaining that the Soviet government was going ahead with plans for the construction of the mining plant without adequate studies of geological resources, availability of labor, economics of transportation and supplying proper housing for the work force.

Workers were promised a "garden city" away from industry and instead got barracks with open sewers directly in the path of blast furnace fumes.