The press told glorious tales of accomplishment. The Turkestan–Siberian railway completed. New industrial combinats opened in the Urals, in Siberia, everywhere. Collectivization 100 per cent completed in one province after another. Open letters of ‘thanks’ to Stalin for new factories, new housing projects . . . Which was the reality, which the illusion? The hunger and terror in the villages, the homeless children – or the statistics of achievement?
