h i st or y the harsh reality for tens of thousands of workers
forced to live for decades in shanty towns, poorly heated shacks
or dugouts in the ground. Food supply was always inadequate, and
during the war irregular; labour turnover was remarkably high in
a country where formally leaving a vital job could bring tough
penalties; and Russians as young as twelve worked long hours
with few holidays in conditions where industrial accidents and
illnesses were epidemic. The vast exodus of workers and
machinery in 1941 from the areas invaded by Axis armies is used
by Samuelson to support his argument that the Soviet Union,
despite or perhaps because of these hardships, was much more
prepared for a successful large-scale mobilisation for war than
had once been thought. However, conditions in Cheliabinsk
province for the more than 400,000 who arrived there were such
as to almost defy belief that it could have been possible within
months to establish large-scale tank production, in view of the
enforced and exhausting