Russia and Its Neighbors - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 215

cow was hunted to extinction in only 30 years. The government passed
a Forest Code in 1888, but it was weak and ineffective. The 1892 hunting
law replaced one from a century earlier but was riddled with exemp-
tions. Its goal was more to provide plentiful game for aristocratic hunters
than to protect animals. In spite of Russia's late start, by the end of the
19th century, industry was developing rapidly. In terms of manufacturing,
it was the fastest-growing country in the world.
The Communists, who won power in October 1917, exalted industry.
This was a central tenet of Marxist analysis, for without it there could be
no revolution, and no building of socialism. This was both because Marx
believed the revolution would occur in an industrial state when the pro-
letariat rose up against the owners, and because the goal of Communism
was material well-being. The new regime promoted industrialization
ruthlessly. Nature was to be exploited for the benefit of the proletariat.
All natural resources and nearly all private property became owned and
operated by the state. During the 1920s the government invested in coal
mining, steel making, and chemicals. Electric generating plants were built,
both hydro and coal, and the grid was extended. Electricity became a sym-
bol of the accomplishments of the revolution. In the 1930s, peasants were
forced off their farms, where for generations they had cultivated the land
with a respect for the soil, and were herded onto huge collective farms,
which depended on chemical fertilizer and heavy machinery, and which
eroded the soil. Lenin and Stalin promoted gigantic projects like hydro-
electric and irrigation dams that dried up delicate grasslands. Hydro-
electric dams on the Volga and Dnieper Rivers built by Gulag prisoners,
flooded vast areas and ruined much farmland.
Fortunately for the environment, the most grandiose proposal was never
completed. This was a scheme to supposedly change the climate of central
Russia by diverting two rivers, the Ob and the Yenesi, which flowed north
to the Arctic Ocean to flow south to the Caspian Sea. The purpose was to
provide irrigation for agriculture. Additionally, it would have made the
Arctic Ocean more salty by reducing the flow of freshwater into the sea.
A saltier ocean would not freeze as easily, tipping the balance to an ice
free Arctic. Planners believed this would allow ship navigation and permit
agriculture farther north.
The dams the Soviets actually built did enough damage. The Aral Sea
dried up to a third of its natural size. Fish everywhere died out due to
pollution. Rivers and lakes suffered from contamination. The Caspian Sea
(actually a freshwater lake) was poisoned by agricultural chemicals and