User:DRogers86/sandbox

By the end of the 1920s, Soviet industry suffered from a high rate of industrial accidents caused by the forceful execution of unrealistic production plans and low management skills of the politically appointed directors. Stalin, however, saw this as an opportunity to clean up the management of "the old specialists", professionals whose skills were critical to the industry but were not sufficiently engaged with communism politically. In his 1923-25 speeches he frequently expressed hostility to this group, and inspired public resentment against them, for example, based on their relatively high earnings. Accusing them of "sabotage" was a convenient way of replacing "the old specialists" with people with more appropriate political views. "The proper way to deal with the matter would have been for the Soviet government to have given some indication of their suspicion. Then those suspected could have been reprimanded or removed from the U.S.S.R. The indecent haste of arrests was, indeed, a piece of "lamentable foolishness." (p. 245).

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