This is a paperbound reprint of a 2005 book. Focusing on the shop floor activism of a single strategically important metal factory, Murphy (history, U. of Massachusetts) examines the evolution of working class attitudes to the evolution of the Soviet system. After a chronological account of the pre-revolutionary period, the revolution, and the first Five-Year Plan, he devotes most of his energy to a thematic accounting of the period of the New Economic Policy, partly because of the richness of the archival materials and partly because it was "the period in which Stalinism clashed head-on with the ideals of 1917." He looks at the rift between state and society as it manifested in class conflict, worker's day-to-day lives, and even formal opposition politics. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)