Evening star., 1938-03-20
GIANT STEEL CITY
BUILT BY SOV|ETS
Original Plans Are HaIved,
However, in Curtai|ing
5-Year Programs.
BY JOSEPH BARNES,

BY JOSEPH BARNES,
New York Herald Tribune Correspondent
MAGNITOGORSK, Siberia. March
19.-The Stain Steel Works at Mag
nitogorsk, planned to eclipse Gary,
Ind, by the end of 1887 as the worlds
largest steel plant. has accomplished
almost exactly half of that ambitious
plan. 1t is the largest single giant Of
the Soviet Unions two five-year plans,
but its original blueprints have ap-
parently been quietly cut in two.
Although no official decision about
Its future has been announced only
100, 100000 rubles have been allotted
Tor construction during 1898. More
than 10 times this sum has already
been invested in the plant and its
socialist city" Some of its planned
production figures for 1888 have been
Whitfield below what was actually pro-
duced in 1887.
Magnitogorsk, which was tract of
empty ASiatic Steppe when the first
flve-year plan began, is now a steel
city of 100000 inhabitants. 1t is the
Soviet Unions largest single producer
of iron. These drastic changes in its
plans, therefore, are not purely local.
They are part of a new industrial
policy which promises to dominate the
third flve-year plan, officially begun
last month.
New Construction Slowed.
This policy, as it is being applied in
the Urals, will slow up the speed of
new construction. 1t will ease the
pressure on over-worked and badly
treated machinery. 1t will release
men, money and materials for urgent
military needs. Finally, it will empha-
size quality and costs in heavy indus
try, instead of the quantity and speed
indices with which the hurrying Boil
sheviks have SO far measured their
successes.
has been foreshadowed in speeches
and DEGREES coming from the Kremlin
in recent weeks. In the UralS. behind
the armed guards who now surround
every important Soviet plant, it is
taking concrete form.
Unlike most Soviet cities, Magni-
togorsk has no pre- -BolShevik past to
cloud its reflection of changes in
Soviet life and policies 1t is a brand
new city in the middle of treeleSs
birdless steppe, l24 miles east of the
Ural watershed which divides Europe
cJn hn S,.c& IN,,i1I II
set up their barracks here on the
narrow Ural River in March, 1929,
the local population consisted of so
kirghiz cattle grazing families. The
barracks have now become a sprawl
ing city II miles long, with 100000 in
habitants. surrounding the eighth
largest iron and steel plant in the
world.
Industrial Giant.
Even # only four of its planned
eight blast furnaces have been con-
structed. with the other four appar-
emily indefinitely postponed, Magnito-
gorsk is an industrial giant. In 1887.
the sixth year after it began to pour
iron into Siberia, it produced 1,403,-
600 tons of steel. more than the total
production of Sweden Czechoslovakia
or Poland. In 1888, according to
plan. its open hearths will turn out
5000 tons of steel day.
The plants 1.558,OOO tons of pig
iron produced last year were equal to
almost half the total output of Russia
hnfnrn fhn nd
cent of total Soviet production In
steel and in rolled metal, the plant
at present produces roughly 10 per
cent of the Soviet total.
During 1887 the plants ledgers
showed profit of 59,O0O.OOO rubles
compared with 100000 in 1886. The
four blast furnaces-there are only
eight in the United States of equal
size-have worked consistently at l25
per cent of the capacity output esti-
mated by the Arthur G. Mckee Co. of
Cleveland, which designed them.
Socialist City" Erected.
Beside the factory, Socialist city"
housing 10000 persons has shot up out
of the steppe. More than $500 other
workers live in individual concrete
or brick houses built with state loans.
Although the barracks where two
thirds of the workers live are as bare
and primitive as the landscape which
surrounds them, they are far better
housing than the peasant huts from
which most of the workers were re-
cruited.
There is little misery to be seen
In Magnitogorsk. and no hunger.
Stores are a little better stocked
than in Moscow, and prices are lower
1t is a Siberian city where Moscow
trained specialists do not feel them
selves in exile.
This f1edgling city has At schools
and two Institutes of university rank.
one-flfth of the city is enrolled in
some kind of formal study. The city
has its own theater. playing every
night in playhouse as well equipped
as any in Moscow.