Blood Money - Inside the Soviet Economy

In 1941, as Nazi Germany invaded, the USSR faced collapse. Stalin ordered entire factories moved east by train-steelworks, tank plants, munitions lines. Millions of workers became an army of labor, rebuilding industry and forging weapons far from the front.

By 1942, Soviet industry-rebuilt in the east-fueled the Red Army with mass-produced tanks, planes, and weapons, reversing the tide at Stalingrad. But while the war economy thrived, civilians starved under famine and rationing. With Allied aid and relentless sacrifice, the USSR rose as an industrial giant-at a staggering human cost.