The Masters of the Flood

In 1934, Corrado Alvaro undertook an extensive journey through the Soviet Union, visiting Moscow, Leningrad, the Volga, the industrial region of Stalingrad, and the Caucasus as far as Baku. The result was this book, published the following year, which remains one of the most astute and distinctive accounts of the "Soviet phenomenon." Steering clear of both Party apologetics and preconceived condemnations, Alvaro observes Stalinist Russia with the eye of a writer more interested in the human being than in ideology. At the heart of his inquiry lies the search for the *chelovek*—the "New Soviet Man"—shaped by the revolution, forced industrialization, and a mystique of collective sacrifice. Alvaro depicts a world where the past has been erased as if by a great flood, and where new "masters" attempt to refound humanity on purely rational and technical grounds. Yet, beneath the veneer of propaganda and statistics, the writer uncovers the ancient Russian soul: the resignation, the mysticism transposed into the cult of machines and the State, and the perennial struggle between the individual and the mass. It is a work that transcends mere travelogue to become a profound reflection on the destiny of Western civilization and the relationship between man and history.