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118 ANDREA GRAZIOSIOrdzhonikidze—and, above all, countless prikazy about the direction ofindustry. 14The number of these prikazy, the variety of the subjects they cover, andthe importance and detail of the questions they address are proof of themaniacal nature of Piatakov's dedication to the building of that system oflarge state industry, which was now perhaps the only thread linking him tothe past. Although this construction took place under conditions and at acost very different from those he had imagined, it did respect some of theprinciples he had established in the 1920s: the absolute privilege accordedto large state industry; the openness toward the West—now limited to technologyalone; the high investment "rhythms," etc. Together with these principlessurvived some traces of the old beliefs in this process of building.Here and there, in certain of Piatakov's speeches, in the memoirs of some"builders" like Frankfurt, in addition to professions of faith in the superiorityof the system of state industry over its capitalist competitors, apparentlysincere hopes surfaced that, once the foundations were laid (at the price ofthe unheard-of sacrifices imposed upon the population), chapters that hadtemporarily been closed could be reopened.But more often, at least in those "builders" in whom the ideologicalmatrix had been stronger and especially in many of those who had been ofthe opposition (one could also refer, for example, to Gvakhariia,Ordzhonikidze's favorite), instead of the old ideology we find an "ideologyof fanatical work," of identification with heavy industry, of dedication tothe new gosudarstvennost', of building for the sake of building, in which,perhaps, these people buried themselves in the hope of forgetting what theywere doing. Victor Krawchenko has some very convincing pages on this.And it suffices to read the last, long, handwritten letter from the Urals sentby Piatakov to Ordzhonikidze the very day before his arrest (which he knewto be imminent, though still hoped to avoid)—a letter packed with technicalitiesand industrial problems—to realize that for Piatakov, too, work wasthe magic drug which up to the last minute kept life bearable (and was,perhaps, also a guarantee of physical survival, with the delusion that onewould become "indispensable").14After 1932, most of the NKTP prikazy were not published. Boris B. Lebedev, the archivistin charge of the NKTP fond (I take this opportunity to thank him for his help and kindness),calculates that approximately 70 to 80 percent remained secret. Happily, these escaped the1941 fire. Piatakov's letters to Ordzhonikidze can be found in the latter's secret fond in theformer Central Party Archives.