ABSTRACT
Serious efforts began only after the 1920s, with the first construction of the "Little BAM," which lay approximately midway across the main east-west axis, and the work was interrupted by the war. Between 1970 and 1975, the East-West debate tested political careers. Instead, he built one of the most powerful political machines in Russia and became a major spokesman for the economic development of his province in particular and Western Siberia in general. During the 1960s, Siberian Party leaders like Ligachev, Dolgikh, and others contented themselves with building patron-client relationships in Greater Siberia, an activity Brezhnev condoned. The idea of using rights and privileges to entice the migration of workers to out-of-the-way places had been around since May 1932, but the abundance of slave labor during the prewar and war years rendered the concept almost unnecessary. Fundamental researchers, such as Aganbegyan and Zaslavskaya, went into the business of pragmatic regional planning and development.
