Abstract :
OVER THE years in this column we´ve dealt with lots of different types of engineering, from the greasy mechanical stuff to genetics, but we´ve never tackled that thorniest of all engineering subclasses - social engineering. The problem with social engineering is that the material you´re working with has a habit on undoing the work you´ve done, moving itself back from where you placed it and reforming itself either as it was before or in a new and wholly unexpected way. Nowhere was this more so than in pre-war Soviet Russia.
