In his 2006 film about Stalinism, Joebuilding, Jonathan Meades explains how the Soviet Union set out to bend the environment, as it did people, to its will. ‘[Stalin] was a greater force than nature, he created inland seas, his slave labourers died in their thousands digging bloated canals more ostentatious than utility demanded. . . their function was to prove the state’s might. Like many autocrats before him, Stalin determined to control the climate.