Red Arctic chronicles the history of Stalinist Russia's massive campaign to explore and develop its Northern territories during the 1930s. Author John McCannon draws upon groundbreaking archival research to recount the dramatic stories of the polar expeditions - oceanic voyages, aerial rescues, and record-breaking flights - that became the pride of Stalin's Soviet Union.

McCannon also exposes the reality behind these exploits: chaotic blunders, bureaucratic competition, and the eventual rise of the GULAG as the dominant force in the North.

Red Arctic also traces the development of the polar-based popular culture of the decade, making use of memoirs, films, radio broadcasts, children's books, and cultural ephemera ranging from placards to postage stamps to show how Russia's "Arctic myth" became an integral part of the overall socialist-realist aesthetic that animated Stalinist culture throughout the 1930s.