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The Soviet Problem with Two "Unknowns": How an American Architect and a
Soviet Negotiator Jump-Started the Industrialization of Russia, Part I: Albert
Kahn

Article · January 2010

DOI: 10.2307/41933723

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 THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY INDUSTRIAL ARCHEOLOGY
Volume 36, Number 2    2010
Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
ARTICLES
Meeting the Challenge of a Renewable Energy Resource:
Small-Scale Milling and Manufacturing in Southern New England
  Robert B. Gordon and Michael S. Raber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Reinventing the Waterwheel: Rediscovering the Knowledge of a Mid-Nineteenth Century Millwright in New England
  John P. Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Electrifying Independence Valley: Mining and Hydroelectricity in Nevada’s Northeastern Frontier (1896–1920)
  Christopher W. Merritt and Jacob N. Pollock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”: How an American Architect and a Soviet Negotiator
Jump-Started the Industrialization of Russia, Part I: Albert Kahn
  Sonia Melnikova-Raich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
REVIEWS
Industrial Archaeology: A Handbook, by Marilyn Palmer, Iron Coffin: War, Technology and Experience aboard the USS
Mike Nevell, and Mark Sissons Monitor, by David A. Mindell
  Colin Rynne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81   Robert C. Stewart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

The Roebling Legacy, by Clifford W. Zink Iowa’s Railroads: An Album, by H. Roger Grant and
  Donald Sayenga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Don L. Hofsommer
  Robert M. Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore,
1847–2006, by Terry S. Reynolds and Virginia P. Dawson The River and the Railroad: An Archaeological History of Reno,
  Jeffrey T. Manuel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 by Mary Ringhoff and Edward J. Stoner
  Molly Swords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Gun, by C. J. Chivers
  Patrick M. Malone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Silver of the Sierra Madre: John Robinson, Boss Shepherd,
To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure, by Henry Petroski and the People of the Canyons, by John Mason Hart
  Dario Gasparini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86   Bode Morin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Remediation of Former Manufactured Gas Plants and Other Subterranean Twin Cities, by Greg Brick
Coal-Tar Sites, by Allen W. Hatheway   Amanda Gronhovd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
  Martha Mayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Bridges: A Postcard History, by Geoffrey H. Goldberg with
Eldorado! The Archaeology of Gold Mining in the Far North, E. Ashley Rooney
edited by Catherine Holder Spude, Robin O. Mills, Karl   Donald C. Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Gurcke, and Roderick Sprague
  Paul J. White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

CONTRIBUTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Cover: Water-powered blast engine similar to that used at the Beckley furnace, East Canaan, Connecticut. See
“Meeting the Challenge of a Renewable Energy Resource,” pp 5–24.
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”:
How an American Architect and a Soviet
Negotiator Jump-Started the Industrialization
of Russia, Part I: Albert Kahn

Sonia Melnikova-Raich
Editor’s Note: This is the first half of a two-part article by on the relationship forged in the late 1920s between
American industrialists, especially Albert Kahn, the renowned factory architect, and the Soviet government,
which in the late 1920s and early 1930s sought the help of Americans to move the Soviet Union from a peasant
society to an industrial one. This first part focuses on that phase of Soviet-American interaction from the per-
spective of Kahn’s architectural firm. The second part, which will be published in the next issue of IA (volume
37, nos. 1–2), will focus on the Soviet-American commercial relationship from the perspective of Saul G. Bron,
who headed the American Trading Corporation (Amtorg), the Soviet-controlled agency responsible for con-
tracting with the Americans.

Soviet industrialization was a complex economic and political

undertaking about which much remains unclear. Rather than
“I listened to what people said they
examine the process as a whole, this essay focuses on two fairly
wanted and gave it to them.”
unknown players in the history of Soviet-American relations––
one American firm and one Soviet negotiator––and their con-
—Albert Kahn1
tribution to the amazingly rapid Soviet industrialization of the
early 1930s, emphasizing some human and business factors be-
hind Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. Saul G. Bron, during his tenure
as chairman of Amtorg Trading Corporation in 1927–1930, Soviet industrialization was a complex economic and
contracted with leading American companies to help build Soviet political undertaking about which much remains un-
industrial infrastructure and commissioned the firm of the fore- clear. Few issues are more controversial and ideologi-
most American industrial architect from Detroit, Albert Kahn, as cally-laden than the intertwined questions about the
consulting architects to the Soviet Government. The work of both origin of Soviet “superindustrialization” of the early
played a major role in laying the foundation of the Soviet auto- 1930s, the dual use of imported technology for civilian
motive, tractor, and tank industry and led to the development and military purposes, and Stalin’s policies toward Nazi
of Soviet defense capabilities, which in turn played an impor- Germany prior to its invasion of the Soviet Union. Even
tant role in the Allies’ defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. though Stalin’s crimes against his people were exposed
Drawing on Russian and English-language sources, this essay is in the 1950s by Khrushchev, it was—and for many in
based on comprehensive research including previously-unknown Russia still is—sacrilegious to question his role in indus-
archival documents, contemporaneous and current materials, trialization and the Second World War, the Great Pa-
and private archives. triotic War for people of the former U.S.S.R. who per-
ceived Stalin as their savior.2
Sonia Melnikova-Raich, “The Soviet Problem with Two ‘Unknowns’: How an
American Architect and a Soviet Negotiator Jump-Started the Industrialization of But regardless of whether, in the 1930s, Stalin’s Russia
Russia, Part I: Albert Kahn,” IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 36,
had been preparing for aggression, preventive war, or
no. 2 (2010): 57–80.
defense, by the time of the signing of the Molotov-Rib-
© 2013 by the Society for Industrial Archeology. All rights reserved. Please bentrop Pact in 1939 Russia was not the weak, poorly-
direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content
armed ally described in 1924 by Hitler contemplating a
through the Society for Industrial Archeology’s website: www.sia-web.org/ia-
journal/siaia.html. German-Russian war against Europe:

57
Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

  
Russia would completely drop out of this war as a technical factor. tilovets plant in Leningrad and was shown the assembly
. . . The universal motorization of the world, which will be over- room. “I stopped in astonishment,” wrote Sorensen in
whelmingly decisive in the next war, could hardly be met by us. For
not only has Germany itself remained shamefully far behind in this
his memoirs. “There on the floor lines they were build-
most important field, but with the little it has, it would have to sup- ing the Fordson tractor!”6 What Sorensen saw was the
port Russia, which even today cannot call its own a single factory Fordson-Putilovets, a wheeled tractor which the Soviets
in which can be manufactured a motor vehicle that really runs.3 were still trying unsuccessfully to mass-produce. Later
Sorensen found out that while the Putilovets managers
However, by the time of the Nazi invasion in 1941, the claimed they were making two tractors a day, the true
U.S.S.R. had turned itself from a weak country without rate was about twenty a month.7 “While the Russians had
a single homemade truck into a powerful military force. stolen the Fordson tractor design, they did not have any
After the initial blitzkrieg advance, Hitler was stunned of our specifications for the materials that entered into
to discover that the Red Army was much better armed the various parts. And you can’t find that out merely
than he expected. In his broadcast to the German peo- by pulling the machine apart,” wrote Sorensen. When
ple on October 3, 1941, he declared that the occupied asked what could be done to improve the antiquated
Soviet territories appeared to be “a single armaments plant, Sorensen responded that they should bring in a
factory,” and that before the occupation he could not barrel of dynamite and clear it out.
have imagined how far the U.S.S.R. had progressed in
its preparation for war. The Soviet arsenal became a ma- The 1923 plan, which anticipated domestic production
jor factor in the outcome of the War; but, one may ask, of 60,000 tractors over a ten-year period, was never fully
from where had it all come? implemented due to the division of effort among sever-
al small non-specialized plants, a shortage of materials,
lack of equipment, and the high cost and poor qual-
The Problem: “A weak country, ity of production.8 Instead, in 1925, the Soviet leader-
unprepared for defense” ship made the decision to build a large, modern plant,
Until the 1930s the U.S.S.R. did not have its own tank with construction to begin within two years, to produce
industry. It did not have automotive and tractor in- 20,000 tractors annually. The site for the future plant
dustries either. Before the revolution, there were less was chosen just north of Stalingrad,9 650 miles southeast
than 500 tractors in all Russia.4 The absence of tractors of Moscow, but little else was done. The failure of the
in particular was a catastrophic problem, and in 1921 domestic tractor program prompted the Soviet govern-
American tractor brigades, organized by the Friends of ment in 1926 to approach Ford with an offer to build a
Soviet Russia Society and the Jewish Joint Distribution tractor plant in Stalingrad as a concession. After spend-
Service, arrived in the U.S.S.R. equipped with Fordson ing five months in the U.S.S.R. in April–August 1926,
and Case tractors and other machinery to help revital- Ford experts expressed a number of concerns, includ-
ize Russia’s agriculture devastated by the revolution and ing safety and efficiency, but chiefly the fate of foreign
the three-year Civil War which followed. companies whose plants in Russia had been national-
ized, making them less than confident that the same
The domestic tractor industry in the Soviet Union was would not happen again, especially in the absence of
formally established by a decree of the Council of Labor diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
and Defense (STO) on March 4, 1923. Later in 1923 Furthermore, VSNKh’s Main Concessions Committee,
the Supreme Council on the National Economy of the Glavkonsesskom, asked Ford to advance credit to the
U.S.S.R. (VSNKh) created a special commission to de- Soviet government for the purchase of manufactured
velop the production plan.5 Its first task was to choose tractors at the government-set fixed prices, in addition
the most appropriate type of foreign tractor for pro- to investing millions of dollars in a plant.10 Ford flatly
duction in the U.S.S.R. and identify domestic factories declined this proposal. In September 1928 the site of
capable of this production. After considering Interna- the future Stalingrad tractor plant, in the words of its
tional Harvester, Holt, and several German models, in first director Vassily I. Ivanov, was still a “vast melon
May 1923 the commission selected Fordson. field” in the middle of open steppe.11

Six years later, when Ford’s production director, Charles In October 1928 Stalin announced the First Five-Year
Sorensen, came to the U.S.S.R., he visited the Krasny Pu- Plan (piatiletka). The declared goal was to convert the

58
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

U.S.S.R. from an agrarian and backward country into nies to help build Soviet industrial infrastructure and
an “industrial and mighty country independent of the commissioned Kahn’s firm to become consulting ar-
caprices of world capitalism,” and to develop heavy in- chitects to the Soviet Government.
dustry “with machine building at its core” and with “all
the necessary technical and economic prerequisites for
increasing to the maximum its defensive capability to “Unknown” No. One: Albert Kahn
enable it to organize decisive resistance to all and any
Albert Kahn, described by Time magazine in 1940 as a
attempt at military intervention from outside.”12 The
“small, merry architectural genius,” was born in 1869
supplementary notes to the Plan stated:
in Germany, the eldest of eight children of an impover-
  Machine-building in Russia prior to the revolution had hardly be-
ished rabbi. He was eleven when the family emigrated
gun to develop and the major part of the demand for machinery to Detroit. Early on, Kahn showed talent in drawing, but
was covered by imports. This condition has not changed greatly his formal education ended when the family emigrated.
up to the present time. . . . Automobiles and tractors, this brunch To help support his family, he had to take odd jobs, in-
of industry is practically non-existent.13 cluding a job as office boy for the architectural firm of
John Scott & Company. At the age of fifteen he started
At the onset of the piatiletka, ninety percent of all trac- architectural training as an unpaid apprentice drafts-
tors in the Soviet Union were imported, mostly from the man with Mason and Rice, where within seven years—
U.S., which in 1930 was still its principal source of trac- including a year-long study trip to Europe sponsored
tors.14 But by 1931 construction of the first giant Soviet by American Architect and Building News—he rose to the
tractor plant had been completed and two more were chief designer position. In 1895, with two other Mason
under way. American journalist, H.R. Knickerbocker, & Rice designers, Kahn started his first company, and in
the first foreign correspondent to visit those sites, was 1902, together with his younger brother, Julius, joined
especially impressed by the plant under construction later by Louis and Moritz Kahn, he started what would
at Chelyabinsk. Not only was its projected capacity go- become the most prolific architectural practice of its
ing to be 50,000 ten-ton 60-horsepower crawler tractors time in the U.S.A. Besides his talent, Kahn’s personality
annually, but it also appeared to be “most immediately was to a great degree responsible for the firm’s success.
convertible into military purposes,” and its products He was described as a self-motivated workaholic, hum-
were “so similar to tanks that they were in fact called ble yet determined, and was said to possess tremendous
‘tank-type.’”15 energy and clarity of focus, combined with highly pro-
fessional attitude and outstanding loyalty to his clients,
In January 1933 Stalin declared:
regardless of the project. The latter may have a special
  We didn’t have a steel industry, the foundation for industrializa-
significance for this story.17
tion; now we have it. We didn’t have a tractor industry; now we
have it. We didn’t have an automobile industry; now we have it. Kahn’s firm pioneered standardization and modular
. . . Consequently, the Soviet Union has been converted from a systems and developed a new type of industrial con-
weak country, unprepared for defense, into a country mighty in struction in which reinforced concrete replaced timber-
defense, prepared for every contingency, capable of producing
on a mass scale all modern weapons of defense and of equipping
frame and masonry. Kahn’s buildings were strong, fire-
its army in the event of an attack from outside.16 proof, inexpensive to erect, with wide-open inner space
unobstructed by columns, and with good lighting and
By the time of Hitler’s invasion in June 1941, the Red ventilation (they were often referred to as “daylight fac-
Army indeed was equipped with 24,000 tanks domesti- tories”). Built “all on one floor, all under one roof,” they
cally manufactured at three giant tractor-tank plants, also were easily expandable. He called them “beautiful
in Stalingrad, Kharkov, and Chelyabinsk. Soviet his- factories” and believed that designing a building where
torians hailed Stalin for this remarkable industrial human beings work should not be treated differently
transformation. However, a crucial and largely un- from designing a house, church, or library.
known role in making this possible was played by an
American architect from Detroit, Albert Kahn, and Kahn was mostly known as the “architect of Ford” but
by a Soviet negotiator, Saul G. Bron, who during his he also built his “beautiful factories” for all the other
tenure as chairman of Amtorg Trading Corporation great Michigan automakers, including Chevrolet,
in 1927–1930, contracted with leading foreign compa- Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Packard, Hudson, Chrysler, and

59
Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

De Soto, in addition to designing hospitals, banks, tem- or specialized in industrial construction to the extent
ples, libraries, clubs, and handsome mansions. By 1938 that Kahn had. Despite his dislike of Constructivist ar-
the firm handled about twenty percent of all architect- chitecture, Kahn’s industrial functionalism actually was
designed industrial buildings in the U.S. and numerous similar, although more pragmatic and devoid of an over-
projects around the world. No other architect had a arching theory. But architectural style was not the Soviet
greater influence on the development of modern in- government’s priority, but rather practicality, cost, and
dustrial architecture. Yet, several generations of Soviet speed of design and construction. While Soviet avant-
architects never heard Albert Kahn’s name, and in the garde architects were heavily involved in debates on ar-
West little has been written or remembered about the chitectural theory, Kahn’s solutions were grounded in
remarkable history of his work in Soviet Russia and the F.W. Taylor’s labor management theory combined with
impact it had.18 the “magical powers” of Ford’s moving assembly line.
Despite their origin in capitalist enterprise, Soviets con-
Kahn was noticed by the Soviet leadership in 1926 due sidered both Taylorism and Fordism to be “ideologically
to his work on Ford’s River Rouge Plant. It could not neutral” techniques that could serve the cause of com-
escape their attention either that Kahn’s firm designed munism as well as they had served capitalism.23 In fact,
more than $200 million worth of wartime structures Ford production methods became so popular in the
during the First World War and that he was the first U.S.S.R. that in addition to Lenin’s electrification and
American architect who fully integrated his practice to Stalin’s industrialization, the terms fordism and fordizat-
provide clients with what today would be called a one- sia were coined and, ironically, often used in media and
stop approach. He brought architects and engineers propaganda slogans about the advantages of the Social-
under one roof, introduced teamwork in design, and ist system over capitalism.24
even maintained his own on-site foremen to oversee the
construction. The Soviet leaders appreciated Kahn’s
design centered on the assembly-line method of mass Two contracts: “A commercial
production and his highly productive design process. relationship of great magnitude”
His staff of 400 could prepare the working drawings for Kahn was initially reluctant to accept the “dream job”
a major plant in less than a month and facilitate its con- offered by the Soviets. He still had plenty of work in the
struction within five months. And for the Soviet indus- U.S. with many promising prospects ahead (the stock
trialization program, time was of the essence. In 1928, market would crash six months later), and he “knew little
after a high-ranking commission of VSNKh had combed or nothing about the Russian Government.” But chiefly
the U.S. studying the American industrial scene, it paid he was reluctant because the United States did not rec-
a visit to Kahn’s firm. This, according to Kahn, was fol- ognize the Soviet government. He knew that most of his
lowed by an invitation to visit Saul G. Bron, the head of clients were strongly anti-communist and that anti-Sem-
the Russian trading company, Amtorg, in New York.19 ites in the U.S. “echoed what the Nazis were saying and
Kahn’s trip resulted in his firm being offered a contract accused the Jews of fostering Communism.” And yet the
for the design of a $4 million tractor plant, which, as it challenge fascinated him. He believed that “the Russian
was described to Kahn, was only part of a program for people—regardless of their form of government—were
$2 billion worth of industrial buildings.20 entitled to help after all their generations of suffering
under the czars. It was the right thing to do.”25
The development program presented to Kahn encom-
passed almost the entire industrial construction under During the next three years, Kahn’s firm became en-
the first and second Five-Year Plans. A significant part gaged in the industrial building program of the U.S.S.R.
of the design of this construction would land on the under the Five-Year Plan. The work was first done at the
drawing boards of Kahn architects and engineers.21 The Kahn headquarters in Detroit and later––in order to
Soviet government turned to Kahn’s firm because in handle a much greater volume of projects––in Moscow,
1929, despite fascinating avant-garde experimentation with assistance from the Soviet staff, for whom the Kahn
by Soviet architects of the Constructivist movement,22 no architects and engineers were providing training at the
architectural organization in the U.S.S.R. possessed the same time. The work was done under two contracts, one
experience in large-scale construction required for a signed on May 8, 1929, to design the first Soviet tractor
task of such magnitude. Nor had any architectural firm plant; another on January 9, 1930, to become consult-
in the U.S. designed a comparable number of factories ing architects for all industrial construction in the So-

60
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

viet Union. The work done by the Kahn architects and struction engineers, John K. Calder and Leon A. Swa-
engineers under these contracts would make a major jian, had arrived in Moscow with preliminary drawings
impact on the ability of the U.S.S.R. to fulfill its ambi- for the assembly building, foundry, and forge, and were
tious plan for the country’s industrialization. expected to depart for Stalingrad on July 2. Six weeks
later four more Americans followed with complete
On May 8, 1929, through the agreement signed with plans.29
Khan by Amtorg President Saul G. Bron, the Soviet
government granted Albert Kahn, Inc., a monumental In April 1929, six months after Stalin announced the
contract to design a tractor plant in Stalingrad. Under Five-Year Plan and two weeks prior to signing the Kahn
the agreement, Kahn’s firm, at its Marquette Building contract, the chairman of the Council of People’s Com-
office in Detroit, would prepare architectural and en- missars of the U.S.S.R. (Sovnarkom), A. I. Rykov, raised
gineering drawings of the main buildings, including an alarm about the technical preparedness of the coun-
plumbing, heating, ventilation and electrical systems, try to meet the goals set by the Plan:
and road and railroad access. They would also assist
in procurement of American construction materials,   I feel alarmed by many issues related to our technique and our
machinery, and equipment, as well as the installation technical cadres. . . . Shall we be able to cope with organizing
man-power, technical cadres, skilled labor? . . . Money alone is
work. In addition Kahn’s contract called for providing
not sufficient for the new construction work. . . . We also need
the key construction personnel—the chief construction technical and organizing cadres, from skilled labor to engineers
supervisor, installation specialists, and key foremen. of the highest qualification. . . . We have to make great efforts to
All the drawings and specifications could be used for assimilate West European and American technique.30
construction of that plant only and would remain the
property of the firm. For its work on the project Kahn’s But with the Kahn firm’s work now in progress, Stalin
firm would be paid $130,000 ($1,666,273 in 2012 dol- could confidently announce in a Pravda article “The
lars), plus 4 percent of the cost of additional buildings. Year of the Great Turning Point” published to boost the
All the plans had to be approved by Amtorg, which was Soviet people’s spirit for the celebration of the twelfth
responsible for the payments.26 anniversary of the Revolution:

The New York Times described the contract as “the begin-   By the spring of the coming year, 1930, we shall have over 60,000
ning of a commercial relationship between the Soviet tractors in the fields, a year later we shall have over 100,000 trac-
tors, and two years after that—over 250,000 tractors. . . . We are
Government and the Kahn architectural firm of great
advancing full steam ahead toward industrialization. . . . We are
magnitude.” It also quoted Henry Ford who, when he becoming a country of metal, a country of automobiles, a country
learned about the contract, instructed Kahn to tell the of tractors. And when we set the U.S.S.R. behind the wheel and
Russians that they could have all his patents, designs get muzhiks to drive tractors, then let the capitalists try to catch
and specifications, and pledged to send his engineers up with us.31
to Russia and to invite Soviet engineers into his plants
to learn about mass production. Said Ford: “No matter When Stalin made this announcement, he certainly had
where industry prospers, whether in India or China, or in mind more than a single plant. Negotiations with
Russia, the more profit there will be for everyone, in- Kahn about a contract on a much grander scale had al-
cluding us. All the world is bound to catch some good ready been under way since July 1929. On November 11,
from it.”27 1929, the chairman of VSNKh, V.V. Kuibyshev, reported
to the Central Committee that a major agreement with
In Russia the contract was announced in Torgovo-pro- Albert Kahn firm was approaching conclusion.32 On De-
myshlennaia gazeta (Trade and Industry Newspaper), cember 26, 1929, the Sovnarkom approved a draft for a
which was running a regular front-page column under new agreement under which Albert Kahn, Inc., would
the heading “Foreign Technical Assistance in Construc- enter into a contract with the VSNKh’s Building Commit-
tion of the Industrial Giants.” It wrote that Albert Kahn tee to provide consulting and supervision for design and
firm’s assistance “would guarantee that the plant would construction of buildings in all areas of light and heavy
be built on schedule and would benefit from all Ameri- industry, to which end the firm would install a design bu-
can modern technical achievements.”28 And less than reau in Moscow under the direct control of Kahn archi-
two months after Kahn signed the contract, on June 30, tects and engineers. Kahn’s firm would supply standard
1929, the paper reported that the first American con- factory layouts, detailed drawings, specifications, and

61
Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

other technical documentation “typical for architects On January 11 the Times hailed the agreement between
working in America,” which by the end of the contract, Kahn’s firm and the Soviet Government. In total, the pro-
together with site-specific designs developed by the firm’s gram called for the expenditure of nearly $2 billion dol-
specialists while working in the U.S.S.R., would become lars in 1930 alone and included the erection of four large
the property of VSNKh. Besides consulting and assis- car, truck, and motorcycle factories; nine tractor and
tance in organizing the design bureau, Kahn specialists’ farm machinery plants; and over 500 other plants and
responsibilities included direct involvement in preparing factories for light and heavy industry.35 Albert Kahn em-
the drawings and specifications for the industrial projects phasized the comprehensive nature of the project: “Not
planned by VSNKh and on-site supervision in construc- only did the plants have to be designed, but machinery
tion of these projects. Kahn personnel were to include a had to be selected and ordered, process layouts had to be
chief architect; six architects specializing in various types prepared, and the very tools needed to build the plants
of industrial buildings; chief engineers for construction had to be ordered here and shipped over.”36
and computation; chief engineers for equipment and for
heating, ventilation, plumbing, sewerage, electrical and In his statement to the press, Moritz Kahn, vice presi-
power systems, and a number of assistants. The contract dent of the firm, who negotiated the contract in Moscow,
would be for two years and the Soviet government would emphasized that Kahn principles of standardized mass
pay the firm annually $250,000 ($3,152,000 in 2012 dol- production in industrial construction were intrinsically
lars), plus an average annual salary of $10,000 ($126,000) compatible with centralized planning and government-
to each Kahn specialist working in the U.S.S.R., tax free. owned industry in the Soviet Union: “There will be but
Eighty-five percent of the firm’s fee would be paid in dol- one client to serve and but one centralized architectural
lars and 15 percent in Soviet 9-percent railroad bonds, bureau.” All factory buildings for any one type of product
which would be paid out at maturity in convertible cur- could be built on these standardized principles, resulting
rency. Salaries of Kahn’s specialists would be paid 75 per- in great savings in time and cost of design and construc-
cent in dollars and 25 percent in rubles. For the projects tion. The Soviet state, operating through Amtorg as a
designed in the Detroit office the firm would be compen- single super-buyer, ensured a unique bargaining position
sated separately.33 in purchases of materials and equipment. Additional sav-
ings of millions of dollars would result from Kahn archi-
This seminal agreement, which made Albert Kahn, Inc., tects assisting in the revision of Soviet ultra-conservative
consulting architects for all industrial construction in the building codes. In conclusion, addressing American
Soviet Union, was signed on January 9, 1930.34 (figure 1) manufacturers, Moritz Kahn reminded them that car-
rying out the Soviet industrialization program would re-
quire the importation by the Soviets of great quantities of
manufacturing, mining, railroad, agricultural, and other
machinery and equipment.37

On the Soviet side, describing the contract, Izvestia wrote

that its objective was “to adopt by means of practical
joint work of Soviet and American specialists the latest
methods and achievements of American technique.” It
also reported that Kahn’s Soviet counterpart, Stroiobye-
dinenie, was sending twenty-five engineers to work at
Kahn’s office in Detroit to familiarize themselves with
all the firm’s projects and to study the latest methods of
construction technology.38 At the same time, as provided
by the contract, Kahn’s firm was sending the same num-
ber of experienced architects and engineers to set up
a special design bureau in Moscow and to take leading
Figure 1. Signing contract: left, Albert Kahn; right, Saul G. Bron,
positions at that bureau.39
President of Amtorg. Standing center, Moritz Kahn; left, N. Ol’khovsky,
and right, J. Michaels, attorneys at Amtorg. Detroit, 9 January 1930. This bureau, which by 1932 would employ two thou-
Photo courtesy of Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. sand Soviet workers, was formed under the Building

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 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Committee of VSNKh, by a decision VSNKh made on occupied by the architects, one by the structural engi-
March 5, 1930. It was named Gosproektstroi (State De- neers, another by the mechanical engineers, and still
sign and Construction) and became the largest design- another by the detailers of structural steel. Moritz Kahn,
ing organization in the U.S.S.R. It was an answer to the who stayed in Moscow for several months at a time, be-
prayers of the Soviet planners who, by 1929, realized came the head of the American advisory engineering
that in order to implement the Five-Year Plan, instead staff at Gosproektstroi; George K. Scrymgeour became
of scattered small-scale design studios (masterskie), they this organization’s chief engineer. The segment of Kahn
needed “one powerful organization” which would “em- organization that was dispatched to Russia was “compe-
ploy American expertise in its work and at the same tent within itself to handle all general phases of con-
time pass on this expertise to as many construction or- struction design and structural engineering.” As special-
ganizations and young Soviet specialists as possible.”40 ized problem arose, additional specialists were sent by
the Kahn firm to supplement the original group.44 In his
A party of forty-five Americans, headed by Moritz Kahn, 1934 report to the American Society of Civil Engineers,
who was delegated by the firm to set up the Moscow Scrymgeour described that the Kahn group’s role was
operation, left Detroit on March 20, 1930. The group “to control, teach and design all light and heavy indus-
included twenty-five specialists, their spouses, and an try” planned by the Soviet State Planning Commission
eleven-year-old child.41 (figure 2) During a farewell par- (Gosplan), and that by the end of the second year, the
ty and press conference prior to their departure, Albert Kahn group completed the design of buildings costing
Kahn refuted allegations of sympathizing with Bolshe- (according to Soviet figures) 417 million rubles.45
vik Russia by stating that the politics of Russia did not
interest him and, as a professional man, his attitude to- According to the annual report of Gosproektstroi, in
wards Russia was “that of a doctor toward his patient.”42 1931 Kahn specialists supervised 600 Soviet employ-
After stops in London and Berlin, and before boarding ees in Moscow, 300 in Leningrad, and 100 in Kharkov,
a train for Moscow, a member of the group, George K. not counting students, and by that time 2,500 Soviet
Scrymgeour, mailed a card to Albert Kahn: “All happy workers had gone through Kahn training. By the end
and ready for the task come what will.”43 of the second year, additional branches of Gosproekt-
stroi opened in Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Sverd-
lovsk, and Novosibirsk, all using the same organiza-
Gosproektstroi: “A marvel of efficiency” tional setup and standardization methods, utilizing the
Kahn’s Moscow headquarters at Gosproektstroi opened American standard system and details applied to Rus-
on April 15, 1930. It was housed in a five-story building sian conditions, which was termed russko-amerikanskaia
at 2/10 B. Cherkassky pereulok, where two floors were sistema (the Russian-American system). Standard con-

Figure 2. Moritz Kahn, his staff, and their

spouses at Grand Central Station, New York,
en route to Moscow. Center, standing, Moritz
Kahn; to his right, his wife Edith. 6 March 1930.
Photo courtesy of Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.

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Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

struction methods and details were developed in Mos- the Ford-Kahn principles of factory design and to teach
cow and then distributed to all branches. At that time drafting to their government-assigned assistants, most
Kahn specialists supervised over 3,000 Soviet designers. of whom came directly from school and had no pro-
The American group, together with thousands of Soviet fessional training or experience. But perhaps remem-
architects, engineers, and draftsmen, formed the larg- bering his own beginning as an apprentice draftsman,
est architectural organization in the world, its size and Albert Kahn praised his Soviet students: “These young
scope surpassing Kahn’s operation in Detroit. It was a Russians are very gifted. They apply themselves inten-
marvel of organization, and, considering the fact that sively, enthusiastically and earnestly. Hours mean noth-
the majority of the Soviet technicians were untrained, it ing to them.”49 Nevertheless, the lack of skilled help was
was a marvel of efficiency.46 so dire that American specialists were often compelled
themselves to do work which should have been done
But they had to start from scratch. According to Albert by Russian draftsmen.50 This shortage of skilled work-
Kahn, the difficulties at first seemed insurmountable. ers was the result of a high rate of turnover created by
Soviet Russia lacked not only factories, but also the Soviet authorities to get as many workers as possible
pencils and drafting boards to design them. There was through “American schooling.”
only one blueprint machine in Moscow in 1930. The
language barrier and cultural differences presented se- The shortage of materials of all kinds, frequent replace-
rious problems, not to mention that the Americans had ment of the men in authority, orders and counter or-
to adjust to metric units, the so-called “uninterrupted ders, endless conferences, and exhausting discussions
working week,” an unfamiliar diet, and living conditions created additional problems for the Americans. Able as
that were, by American standards, less than adequate, the Russians were in theory, remembered Kahn, “they
including a frequent lack of heat at home and in the lacked system and the ability to organize.” Plans were
office during the long winter months. “The problem of often drawn with the sites not yet determined, foun-
adjusting our regular practice to their requirements was dation plans ordered and construction actually began
indeed an interesting and sometimes a difficult one. before the details of the main structure were finalized,
Many materials we consider standard here are not to be and there was constant struggle to meet the conditions
had in Russia, which necessitated much study to meet as they changed almost daily: “Today, sheet metal is lack-
existing conditions,” explained Kahn in the address he ing and ready roofing must be used. Tomorrow, steel is
delivered to Cleveland Engineering Society in 1930.47 not to be had and wood must be substituted.”51 Scrym-
geour added, “Nothing to speak of excepting delay in
Kahn noted that the Soviet architects and engineers ini- delivery of drawings to and from branches or plants,
tially looked at his men as intruders. Early in the pro- and the Russian workers habit of promising ‘zaftra’ (to-
cess, Moritz Kahn commented on what he thought was morrow) and tomorrow never comes.”52
a real cause of the trouble. He said that the Russians in
many instances had a superior education and theoretical Interviews at the U.S. Consulate in Riga, Latvia, of nine
knowledge, whereas the Americans had the practical ex- Kahn engineers returning from Moscow in late 1930
perience in getting the job done “in the American way,” captured the reality of the daily work at Gosproektstroi.
which often led to criticism on the part of the Russians.48 They commented on their Soviet colleagues’ lack of
The greatest resistance was encountered by the Kahn en- practical experience in projects of the magnitude they
gineers, particularly those in charge of reinforced con- were called upon to carry out and a certain reluctance
crete design. Soviet engineers, who, according to Albert in adapting to American practice. According to them,
Kahn, were well versed in it, were opposed to the Ameri- the Soviets lacked knowledge about modern norms of
can “short cuts,” especially their habit of forgoing some building sanitation, and they resisted the introduction
minute calculations and rather relying on their experi- of any aestheticism in design; even the beauty which
ence. But gradually, as Kahn used to joke, they became could be derived from simplicity and the straight line
convinced that buildings designed by the Americans did was frowned upon as not consonant with revolutionary
hold up in the States and that the chances were they art. The shortage of skilled labor and the tangle of bu-
would, as well, in Russia, “irrespective of politics.” reaucratic control over scarce construction materials, es-
pecially steel, were the main problems. The Americans
In addition to their day jobs, Kahn specialists had to also commented on the political climate in the U.S.S.R.:
run classes at night to train their Soviet colleagues in “We feel so free to be out [of the Soviet Union]. They

64
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Figure 3. Stalingrad Tractor Plant. Plot plan, rendering by Albert Kahn Architects and Engineers, 1929.
Photo courtesy of Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

Figure 4. Stalingrad Tractor Plant. Assembly building, cross-sectional view, rendering by Albert Kahn Architects and
Engineers, 1929. Photo courtesy of Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

65
Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

have such systems, resort to such methods! If there is for all the large-scale construction under the Five-Year
someone missing, one knows—political prison. Fearing Plan. (figures 3–6)
to raise suspicion people dare not to say a word.”53
The Stalingrad plant was the first of three giant Soviet
Despite these challenges, between 1929 and 1932 Kahn’s tractor plants designed by Kahn’s firm in record time.
firm designed and equipped hundreds of industrial en- Frank D. Chase, R. Smith, and several other firms as-
terprises, nearly the total Soviet industrial base, span- sisted in the design of the auxiliary buildings; Interna-
ning the entire map of the U.S.S.R. from Leningrad tional Harvester provided the tractor design and the
to Yakutsk and ranging from tractor, automobile, and technical advisers.58 A group of Soviet engineers was
aircraft plants to power plants, foundries, forges, steel- stationed in Detroit to assist with the project. (figure 7)
making and rolling mills; metallurgical, ball-bearing, There was particular need for speed in the preparation
aluminum, and asbestos plants; machinery and tools of the drawings since the steel for the plant had to be
manufacturing factories; textile mills and food process- ordered and fabricated in the U.S. in time to reach Rus-
ing factories. At least $200 million worth of buildings sia before the winter months. And extreme precision
were designed by Kahn’s firm in Moscow and Detroit had to be used in design to avoid any adjustments in the
during the first year alone.54 field 6,000 miles away.

For almost three years, American construction engi- The projected annual capacity of the plant, originally
neers, foremen, and workers labored at remote sites planned to be 10,000 tractors, was subsequently in-
side by side with the Soviet workforce, struggling with creased to 20,000, later to 40,000, and finally, to 50,000,
harsh climate, lack of necessities, and an impossibly twice the capacity of the International Harvester Mil-
overloaded transportation system. They discovered that waukee plant on which it was modeled.59 All building
sanitation did not exist outside of big cities and survived components, including glass-filled external walls and
(though not all of them) a typhus outbreak in Stalin- butterfly truss roof structures with saw-tooth skylights
grad.55 But most important, they labored deep inside (known as the Kahn Daylight System), as well as essen-
a country which was not recognized by their own, and tial equipment and tools, were supplied by over 100
so they had no official protection. Yet, on October 10, American firms. The structural steel elements (figure
1929, Moritz Kahn wrote to his elder brother Albert 8) were prefabricated in New York by McClintic-Mar-
from onboard the steamer Karl Liebknecht, sailing down shall Products (owned by the Bethlehem Steel Corp.),
the Volga River to Stalingrad: “Here is a country of one then shipped in a knock-down state to Stalingrad, via
hundred and fifty million people fighting for its exis- the Black Sea and the Volga River, and then by land,
tence, a people sorely needing our help; whether we in 252 carloads, to be assembled under the supervision
agree with them or not, we ought to help them get on of a force of American builders and engineers selected
their feet if only for humanitarian reasons.”56 Added Al- by Kahn’s firm.60 Long caravans of camels, horses, and
bert Kahn, after one of his visits: “I don’t believe that oxen were aiding the lines of motor trucks and the spe-
the world can really get back on its feet until the other cial railroads (designed by the Kahn firm) in transport-
peoples help the Russians in transforming themselves ing building materials from the docks. Abe L. Drabkin
into a modern industrial state, working in harmony with acted as Kahn’s on-site representative; John K. Calder,
the remainder of the world.”57 a former chief construction engineer at River Rouge,
served as general superintendent (also often riding
camels to and around the construction site). His assis-
Stalingrad: “American tempo” tant was Leon A. Swajian, also from Ford’s River Rouge
The Kahn projects in Russia were designed in two organi- plant. American engineers, communicating through in-
zations, Gosproektstroi operating in Moscow and Kahn terpreters, supervised plumbing, heating, welding, and
headquarters in Detroit. The major projects designed electrical works. For every twenty to thirty Soviet work-
in Detroit included the tractor plants in Stalingrad ers, there was an American foreman. Together with
and Chelyabinsk, the Avtostroi truck assembly plants in about 380 American workers, who came to Stalingrad
Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, Gospodshipnik roller- with their families on a one-year contract, they formed
bearing plant in Moscow, and the Stalmost structural the largest American colony in the U.S.S.R.61 Most of
steel fabricating pant in Verkhnyaya Salda (near Nizhny them came from Detroit, where a Traktorstroi recruit-
Tagil), built to meet the massive need in structural steel ing office opened at 255 West Congress Street.62

66
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Figure 5. Stalingrad Tractor Plant. Bird’s

eye view, rendering by Albert Kahn
Architects and Engineers, 1929. Photo
courtesy of Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.

Figure 6. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant.

Bird’s eye view, rendering by Albert Kahn
Architects and Engineers, 1930. Photo
courtesy of Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.

Figure 8. A truss (for the assembly building at Stalingrad Tractor

Figure 7. Sitting, center, Albert Kahn; standing, center, Moritz Kahn; sit- Plant) being fabricated in New York by McClintic-Marshall Products
ting, left, Abe L. Drabkin, and unidentified Soviet and American engi- before being dismantled and shipped to the USSR, 24 July 1929. Left to
neers at Albert Kahn offices in Detroit with drawings for Stalingrad right: Mr. Otto of Albert Kahn Architects and Engineers, M. Dmitrieff
Tractor Plant, 1929. Photo courtesy of Bentley Historical Library, of Amtorg, F.W.R. Snyder of Albert Kahn Architects and Engineers.
University of Michigan. Photo courtesy of Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

67
Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

The Soviet press at that time was quite open about Amer- plant in the U.S.S.R. The fifty thousand tractors which
ican assistance and the acute shortage of specialists and you are to give our country every year are fifty thousand
skilled workers; secrecy and denial would come later. shells shattering the old bourgeois world.”68 A striking-
Every issue of Soviet Union Review, published for foreign ly different telegram, in English, was sent to the Albert
consumption, carried numerous pictures of American Kahn engineers, thanking “our technical teachers, the
tractors at Soviet collective farms and American workers American specialists and technicians, who have helped
and engineers at Soviet plants. And at home VSNKh’s us in the construction of the plant.”69
newspaper Za industrializatsiiu wrote:
The Stalingrad Tractor Plant70 was the first of three giant
  It is very important to note that the American specialists are not Soviet tractor plants that had the capability to produce
just doing consulting; they are actually supervising the entire tanks. In May 1931, the Chain Belt specialist, Ellwood T.
construction. The shortage of our own qualified workers has
forced us to increase as much as possible the number of Ameri- Riesing, who was installing in Stalingrad a conveyor-belt
can technical specialists invited to work at the Stalingrad Plant. system (once branded by Lenin as the quintessence of
capitalist exploitation) would report that shortly before
Such a statement would certainly have landed the editors he left, the preparations were being made at the plant
in trouble during Stalin’s later campaign against “cosmo- for manufacturing “small tanks.”71 In February 1932 an
politanism,”63 but the campaign of “self-criticism” (samokri- American engineer from New York, A. Wishnewsky, af-
tika) in the Soviet press at that time was to be interpreted as ter completion of his contract with Traktorstroi, would
a manifestation of the strength of the economic system of report that in Stalingrad “emphasis was being placed on
the U.S.S.R., which was not afraid to expose its shortcom- production of tanks rather than tractors.” In his opin-
ings to its own people and the world outside. In 1929, dep- ion, “the development of tractor production there [had]
uty chairman of Gosplan, G. Grinko, admitted: “In making been designed to lead up to the production of tanks.”72
our plans, we simply worked on the assumption that the By the beginning of World War II, the Stalingrad Trac-
people to carry out these plans would be found. We must tor Plant had already partially switched to production of
more and more draw on the foremost technicians of other T-34/76 tanks. During 1941 and 1942, it became the ma-
countries to help carry out our program.”64 In 1929, in ad- jor producer of T-34s, while the other tank manufactur-
dition to engineers sent to the U.S.S.R. under the techni- ing plants from the European territory of the U.S.S.R.,
cal assistance contracts with foreign companies, the Soviet together with workers and machines, were being evacu-
government announced a policy of employing foreign ated beyond the Urals. Production continued until Ger-
technical talent directly. In 1931, according to Economic man troops stormed the plant itself in late 1942.73 It be-
Handbook of the Soviet Union, 1,500 American engineers and came one of the sites of the crucial Battle of Stalingrad
technicians were engaged in work in the U.S.S.R.65 where, in January 1943, the Red Army’s victory over the
Nazis turned the tide of World War II.74 (figure 10)
The Soviet slogan “to catch up with and surpass America”
could be seen everywhere in Stalingrad along with calls
to keep up with the “American tempo.” Construction of
the Stalingrad tractor plant’s main buildings, where the
American parallel construction system was introduced
instead of the Soviet sequential construction method,66
was indeed completed in a record six months instead
of the planned eighteen (though it did not reach the
planned capacity until 1933). It was the largest plant in
the U.S.S.R. and comprised an assembly building 1,340
feet long and 315 feet wide, a forge shop 532 by 450
feet, and a foundry 680 by 440 feet.67 The first tractor,
“International” (named after International Harvester
Farmall 15-30, of which it was almost an exact copy), was
assembled on June 17, 1930. (figure 9) Congratulating
the Soviet workers on the plant’s opening day, Stalin sent
a telegram: “Greetings and congratulations on their vic- Figure 9. Assembly line at Stalingrad Tractor Plant, 1937.
tory to the workers and leaders of the first giant tractor Photo courtesy RIA Novosti.

68
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

in the Ukraine, and another at Chelyabinsk in Siberia.

The Kharkov plant, with a projected capacity of 50,000
to 60,000 tractors annually, was almost an exact copy of
the Stalingrad plant, with some improvements but also
with new problems caused by the drop in steel imports. It
was built largely of reinforced concrete, with the needed
steel coming from Germany, not prefabricated.

The construction started on January 28, 1930. In July

1930, Leon A. Swajian, who had just finished his job in
Stalingrad, became the general superintendent at Khar-
kov. (He would be awarded the Order of Lenin for this
work in 1933). In an interview in The Moscow News, Swa-
jian said that the Kharkov plant was pushed to comple-
Figure 10. Soviet tank repair in the middle of battle, Stalingrad Trac- tion more swiftly than any job he had ever done, and
tor Plant. August 1942. Vokrug Sveta, no. 1 (January 1983). none required so much construction in a single year.
It was especially hard for American engineers “accus-
tomed to a country where you can order anything you
like one day and get it the next.” He also described the
In November 1942, a few weeks before Albert Kahn
continuing shortage even of unskilled labor. Hundreds
died, Malcolm W. Bingay, the chief editor of the Detroit
of foreign workers and foremen were invited, and vir-
Free Press and a good friend of Kahn’s, asked him wheth-
tually all men, women, and even children in Kharkov,
er he was surprised by the way the Russians had held
“professors, police force, and young bands of pioneers,”
off the Nazis. Kahn said that when his Soviet customers
were brought in by the hundreds every day to do unpaid
insisted that he build plants “with tremendously heavy
work on the construction of the plant.77 On the other
foundations and extra steel all through the construc-
hand, when it came to production, the Kharkov plant
tion,” he told them that it was not necessary, and when
profited by receiving a large corps of trained workers
they, smilingly, told him about the severe Russian win-
who had “graduated” at Stalingrad, while the Stalingrad
ters, he thought they “were all crazy.” Moritz Kahn was
plant had been compelled to break in a mass of raw la-
the first to figure out the reason for this requirement:
bor, unacquainted with the machinery they had to learn
“Albert,” he said, “these people are not crazy. They are
to use.78 The Kharkov Tractor Plant––the first tractor
building war-production plants and do not want us to
plant in the Ukraine and the largest in the U.S.S.R. at
know about it.” As Kahn remembered it, “They were
the time––began operation on October 1, 1931, like the
kind and considerate but revealed nothing of their pur-
Stalingrad plant, producing copies of the International
poses.”75 However, by the end of 1931, Albert Kahn must
Harvester 15-30. By September–October 1941 (before it
have formed a reasonably good idea about the U.S.S.R.
was evacuated to Altai, in Siberia), the plant was build-
preparing for a potential war. “There is no question
ing T-16 light tanks (KhTZ-16) and diesel tank engines.79
about Russia’s preparing herself as fully as possible for
such an event, nor is there any doubt that many of the
newer plants are planned for the production of war ma- Chelyabinsk: “More universal”
terials when needed,” Kahn reported in his 1931 pre-
On May 29, 1929, Sovnarkom decided to build yet anoth-
sentation to the Detroit chapter of American Institute
er Soviet industrial giant, a tractor plant in Chelyabinsk,
of Architects.76
1,100 miles east of Moscow (further away from the west-
ern border than Stalingrad). The plant was expected to
produce at least 40,000 ten-ton 60-horsepower crawler
Kharkov: “Professors, police force,
tractors annually. In June 1929, the future plant’s ad-
and young bands of pioneers” ministration, Cheliabtraktorstroi, was formed as a new
After completing their work in Stalingrad in 1930, many division at the State Institute for the Design of Metal-
American foremen and engineers moved on to the con- lurgical Plants, Gipromez. In March 1930, after their
struction sites of other tractor plants designed by Kahn’s negotiations with Caterpillar for technical aid in tractor
architects, one in Losevo, in the outskirts of Kharkov design and production had fallen through, representa-

69
Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

tives of Cheliabtraktorstroi established an engineering an exposed solid steel structure. This allowed for wider
bureau in Detroit called “Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant,” spans and greater layout flexibility, making the plant,
located on the 13th floor of the Union Trust Building in Kahn’s words, “more universal.” A 1972 Soviet book
at 500 Griswold Street. (figure 11) It was headed by the on the history of the Chelyabinsk plant contained, for
future director of the plant, Kazimir P. Lovin, and was the first time since the early 1930s, a brief mention of
staffed by twelve American and forty Soviet engineers. Kahn’s involvement in the project. It described Lovin
The American group was overseen by Warren Noble of putting his job on the line and risking arrest (“for un-
Noble Engine Company, Cleveland, and assisted by ex- necessary inflation of construction cost”) to support
Caterpillar engineers, including Edward J. Terry. The Kahn’s proposal despite the increasing shortage of
Soviet group consisted of future engineers and direc- steel. The book points out that using steel construction
tors of the production facilities in Chelyabinsk and was allowed swift conversion of the plant in 1941 to produc-
headed by the future deputy director and a chief en- tion of tanks, which weighed twice as much as tractors,
gineer of the Chelyabinsk plant, Eliazar I. Gurevich.80 without the necessity of building new gantry cranes.83
An array of machinery parts to be tested by engineers—
including a disassembled Caterpillar tractor—filled the The design of the plant was completed by June 7, 1930.
rooms on Griswold Street.81 Based on these tests, con- In order not to waste any time during the short Siberian
tracts were awarded by Amtorg for materials and equip- summer, the main specifications, such as the principal
ment to a number of American firms, many of them in axis, grid reference, and buildings’ measurements, were
Michigan. sent to Russia by telegram so that excavation for future
foundations could begin immediately. The construc-
The Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant was designed at Kahn’s tion began on August 10, 1930, initially without foreign
Detroit office in consultation with the Soviet engineers assistance. But on March 19, 1931, Za industrializatsiiu
stationed there. Albert Kahn spoke highly of the Soviet published a letter signed by the plant’s engineers and
engineers with whom he interacted in Detroit: “The economists stating that the project was “on the verge of
men chosen to work with us here have been courteous, collapse.” American engineers, including Calder,84 were
eager to learn, men of the highest intelligence, delight- called in, and early in the fall of 1931 Leon A. Swajian
ful to deal with, and remarkably informed.”82 However, moved from Kharkov to become the general construc-
the preliminary design prepared by Gipromez was re- tion superintendent at Chelyabinsk. The chief consult-
jected by Kahn architects. Instead of a dozen scattered ing engineer for tractor design from 1932 through 1933
individual workshops, the Kahn architects proposed was Edward J. Terry; former Caterpillar engineers also
three colossal one-story modular structures housing the supervised the beginning of operations.
foundry, forge, assembly, and all auxiliary shops, and
they replaced the reinforced concrete supports with The tractor plant in Chelyabinsk was even more impres-
sive than the plant in Stalingrad. With three times the
capacity of its model, the Caterpillar plant at Peoria,85 it
spread over a territory of more than 2,471 acres and in-
cluded approximately 1,780,000 square feet of covered
floor area comprised of an enormous assembly building
(1,500 by 650 feet and 40 feet high, with 100-foot-wide
spans), a foundry (770 by 650 feet), and a forge shop
(670 by 420 feet), all connected by a four-mile-long un-
derground tunnel.86 (figures 12–14)

On June 1, 1933, the first Soviet crawler tractor, the

“Stalinets 60,” came off its production line. It ran on
naphtha and was an exact copy of the Caterpillar model
1925–31.87 (Through the mid-1930s most of the trac-
tors manufactured in the U.S.S.R. were copied from
American designs with no compensation to the patent
Figure 11. Soviet engineers at Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant office in owners.)88 “The Chelyabinsk Plant was built on our own
Detroit, 1930. Photo courtesy of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant Museum. money, through our own energy and with the aid of our

70
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Figure 12. Construction of the assembly

building at Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant,
1930. Photo courtesy of Chelyabinsk
Tractor Plant Museum.

own constructors and engineers,” read the front page

of USSR In Construction, the whole issue of which was
devoted to the opening of the plant and featured doz-
ens of photographs of illuminated structures adorned
with portraits of Stalin and other party leaders (but
contained no references to Kahn and his architects). It
described “the grandiose shops flooded with light and
air” and especially praised the assembly and foundry
buildings, “the largest in the world,” that “neither Ford
nor Caterpillar can boast.” In his speech at the opening
meeting, a member of the Politburo and Central Com-
mittee, M.I. Kalinin, stressed the importance of tractor
production for Soviet agriculture and especially empha-
sized “the tremendous role the Chelyabinsk caterpillar
tractor would play in strengthening the defense of our
country.”89

“For the purposes of war”

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union was balancing economic
reconstruction and rearmament. While the immedi-
ate goal of piatiletka was to “get muzhiks to drive trac-
tors,” the ultimate goal was to make the tractor industry
“most immediately convertible into military purposes.”
In 1924–1925 People’s Commissar for Military Affairs,
M.V. Frunze, developed his doctrine, “Front and Rear
in Future War,” which was an early blueprint for the Red
Figure 13. Forge shop at Cheliabinsk Tractor Plant, 1930s. Photo Army’s vision of the Soviet economy. The task, accord-
courtesy of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant Museum. ing to Frunze, was to enable the country, if needed, to

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Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

quickly and easily switch to a military track.90 The im- to modernize the army, replacing the cavalry with tank-
portant part of this doctrine was that tractors could be based troops. He believed that the number of tanks
designed to both plow fields and haul artillery. Frunze needed in a future war would be in the tens of thou-
never implemented his vision (he died in 1925), but his sands, not in the thousands as it had been in the last
ideas for full integration of military and economic de- war, and that most tanks could be built using the auto-
velopment, with civilian industry subordinate to military mobile and tractor industries, which needed to be able
needs, continued to circulate among the Soviet military to sustain this production. On June 19, 1930, he wrote
leadership.91 The decisions of the Soviet government at to Stalin:
the end of the 1920s reflected these ideas. In Decem-
ber 1927 the XV Congress of VKP(b) set the course   Special military tanks can make up only about one third of the
for militarization of the Soviet economy. Commissar of entire fleet and can be used only for special operations, such as
antitank artillery. The rest of the tanks, the second and third ech-
Defense, K.E. Voroshilov, declared that the country’s elons, can actually be armored tractors which we could produce
industrial development, especially the automotive and in great mass. . . . Military production can mostly be based on
tractor industries, ought to reflect the Army’s needs.92 civilian industry, with minimum expenses during peacetime and
In 1928 the Revolutionary Military Council (Revvoen- the means for adaptation for the purposes of war.95
kom) approved a document, “System of Tank-Tractor-
Armored Car Armaments of the RKKA,” which became Attached to Tukhachevsky’s memo was a photo of a tan-
the basis of Soviet armor doctrine through the 1930s.93 kette assembled at Krasny Putilovets, which essentially
The Politburo’s decision of July 15, 1929, “About the was a Fordson-type wheeled tractor with 7-mm armor
Current State of Defense of the U.S.S.R.,” set the goal and a mounted machine gun. The Soviet leadership’s
by the end of the first Five-Year Plan to equip the Red decisions in 1931 incorporated Tukhachevsky’s ideas
Army with 1,500 operational tanks and create a reserve of utilizing the growing capacities of tractor plants in
of 1,500–2,000 tanks ready to engage at the beginning of Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk and the automobile plant
a war. On December 5, 1929, in the document, “About in Nizhny Novgorod96 to dramatically increase produc-
Implementation of the Tank-Building Program,” the tion of tanks and tankettes. The revised tank-building
Politburo reiterated the Army’s needs for powerful trac- program of January 31, 1931, and the decision of the
tors and tanks and specifically emphasized the impor- special commission on tank industry headed by Tukh-
tance of the planned Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant.94 achevsky on July 5, 1931, set the wartime numbers for
production of tankettes at the plant in Nizhny Novgorod
In 1931, Marshal-to-be, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, was put at 20–25 percent of its automobile capacity. Given a ca-
in charge of the Red Army’s armament. His goal was pacity of 140,000 automobiles, 28,000–35,000 tankettes

Figure 14. Panoramic view of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, 1933. Photo courtesy of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant Museum.

72
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

could be produced in wartime. Likewise, wartime tank Plant.100 It became subordinate to the Commissariat for
capacity of the tractor plant in Stalingrad was estimated Tank Industry (Narkomtankprom) and switched exclu-
at 12,000 T-26 light tanks.97 sively to production of tanks; hence, the city of Chely-
abinsk was nicknamed Tankograd (Tank City). In 1943
In his speech at the VII Congress of Soviet Councils, the KV was replaced by the KV-85, and in November
the chairman of VSNKh and commissar of heavy indus- 1943 the IS (Iosif Stalin) replaced the KV-85. In Decem-
try, G.K. Ordzhonikidze, stressed the urgent need for ber 1943 the plant started production of ISU-152 assault
conversion of the Chelyabinsk tractor from naphtha to guns. In record time, the Kirov Plant became one of the
the more efficient and less flammable diesel fuel (espe- main armories for the front, delivering 180 heavy tanks
cially important for tanks in battle).98 In 1936 Eliazar I. and 100 T-34s per month by 1944. At the end of the war,
Gurevich, now the chief engineer for conversion, trav- the Chelyabinsk plant was also producing V-11 and V-12
eled again to the U.S. to place orders for the essential tank diesel engines. A total of 18,000 tanks, 48,500 tank
equipment, which was manufactured by Ingersoll Ma- diesel engines, and over 17 million units of ammunition
chine Tools and several other plants in Rockford, near were manufactured at the plant during the war years.
Chicago.99 In 1937 the first Soviet diesel tractor “Stali- The plant’s ability to manufacture diesel engines for
nets-65” was made in Chelyabinsk. tanks was especially important because Germany did not
succeed in developing a diesel-powered tank before the
As predicted by Knickerbocker in 1931, the tractor plant end of World War II.101 (figure 15)
in Chelyabinsk proved to be the best prepared for mass
production of tanks. In 1939 it began production of the
artillery prime mover “Stalinets-2”; in 1940, the self-pro- “Mad tempo” and a parting of the ways
pelled heavy howitzer SU-152 and tank T-34; and in De- For carrying out its Russian assignments, Albert Kahn’s
cember 1940 it released the first Soviet heavy tank KV firm had to be paid in hard currency that the Soviets
(Klim Voroshilov). In October 1941, as the German army mostly obtained from the export of wheat to the U.S.,
advanced into Soviet territory, the plant was combined shipped at the height of the mass famine in Povolzhye
with several smaller plants evacuated to Chelyabinsk and the Ukraine. The Politburo decree of August 29,
from the European part of the U.S.S.R., including the 1930, emphasized that “timely implementation of the
Kirov tractor plant from Leningrad (formerly Krasny mandatory grain collection quota is vital for industrial
Putilovets) and diesel engine-building factory No. 75 development in our country and most and foremost for
from Kharkov. On October 6, 1941, the combined trac- such industrial giants as Magnitostroi and Cheliabstroi.”
tor plant in Chelyabinsk was renamed Chelyabinsk Kirov The decree was preceded on August 24 by a letter to

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Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

Figure 15. Assembled T-34 tanks at

Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, 1943. Photo
courtesy of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant
Museum.

V.M.  Molotov from Stalin, from his vacation house at Magnitostroi and Kuznetsstroi, nor Kharkovstroi, Dneprostroi,
the Black Sea, where he wrote: AMO, and Avtostroi.104

  Each day we are shipping 1–1.5 million poods [16–24 thousand Many of these “strois” were Kahn’s sites.105
tons] of grain. I think this is not enough. We must immediately
raise the daily export quota to 3–4 million poods at a minimum. Under this pressure, things indeed accelerated at a
Otherwise we risk being left without our new metallurgical and “mad tempo.” Stalin wrote to Kaganovich on August 25,
machine-building plants. . . . In short, we must accelerate grain 1931:
export at a mad tempo.102
  
The foreign currency shortage is not the only problem. The main
But despite the relentless pressure on the peasants to problem is that if we don’t drop the new orders placed in Amer-
meet unrealistic production quotas and drastic cutbacks ica on the draconian credit terms that America practices, we may
lose the preferential terms we have secured in Germany, Italy and
of all provisions in the cities, with the poor harvest in England (and will secure in France).
the summer of 1931, the Kremlin’s hard currency re-
serves continued to decline. It was compounded during Kaganovich responded to Stalin on August 26:
the Great Depression by the sharp drop in prices of raw
materials other than grain exported by the U.S.S.R. On   We have received your telegram about the orders in America. It
August 20, 1931, the secretary of the Central Commit- solved our disagreements even more radically than we thought.
We immediately sent a telegram to America to stop all new or-
tee, L.M. Kaganovich, reported to Stalin about a shout- ders. Tomorrow we will review the orders portfolio and see which
ing match during a meeting of the Politburo over the can be placed in Europe and which in the U.S.S.R.
payments for completed orders and placement of new
orders in the U.S., and he asked Stalin for instructions. And Stalin to Kaganovich on August 30: “America aims
He also reported that “the Germans [had] easily agreed its efforts to devastate our foreign currency reserve and
to lower the interest rate because they badly need our fundamentally disrupt our currency situation. America to-
orders.”103 Stalin responded on August 25 by telegram: day is the main force in the financial world and our main
enemy.” Kaganovich responded to Stalin on August 31:
  Due to difficulties with hard currency and unacceptable credit
terms, I propose to ban placement of new orders in America, call   
Dear Comrade Stalin! We understood your suggestion about
off any negotiations for new orders that have already begun, and, America just as you meant it, as a great maneuver which must
wherever possible, terminate the contracts for orders which have force Americans to change their terms. We are in a much better
already been negotiated, transferring those orders to Europe or position to do it now, since the main orders for our industrial gi-
our own plants. I propose to make no exceptions, neither for ants have been completed.

74
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

(Of course, what made this position even better was the counted numerous innovations introduced by the firm
German-Soviet credit agreement signed on April 14, and were trying to convince the government to approve
1931, which provided for $75 million of long-term cred- a new two-year contract, emphasizing that preliminary
it on purchases of German products.) And finally, on negotiations indicated there was a possibility that Kahn
September 11, 1931, Kaganovich reported to Stalin: “It would agree to a new contract with an annual fee of
turns out that 80–90 percent of orders for Cheliabstroi only $75,000 paid in dollars ($1,185,550 in 2012 dol-
could be obtained in England.”106 lars), plus salaries for 30 specialists, of which not more
than $4,000 would be paid in dollars (this would trans-
This meant the end of Soviet collaboration with Kahn, late into $200,000 per year instead of $480,000 per year
who in Stalin’s eyes must have fulfilled his mission. On for the first two-year contract, but it was 1932, after all).
March 25, 1932, Albert Kahn was in Moscow, negotiat- However nothing came of it.109
ing a renewal of the contract which had officially ended
on March 1. The negotiations broke down when the By the time Kahn architects and engineers left Moscow,
Soviets proposed to make the future payments not in several hundred plants and factories in twenty-one cities
dollars but in rubles which had no value outside the had been designed and built or were under construction,
U.S.S.R. (By 1932 the Soviet government had stopped and over 4,000 Soviet architects, draftsmen, and engineers
paying foreign firms and workers in hard currency, had gone through Kahn training,110 including, according
causing an exodus of American specialists and termina- to Kahn, a number of first-class specialists who were now
tion or failure to renew many foreign aid contracts.) “able to lead squads and do excellent work.”111 The con-
struction of the plants designed by Kahn’s firm continued
  I could not meet their terms. I might have if I had been permit-
until the end of the 1930s, and the blueprints, calculations,
ted to send an entirely new group of men which of course are
easily had today at very low salaries. But they insisted on having and specifications the firm was required to leave behind
the same heads—most of whom cared little about staying at all enabled Soviet architects to recycle them with minimal
and certainly not at materially reduced wages, adjustments for similar facilities around the country (a
process called priviazka). Therefore, while over 500 indus-
wrote Kahn to his wife Ernestine from Berlin, on his way trial structures built in the U.S.S.R. using Kahn architects’
back from Moscow. “One thing I am very glad of is that designs could be identified, the number of later priviazki
our men did an excellent job, praised by everyone there, is impossible to estimate, especially because a complete list
and we left with the respect and acclaim of the country.”107 of industrial facilities built during the first and second Five-
Year Plans (many of which were later converted to mili-
The New York Times commented: tary production and classified as “state secret”) was never
published. In 1944, Louis Kahn, then President of Albert
  This was one of the most useful jobs done there by any foreigner.
But the foreign exchange ‘economy axe’ sweeps wide and heavy Kahn, Inc., reported “design and construction of some
these days. . . . Its effect is to deprive the U.S.S.R. of the Ameri- 570 plants, the equipping of those plants, and supervisory
can aid best suited to Russian conditions and to replace it by still training of Russians to design and build them.”112 In addi-
inadequate native effort or by that of Europeans who, although tion, Kahn’s ideas formed the basis of the Soviet school
willing to accept ruble salaries, follow methods less appropri-
of standardization and prefabrication in industrial design.
ate for that country and who naturally direct orders for foreign
equipment to their own homelands.108 His assembly-line design process became a universal work-
ing method in all Soviet architectural organizations, and
On April 29, 1932, Kahn’s unit in Moscow stopped its the engineering solutions developed at Gosproektstroi,
work and the staff returned to America. Through Au- using the American standard system and details applied
gust 1932, the People’s Commissariat for Heavy In- to local materials and conditions, became standard in the
dustry, Narkomtiazhprom (which in 1932 replaced Soviet building industry for many decades.
VSNKh), continued its attempts to bring Kahn’s firm
back on board. With great urgency they were trying to In 1932 a monumental volume, Contemporary Archi-
impress on the Soviet government the importance of tecture of Plants and Factories by V.D. Tsvetaev, was ap-
the firm’s contribution designing plants under the first proved by the government as a textbook for all Soviet
piatiletka and emphasized the great need for the Kahn industrial architects and engineers. The book created
specialists’ continuing presence since the massive con- a unique record of Albert Kahn’s Russian legacy with
struction of the plants designed at Gosproektstroi un- a short reference mentioning that, at the time of writ-
der their supervision had only began in 1931. They re- ing, the author was sitting on Gosproektstroi’s technical

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Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

council, which allowed him to closely study “the work A. Vesnin, to Ernestine Kahn after her husband’s death
of the American corporation of Albert Kahn.” The in December 1942 read:
book drew extensively on the archives of Gosproektstroi
and, in addition to numerous references to “American”   Soviet engineers, builders, architects send you their sincere sym-
pathy in connection with the death of your husband Mr. Albert
methods and engineering solutions, it contained, albeit
Kahn who rendered us great service in designing a number of
without credits, detailed descriptions, photographs, and large plants and helped us to assimilate the American experi-
pictures of renderings of the Chelyabinsk and Kharkov ence in the sphere of building industry. Soviet engineers and
tractor plants, KIM automobile plant, Gospodshipnik architects will always warmly remember the name of the talented
roller-bearing plant, the Dneprostal’ foundry, the forge American engineer and architect, Albert Kahn.117
shop and foundry in Nizhny Tagil—all designed by
Kahn architects. But by the end of the decade, Tsve-
taev’s book disappeared from Soviet libraries.113 Partial list of industrial plants in the USSR
designed by or with participation of Albert Kahn
In February 1932 Gosproektstroi became a part of Architects and Engineers 118
Metallostroiproekt, which was later absorbed by Prom-
Airplane parts and accessories plants: Kramatorsk,
stroiproekt. A propaganda campaign undermining for-
Tomsk.
eigners’ role in Soviet industrial development became
Aluminum plant: Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
especially vicious in the late 1930s because the new So-
Asbestos plant: Asbest near Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg).
viet ideology of “national industrial patriotism” could
Automobile parts and assembly plants: Chelyabinsk,
not tolerate the notion that the West, and especially the
Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), Moscow, Stalingrad
United States, played any role in realizing the objectives
(Volgograd), Samara.
of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans. In a recent series of articles
Chemical products plant: Kalinin (Tver’).
about the role of foreign architects in Soviet industrial
Forge shops: Chelyabinsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov,
design, M.G. Meerovich, professor of architecture and
Kolomna, Luberetsk, Magnitogorsk, Nizhny Tagil,
history at Irkutsk State University, writes:
Stalingrad.
  In the history of Soviet industrial design Albert Kahn’s name had Foundries: Chelyabinsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov,
been hidden without a trace under a thick layer of baseless criti- Kolomna, Luberetsk, Lugansk, Magnitogorsk,
cism and false accusations and under the shop sign of the Soviet Sormovo, Stalingrad, Verkhnyaya Salda.
organization Gosproektstroi, created in 1930 specifically to cast Freight-car factory: Nizhny Tagil.
exact molds of Kahn’s innovative designs proven in the USA.114
Heat treatment plants: Chelyabinsk, Dnepropetrovsk,
Nizhny Tagil.
In October 1938, driving the last nail into the coffin
Heavy machinery plants: Chelyabinsk, Kramatorsk,
of Kahn’s Russian legacy and in response to an article
Luberetsk, Nadezhdinsk, Podolsk, Stalingrad,
about Kahn’s work in the U.S.S.R. in The Architectural Fo-
Uralmash in Sverdlovsk.
rum, the Soviet journal Architecture in the USSR declared:
Machinery and machine tools plants: Kaluga,
  There has never been any ‘affiliate’ of Albert Kahn’s firm in Novosibirsk, Verkhnyaya Salda.
Moscow. A group of American engineers was indeed invited in Power plant: Yakutsk.
1928 to Moscow under an agreement with Kahn’s firm, but they Roller bearing plant: Gospodshipnik (Sharikopodshipnik)
worked at the Soviet organization Gorstroiproekt [sic] and their in Moscow.
activity was strictly limited to technical assistance. . . . Soviet en-
gineers, architects, and workers, inspired by the heroic ideas of
Steel plants and rolling mills: Kamensk-Uralsky,
Socialism, have themselves created plants which overshadow the Kolomna, Kulebaki, Kuznetsk, Magnitogorsk,
best industrial facilities in the USA, and by doing so damaged the Nizhny Tagil, Sormovo, Verkhny Tagil.
commerce of Mr. Kahn, for whom architecture is ninety percent Structural steel fabricating plant: Stalmost
business.115 (Stal’konstruktsia) plant in Verkhnyaya Salda .
Tractor plants: Chelyabinsk, Kharkov, Stalingrad.
Nevertheless, in 1942 Kahn’s name was still well-remem-
bered in the U.S.S.R. Philip A. Adler of The Detroit News
reported from Stalingrad in September 1942 that the
Acknowledgements
name of Albert Kahn was “known to every child in Stal-
ingrad.”116 In striking contrast to the official line, a tele- The author is greatly indebted to Prof. V.V. Veeder QC
gram from one of the leading Soviet architects, Viktor (King’s College, University of London), to Dr. Steve White,

76
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

and to her husband David G. Raich, PhD, for their inspi- news/worldnews/europe/russia/9843929/Volgograd-renamed-
ration, encouragement, invaluable help, and constructive Stalingrad-for-day-as-the-Second-World-War-battle-remembered.
html (last accessed 2 February 2013).
criticism. She is immensely grateful to Prof. Mikhail Y.   3. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock,
Mukhin (Institute of Russian History) and Prof. Boris M. 1941), 958.
Shpotov (Institute of World History) of the Russian Acad-    4. “Tractors in the Soviet Union,” Soviet Union Review 10, no. 2 (Feb-
emy of Sciences, as well as Prof. Victor E. Gurevich (The ruary 1932): 35. Soviet Union Review was a monthly bulletin about
Bonch-Bruevich St. Petersburg State University) for their economic and cultural life in the U.S.S.R. published by Soviet
Union Information Bureau, Washington, DC.
generous responses to her many inquiries. She also would   5. Za industrializatsiiu, 11 April 1932 (cited in Norton T. Dodge and
like to express gratitude to Albert Kahn Associates, Inc., Dana G. Dalrymple, “The Stalingrad Tractor Plant in Early So-
and the archivists at the Bentley Historical Library (Uni- viet Planning,” Soviet Studies 18, no. 2 [October 1966]: 165). Za
versity of Michigan), Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant Museum, industrializatsiiu (For industrialization) was a Soviet newspaper pub-
and the Western Reserve Historical Society (Cleveland, lished from 1930 to 1937 by VSNKh.
  6. Charles E. Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford (New York: W.W.
Ohio), as well as filmmaker Dieter Marcello and Ron Ro- Norton & Co., 1956), 201–203.
mano and the staff of the SFPL inter-library loan depart-   7. Allan Nevins and Frank E. Hill, “The Russian Adventures,” in
ment, for invaluable help in accessing remote and rare Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company, 3 vols. (New York: Scribner,
resources. She would also like to extend special thanks to 1954), 2:678.
Brian Kahn and the Bron family for allowing use of docu-    8. Dodge, “Stalingrad Tractor Plant,” 165 (see n. 5).
  9. Originally

named Tsaritsyn, the city was named after Stalin in
ments from their personal archives. 1925; after Stalin’s death and during Nikita Khrushchev’s de-
Stalinization campaign, it was renamed Volgograd in 1961.
  10. Report of the Ford Delegation to the U.S.S.R., 1926, Acc. 1870,
On translation and transliteration: Box 1, 184–187, Ford Motor Company Archives, Dearborn, Mich.
  11. Y. Ilyin and B. Galin, eds., Those Who Built Stalingrad as Told by
For the convenience of non-Slavist readers, the author Themselves (New York: International Publishers, 1934), 29–31.
uses the Library of Congress system of transliteration with   12. I.V. Stalin, “Itogi pervoi piatiletki,” in I.V. Stalin, Complete Works,
some modifications, including, for Russian names in the 18 vols. (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1951), 13:172. For overall analy-
sis of Soviet industrialization under Stalin’s Five-Year Plans, see
body of the text, transliteration of Cyrillic letters in initial
E.H. Carr and R.W. Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy 1926-
and final positions (e.g., Iu=Yu, as in Yudin; iia=ia, as in 1929 (London: Macmillan, 1969) and David R. Shearer, Industry,
Izvestia; nyi=ny, as in Krasny), and omitting hard and soft State, and Society in Stalin’s Russia, 1926–1934 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
signs. For well-known names of people and places, the nell University Press, 1996). Alec Nove, An Economic History of the
customary English spelling is retained (e.g., Chelyabinsk, USSR, 1917-1991, 3rd ed. (New York: Penguin, 1993), completed
just after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., makes for easy reading for
Nizhny Novgorod, Gorky). However, all bibliographic
the academic and the lay reader alike.
notes preserve the standard Library of Congress system   13. Joseph M. Pavloff, The Upbuilding of Soviet Russia (New York: Am-
of transliteration. On first usage, the names of Russian torg Trading Corporation, 1929), 18–19.
institutions are given in English translation followed by   14. Saul G. Bron, Soviet Economic Development and American Business
a transliterated Russian acronym. When citing sources (New York: Horace Liveright, 1930), 51.
  15. Hubert R. Knickerbocker, The Red Trade Menace: Progress of the Soviet
from Russian archives, the standard citation convention
Five-year Plan (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1931), 81.
for these archives is used where every document is identi-   16. Stalin, “Itogi pervoi piatiletki,” 13:178–180 (see n. 12).
fied by its collection number (fond in Russian), the num-   17. Important analyses of Albert Kahn’s work include: Federico Bucci,
ber of the record group (opis), the number of the file Albert Kahn: Architect of Ford (New York: Princeton Architectural
(delo), and the page number (list), with the name of the Press, 2002); W. Hawkins Ferry, The Legacy of Albert Kahn (Detroit,
Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1987); Grant Hildebrand,
archive in the beginning of the citation (e.g., RGASPI, f.
Designing for Industry: The Architecture of Albert Kahn (Cambridge,
558, op. 11, d. 739, l. 28.) All translations from Russian Mass.: The MIT Press, 1974); George Nelson, Industrial Architecture
are by the author, unless specified otherwise. of Albert Kahn (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company,
1939). The Michigan Society of Architects’ Albert Kahn Memorial
Issue, Weekly Bulletin 17, no. 13 (30 March 1943) is an important re-
source of contemporaneous tributes to Albert Kahn and his legacy.
Notes Hildebrand’s book also offers Kahn’s overall biography. William R
  1. Maxine Block, “Albert Kahn,” in Current Biography: Who’s News Brashear, Albert Kahn and His Family in Peace and War (Ann Arbor,
and Why (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1942), 17:431. Mich.: Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, 2008)
  2. See, for example, Y.V. Yemelianov, Marshal Stalin, Creator of the and Edgar Kahn, “Albert Kahn: His Son Remembers,” Michigan
Great Victory (Moscow: Yauza, 2007), or “Volgograd renamed Stal- History (July–August 1985) add personal touches.
ingrad for day as the Second World War battle remembered,”   18. Titles in English that address Albert Kahn’s work in Russia in more
The Telegraph, 2 February 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ detail include Milka Bliznakov, “The Realization of Utopia: West-

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Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

ern Technology and Soviet Avant-Garde Architecture” and Anatole Kahn, Inc., for construction of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant,
Kopp, “Foreign Architects in the Soviet Union During the Two First The Russian State Archive of the Economy, Moscow (hereafter
Five-Year Plans” in William C. Brumfield, Reshaping Russian Architec- RGAE), f. 7620, op. 1, d. 712, l. 25–28.
ture: Western Technology, Utopian Dreams (Washington, D.C.: Wood-   27. “Soviet Plans Factory to Build Tractors” and “American to Build
row Wilson International Center for Scholars and New York: Cam- Soviet Auto Plants,” The New York Times, 5 and 7 May 1929.
bridge University Press, 1990), 145–213; Bay Brown, “Albert Kahn:   28. “Agreement is signed about technical aid to Traktorstroi,” Torgovo-
The Russian Legacy,” Project Russia, no. 7b (1997): 92–96; Anatole promyshlennaia gazeta, 16 May 1929.
Senkevitch, “Albert Kahn’s Great Soviet Venture as Architect of   29. Dispatch 6265 from F.W.B. Coleman, Legation of the USA, Riga, Lat-
the First Five-Year Plan, 1929-1932,” Dimensions 10 (1996): 35–49. via, 10 July 1929, U.S. State Dept. Decimal File 861.602/Albert Kahn,
Titles in Russian include I. Kasianenko, “Ispol’zovanie amerikan- National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA),
skogo opyta v period stanovleniia sovetskogo promyshlennogo Washington, D.C.; Drabkin, “American Architects,” 438 (see n. 20).
zodchestva,” in Vzaimodeistvie kul’tur SSSR i SShA XVIII-XX vv., ed.   30. A.I. Rykov’s speech at the XVI Congress of VKP(b), Pravda, 24
O.E. Tuganova (Moscow: Nauka, 1987), 111–121; Igor A. Kazus’, April 1929.
I. A. Sovetskaia arkhitektura 1920-kh godov: organizatsiia proektirovaniia   31. I.V. Stalin, “God velikogo pereloma,” Pravda, 7 November 1929
(Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 2009); Dmitry S. Khmelnitsky, “Tanki (incl. in Stalin, Complete Works, 12:118–135 [see n. 12]). Muzhik
za khleb: Amerikanskie korni sovetskoi voennoi promyshlennosti” is a slightly condescending Russian term for a peasant, implying
in Pravda Viktora Suvorova, ed. Dmitry S. Khmelnitsky (Moscow: backwardness and ignorance. For Bolsheviks, peasants presented
Yauza, 2007), 332–348; Mark G. Meerovich, “Al’bert Kan v istorii the “cursed problem,” an unyielding mass left over from the tsar-
sovetskoi industrializatsii,” Architecton (June 2009): 65–73. ist regime, threatening their vision for an industrialized Russia.
 19.  Amtorg (American Trading Corporation) was a quasi-private   32. The Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents
Russian-American joint-stock company based in New York. More of Most Recent History (hereafter RTsKhIDNI), f. 17, op. 2, d. 441
information about Amtorg and its chairman, Saul G. Bron, is pro- (incl. in S.S. Khromov, Industrializatsiia Sovetskogo Soiuza: novye do-
vided in Part II of this article to be published in the next issue of kumenty, novye fakty, novye podkhody, 2 vols. [Moscow: In-t rossiiskoi
IA (volume 37, nos. 1–2). istorii RAN, 1997], 1:267).
  20. The full projected cost of the plant including the equipment was   33. Agreement between the Construction Committee of VSNKh and
$30 million, with the cost of the buildings about $4 million. “Con- American Firm “Albert Kahn,” July–December 1930, The State
tract for Design of Tractor Factory Concluded With American Archive of the Russian Federation (hereafter GARF), Moscow, f.
Firm,” Economic Review of the Soviet Union 4, no. 11 (1 June 1929): R5446, op. 11a, d. 448, ll. 1–18.
220. Economic Review of the Soviet Union was a semi-monthly survey   34. “Kahn Contract Signed,” Economic Review of the Soviet Union 5, no.
of Soviet economic developments and of trade between the U.S. 3 (15 February 1930): 55.
and the U.S.S.R. published by Amtorg. Also see Abe L. Drabkin,  35. These included 6 asbestos, corundum, and graphite factories;
“American Architects and Engineers in Russia,” Pencil Points 11, 2 locomotive works; 15 machine tool and appliances factories;
no. 6 (June 1930): 438. 24 cement factories; 126 sawmills; 106 woodworking plants; 27
  21. Albert Kahn, speech delivered at the Detroit Bohemian Club, 29 glass factories; 35 spinning mills; 15 woolen mills; 13 clothing fac-
October 1930, Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.; “Industrial Buildings: tories; 112 shoe factories; 15 paper mills; and 56 food product
Albert Kahn,” The Architectural Forum 69 (August 1938): 89–90; Al- plants. “Architects to Russia,” Time 15, Part 1 (20 January 1930):
bert Kahn, Inc., Industrial & Commercial Buildings (Detroit, Mich.: 18; “$1,900,000,000 Building by the Soviet in 1930“ and “Albert
Albert Kahn, Inc., 1936). Kahn, Inc., Get Contract as Consulting Architects in Five-Year
  22. On the Constructivist movement in Russia, see Jean-Louis Cohen, Plan,” The New York Times, 11 January 1930.
Christina Lodder, and Richard Pare, Building the Revolution: Soviet  36. “Industrial

Buildings: Albert Kahn,” 90 (see n. 21).
Art and Architecture 1915-1935 (London: Royal Academy of Arts,  37. “Moritz

Kahn’s statement to press,” Economic Review of the Soviet
2011); Anatole Kopp, Constructivist Architecture in the USSR (Lon- Union 5, no. 3 (15 February 1930): 55.
don: Academy Editions, 1985); Richard Pare and Jean-Louis Co-   38. Izvestia, no. 35 (5 February 1930): 4. The group included a promi-
hen, The Lost Vanguard: Russian Modernist Architecture 1922–1932 nent Soviet architect, Andrei Burov, who later designed residen-
(New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2007). tial development near the plant and taught at the Moscow State
  23. Senkevitch, “Albert Kahn’s Great Soviet Venture,” 45 (see n. 18); Architectural Institute.
Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Cars for Comrades: the Life of the Soviet Automo-   39. Dispatch from Louis Sussdorff, Legation of the U.S., 18 February
bile (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 40. On the early 1930, Riga, Latvia, U.S. State Dept. Decimal File 861.602/Albert
Soviet planners’ fascination with the Taylor-Ford system of mass- Kahn, NARA; “Moritz Kahn’s statement to press,” 55 (see n. 37).
production, see Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of   40. Kazus’, Sovetskaia arkhitektura, 228 (see n. 18); Resolution of
Invention and Technological Enthusiasm (Chicago, Ill.: The Univer- Sovnarkom “About measures for organization of major industrial
sity of Chicago Press, 2004), particularly Chapter 6, “Taylorismus construction,” 1 June 1928 (incl. in Resheniia partii i pravitel’stva po
+ Fordismus = Amerikanismus.” khoziaistvennym voprosam [Moscow: Politizdat, 1967], 1:724–742).
 24. Alan M. Ball, Imagining America: Influence and Images in Twenti-  41. Among those in the initial group were George K. Scrymgeour,
eth-Century Russia (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Abe L. Drabkin, Frances Grossman (the only female architect
2003); Boris M. Shpotov, Henry Ford: Life and Business (Moscow: in the group), Stanley Walker, Robert Boreland, Derek Van Os-
KDU, 2005). senbruggen, John Willis, J. Gordon Turnball, Robert Mohr, R.B.
  25. Malcolm W. Bingay, Detroit Is My Own Home Town (New York: Bobbs- Wetzel, H.C. Hinez, M.J. McGowan, L.P. Quinn, Norman A. Rob-
Merrill, 1946), 308; “American to Build Soviet Auto Plants,” The inson, Arthur G. Thorpe, Gilbert Growcott, J.N. Hadjlsky, Robert
New York Times, 7 May 1929. E. Linton, Halliday, Rasmussen, Eno Jolson, Edward Eardley, and
 26.  Agreement between Amtorg Trading Corporation and Albert William H. Bruss. The latter returned in November 1931 after his

78
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

contract was not renewed, and Arthur G. Thorpe died in Moscow Victory: The Rebirth of the Red Army in World War II (Mechanicsburg,
on 11 February 1931. Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2007), 92.
  42. “Kahn Firm Sends His Ablest,” Detroit Times, 17 March 1930.   60. “The Stalingrad Plant,” Economic Review of the Soviet Union 4, no. 19
  43. George K. Scrymgeour, postcard to Albert Kahn, March 1930, Box (1 October 1929): 336–337; Kahn, “Our Work in Russia” (see n. 49).
13, Albert Kahn Papers, Scrapbook “Russia,” Bentley Historical  61.  Highly skilled American workers received from $200-$300 a
Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. month paid into an American bank in dollars, plus 300-400 rubles
  44. Louis Kahn, memo, 7 February 1944, Box 13, Albert Kahn Papers, a month paid in Stalingrad. Russian workers who were paid on
Scrapbook “Russian Work,” Bentley Historical Library, University piece work basis earned from two to five rubles a day; fine me-
of Michigan, Ann Arbor. chanics earned up to ten rubles a day.
  45. Scrymgeour, “Russian Life As I Saw It” (February 1934), Box 20, Fold-   62. Drabkin, “American Architects,” 438 (see n. 20); The Iron Trade
er 37, p. 11, Hoover Institution Archives, Russian Subject Collection. Review 86 (1930): 101. See also “44 American Firms Are Aiding
  46. Annual report of Gosproektstroi, RGAE, f. 5741, op. 2, d. 149; Soviet,” The New York Times, 30 November 1930. In 1930 Amtorg
Moritz Kahn, “Work of Soviet Construction Designing Board,” reported that it was receiving 125 applications for jobs in the
Economic Review of the Soviet Union 6, no. 14 (15 July 1931): 331; Al- U.S.S.R. on average each day. In November 1930, the U.S. Depart-
len B. Crow, “What Russia Got from Capitalist Detroit,” American ment of Commerce estimated that about 2,000 American work-
Affairs 8, no. 3 (July 1946): 216–218. ers, including engineers and assistants with their families, were
  47. Albert Kahn, “Putting Architecture on a Business Basis,” address living in the U.S.S.R. supervising the building of large manufac-
delivered to Cleveland Engineering Society, 16 December 1930, turing and electric plants.
Box 1, Albert Kahn Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University  63. The “anti-cosmopolitan” campaign of the late 1940s and early
of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 1950s was steered by Stalin’s drive to isolate the country from for-
  48. “Disputes of Reds and Americans Revealed,” The New York Times, eign influences after the war and to bolster the claim that the
27 October 1929. Soviet Union was once again under threat from the “outside.”
  49. Albert Kahn, “Our Work in Russia,” unpublished paper read to The campaign especially targeted intelligentsia and Jews, accus-
the Detroit chapter of American Institute of Architects, 10 De- ing them of “groveling before the West” and helping “American
cember 1931, Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. imperialism.”
  50. Albert Kahn’s letter to VSNKh, 14 October 1930, Za industrializat-   64. “Technical Help,” Soviet Union Review 7, no. 5 (May 1929): 72.
siiu, 17 February 1931 (cited in Kazus’, Sovetskaia arkhitektura, 141   65. RTsKhIDNI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 698, ll. 3-4 (see n. 32); Resolution by
[see n. 18]). Amtorg on inviting foreign specialists to U.S.S.R., 23 April 1929,
  51. Albert Kahn, “Putting Architecture on a Business Basis” (see n. RGAE, f. 5240, op. 18, d. 243, l. 218 (incl. in Russia and the USA: Eco-
47); “An American Engineering Firm in the U.S.S.R.,” Economic nomic Relations 1917–1933, ed. G.N. Sevost’ianov and E.A. Tiurina
Review of the Soviet Union 6, no. 2 (15 January 1931): 41. [Moscow: Nauka 1997], 286); Economic Handbook of the Soviet Union
  52. Scrymgeour, “Russian Life” (see n. 45). (New York: American-Russian Chamber of Commerce, 1931).
  53. “Conditions in Soviet Russia,” Dispatch 213 from John P. Hurley,  66. The parallel system allows simultaneous construction of multi-
U.S. Consulate, Riga, Latvia, 27 November 1930, U.S. State Dept. ple structures on the same site, with the construction time for
Decimal File 861.641/9, NARA. all buildings being equal to that of one. It is substantially faster
  54. Albert Kahn, Inc., Industrial & Commercial Buildings (see n. 21); than the traditional sequential (linear) method where construc-
Kahn, “Our Work in Russia” (see n. 49). tion of each structure begins after completion of a previous one.
  55. In 1930–33, a typhoid epidemic swept Russia. On 7 November 1930, However, the parallel method requires a complete set of working
The New York Times reported sixteen cases of typhoid among the drawings and more workforce and resources.
American workers in Stalingrad, two of whom died. The outbreak   67. Kahn, “Our Work in Russia” (see n. 49).
most likely originated in the apartment houses southeast of the trac-   68. Pravda, 18 June 1930 (incl. in Stalin, Complete Works,12:234 [see
tor plant. Kahn’s firm was not involved in the design of the residential n. 12]).
houses and sewerage, but it prepared designs for the plant’s drinking   69. Economic Review of the Soviet Union 5, no. 14 (1 August 1930): 314.
water purification facility and distribution system. On 22 November   70. The plant was named after the head of Cheka/OGPU Felix E.
1930, after Abe L. Drabkin was sent to conduct an onsite investiga- Dzerzhinsky. In 1961, as Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd, the
tion, Moritz Kahn submitted a report to Amtorg pointing out that plant was renamed Volgograd Dzerzhinsky Tractor Plant; since
according to the design, “the drinking water was to be obtained from 1992, when it was privatized, it became Volgograd Machine-Build-
the city supply and not directly from the Volga River, and was to be ing Company VgTZ, Ltd.
purified before it was distributed around the plant.” Evidently, this   71. “Stenographic report of interview with Ellwood T. Riesing,” Dis-
had not been done. Albert Kahn, Inc., Report on Outbreak of Ty- patch from John E. Kehl, American Consul General, Hamburg,
phoid Fever at Stalingrad, RGAE, f. 7620, op. 1, f. 712, ll. 1-5. Germany (8 May 1931), U.S. State Dept. Decimal File 806.5017,
  56. Moritz Kahn, letter to Albert Kahn, 10 October 1929, Albert E. Living Conditions/248, NARA.
Kahn family archive.   72. Dispatch from Robert D. Murphy, American Consul, Paris, France
  57. “Kahn Predicts Soviet Success,” The Detroit Free Press, 1931. (8 February 1932), U.S. State Dept. Decimal File 861.20/420, NARA.
  58. Hughes, American Genesis, 272 (see n. 23). International Harvest-   73. Dunn, Stalin’s Keys, 36 (see n. 59).
er’s hay harvester factory in Lyubertsy near Moscow, operating   74. On the Battle of Stalingrad and its significance, see Geoffrey Rob-
since 1911, was nationalized without compensation during the erts, Victory at Stalingrad: The Battle That Changed History (London:
1920s, but the company was still trying to maintain its presence in Longman, 2003).
Russia. Dodge, “Stalingrad Tractor Plant,” 165 (see n. 5).   75. Bingay, Detroit, 310 (see n. 25); Bingay, “Good Morning,” Detroit
  59. “The Stalingrad Tractor Plant,” Economic Review of the Soviet Union Free Press, 16 July 1942.
5, no. 7 (1 April 1930): 134–135; Walter S. Dunn, Jr., Stalin’s Keys to   76. K
 ahn, “Our Work in Russia” (see n. 49).

79
Industrial Archeology Volume 36, Number 2, 2010

  77. Leon A. Swajian, “Building the Kharkov Tractor Plant,” Economic 33987, op. 3, d. 155, l. 91.
Review of the Soviet Union 6, no. 18 (15 September 1931): 414.  96. The story of construction of the automobile plant in Nizhny
  78. “Tractors in the Soviet Union,” 35 (see n. 4). Novgorod is described in Part II of this article (see n. 19).
 79. M.N. Svirin, Bronevoi shchit Stalina. Istoriia sovetskogo tanka.   97. RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 179, ll. 122, 123 (cited in Samuelson, Plans
1937–1943 (Moscow: Yauza, 2006). for Stalin’s War Machine: Tukhachevsky and Military-Economic Plan-
  80. For more details on the work of the Soviet engineers in Detroit, ning, 1925–1941 [New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc, 2000], 133).
see Viktor E. Gurevich, Cheliabinskaia ballada ili kak eto delalos’ tog-  98.  Speech of G.K. Ordzhonikidze at the VII Congress of Soviet
da (St. Petersburg: XXI Vek, 2007). Councils, Pravda, 2 February 1935.
  81. The Soviet designers were especially interested in the Caterpillar’s   99. Komarov, Letopis’ Cheliabinskogo traktornogo, 168 (see n. 83).
design because the Caterpillar-Holt tractor suspension was adapted 100. Originally named after I.V. Stalin, in 1958 the Kirov Plant was re-
for German tank A7V during World War I. See Sergei Ustiantsev, turned to its original name, Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (less “Sta-
Elita rossiiskoi industrii: Cheliabinskii traktornyi zavod (Yekaterinburg: lin”); in 1971 it was named after V.I. Lenin; and in 1992, when it
Nezavisimyi Institut istorii material’noi kul’tury, 2008), 12. was privatized, it became ChTZ-Uraltrac, LLC.
  82. Albert Kahn, presentation at the Rotary Club of Bay City, Mich., 101. Dunn, Stalin’s Keys, 36–37 (see n. 59); Samuelson, Tankograd, 259
20 May 1930. (see n. 87).
  83. L.S. Komarov et al., Letopis’ Cheliabinskogo traktornogo (1929–1945) 102. Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (hereafter RGAS-
(Moscow: Profizdat, 1972), 23. PI), f. 558, op. 1, d. 5388 (incl. in Pis’ma I.V. Stalina V.M. Molo-
  84. In addition to the plants in Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk, Calder tovu, 1925–1936. Collection of documents, ed. L. Kosheleva, et al.
supervised the construction of the largest in the world blast fur- [Moscow: Rossiia molodaia, 1995], 204).
nace at Magnitogorsk and a copper refinery at Lake Balkhash. He 103. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 739, ll. 28–39 (incl. in Stalin i Kagan-
became the chief engineer of the Soviet Steel Trust, a singular ovich. Perepiska. 1931–1936, ed. O.V. Khlevniuk, et al. [Moscow:
honor for a non-citizen and a non-Communist, which made him Russian Political Encyclopedia, 2001], 54–56).
a virtual director of ninety of the most important plants in Russia. 104. RGASPI, f. 558, op. P, d. 76, ll. 33, 34 (incl. in Stalin i Kaganovich,
He also became a central character in the famous play Tempo by 64 [see n. 103]).
Nikolai Pogodin. W.H.G. Armytage, The Rise of the Technocrats. A 105. Agreement for modernization and expansion of AMO (Moscow Au-
Social History (London: Routledge, 1965), 222. tomobile Joint-Stock Company, later Stalin Auto Plant or ZIS, then
  85. Dunn, Stalin’s Keys, 92 (see n. 59). Likhachev Auto Plant or ZIL, now AMO ZIL) was signed in 1929 be-
  86. “The Opening of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant,” USSR in Construc- tween Avtotrest and Arthur J. Brandt Company of Detroit to assemble
tion 8 (August 1933). USSR in Construction was a propaganda pic- trucks modeled after a prototype by the Autocar Company. Some
ture magazine published from 1930 to 1941 in the Soviet Union in archival materials held at the Historic Bentley Library, University of
Russian, French, English, and German. Its declared purpose was to Michigan, suggest that structural engineering work was done by Al-
“reflect in photography the whole scope and variety of the construc- bert Kahn, Inc., under a separate agreement with Avtotrest.
tion work now going on in the U.S.S.R.” Propaganda aside, it be- 106. RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, ll. 4–6; f. 558, op. 11, d. 739, ll. 48–55;
came an artistic gem, with oversized pages and multi-page fold-outs f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, ll. 12–14; f. 558, op. 11, d. 739, ll. 56–64 and 96–
offering great examples of early twentieth-century photography. 105 (incl. in Stalin i Kaganovich, 65, 65, 72, 73, 94 [see n. 103]).
 87. Lennart

Samuelson, Tankograd: The Formation of a Soviet Company 107. Hildebrand, Designing for Industry, 130 (see n. 17).
Town: Cheliabinsk, 1900s-1950s (U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 109. 108. “Russians Lose Aid of Kahn, American Who Has Saved Soviet Mil-
 88. Dana

G. Dalrymple, “The American Tractor Comes to Soviet Ag- lions,” The New York Times, 26 March 1932.
riculture: The Transfer of a Technology,” Technology and Culture 5, 109. “About permission to extend agreement for technical assistance
no. 2 (Spring 1964): 197. in design of industrial enterprises with American firm ‘Albert
  89. USSR In Construction 8 (August 1933). Kahn,’” July–August 1932, GARF, f. R5446, op. 13a, d. 873, ll. 1–5.
 90. M.V.

Frunze, “Front i tyl v voine budushchego,” Pravda, 31 August 110. Bron, Soviet Economic Development, 67 (see n. 14).
1924. 111. K  ahn, “Our Work in Russia” (see n. 49).
 91. The circumstances surrounding Mikhail V. Frunze’s premature 112. Louis Kahn, memo (see n. 44). According to Weekly Bulletin, Al-
death in 1925 are rather mysterious. Stalin summoned Frunze to bert Kahn Memorial Issue (see n. 17), Kahn engineers built not
Moscow, where he was ordered to undergo surgery for stomach less than 521 factories and trained some 4,000 engineers.
ulcers, from which he never recovered. His successor as commis- 113. V.D. Tsvetaev, Sovremennaia fabrichno-zavodskaia arkhitektura (Mos-
sar for defense was Stalin’s old friend, K.E. Voroshilov. cow–Leningrad: Gosstroiizdat, 1933).
  92. The Fifteenth Congress of the VKP(b). Stenographic report. (Moscow: 114. M  eerovich, “Al’bert Kan,” 65 (see n. 18).
Gosizdat, 1928), 886, 887. 115. “Khlestakovskie otkroveniia Al’berta Kana,” Arkhitektura SSSR, no.
  93. Around the same time Krupp developed an experimental tank 10 (1938), 89.
with caterpillar traction called “large tractor” in order to disguise 116. Philip A. Adler, “Stalingrad As I Saw It,” The Detroit News, 28 Sep-
its real purpose. It was equipped with a BMW engine and a gun tember 1942.
turret and would be tested between 1929 and 1933 by the Soviet 117. Viktor A. Vesnin, Western Union telegram to Ernestine Kahn, 16
army. Harold James, Krupp: A History of the Legendary German Firm December 1942, Box 1, Kahn Family Papers, Folder “Letters to
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), 152-153. Ernestine,” Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan,
  94. M.Y. Mukhin, “Amtorg. Amerikanskie tanki dlia RKKA,” Otechest- Ann Arbor.
vennaia istoriia, May 2001, 56, 57; D. Sizov, “Stanovlenie Cheli- 118. Albert Kahn, Inc., Industrial and Commercial Buildings (Detroit,
abinska kak tsentra oboronnoi promyshlennosti,” Rodina, no. 2 Mich.: Albert Kahn, Inc., 1936).
(2008).
 95.  Russian State Military Archive (hereafter RGVA), Moscow, f.

80
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”:
How an American Architect and a Soviet
Negotiator Jump-Started the Industrialization
of Russia, Part II: Saul Bron

Sonia Melnikova-Raich
Editor’s Note: This is the second half of a two-part article by Sonia Melnikova-Raich on the relationship forged
in the late 1920s and early 1930s between American industrialists and the Soviet government, which sought the
help of Americans to move the Soviet Union from a peasant society to an industrial one. The first part, pub-
lished in the previous issue of IA (volume 36, no. 2) described the state of the Soviet tractor and tank industries
at the onset of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928 and provided a detailed account of the work in Soviet Russia of
the firm of Albert Kahn, including some of the most important Soviet industrial giants, designed to manufacture
domestic tractors and by the beginning of WWII converted to production of tanks. This second part is focused
on the early Soviet-American commercial relationship and the role played by Saul G. Bron, who in 1927–1930
headed the American Trading Corporation (Amtorg) and, in addition to Albert Kahn, contracted with many
leading American companies, including the Ford Motor Company, The Austin Company, and the General Elec-
tric Company. It also describes the Stalin purges of the Soviet industrial elite and the tragic fate of Soviet special-
ists engaged in Soviet-American trade and technical aid contracts.

Abstract role in laying the foundation of the Soviet automotive,

tractor, and tank industry and led to the development
Soviet industrialization was a complex economic and
of Soviet defense capabilities, which in turn played an
political undertaking about which much remains
important role in the Allies’ defeat of Nazi Germany
unclear. Rather than examine the process as a whole,
in World War II. Drawing on Russian and English-
this essay focuses on two fairly unknown players in the
language sources, this essay is based on comprehensive
history of Soviet-American relations––one American
research including previously unknown archival docu-
firm and one Soviet negotiator––and their contribu-
ments, contemporaneous and current materials, and
tion to the amazingly rapid Soviet industrialization
private archives.
of the early 1930s, emphasizing some human and
business factors behind Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. Saul
G. Bron, during his tenure as chairman of Amtorg
“We have before us in the Soviet Union
Trading Corporation in 1927–1930, contracted with
an engineering problem of
leading American companies to help build Soviet
tremendous proportions.”
industrial infrastructure and commissioned the firm
of the foremost American industrial architect from
— Saul G. Bron1
Detroit, Albert Kahn, as consulting architects to the
Soviet Government. The work of both played a major

Sonia Melnikova-Raich, “The Soviet Problem with Two ‘Unknowns’: How an

American Architect and a Soviet Negotiator Jump-Started the Industrialization
“Unknown” No. Two: Saul G. Bron
of Russia, Part II: Saul Bron” IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 37, While it is surprising how little is known about Albert
nos. 1–2 (2011): 5–28
Kahn’s role in the creation of Soviet industry, even less
© 2014 by the Society for Industrial Archeology. All rights reserved. Please is known about Saul G. Bron, who was instrumental in
direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content bringing Kahn and his expertise to the U.S.S.R. On
through the Society for Industrial Archeology’s website: www.sia-web.org/ia-
journal/siaia.html.
June 17, 1929, Time wrote: “Information on Amtorg’s

5
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

Board Chairman Bron’s pre-Soviet period is extremely tive Socialist Republic, also called Soviet Russia or sim-
vague, inasmuch as very few of the individuals now ply Russia), headed the Soviet grain exporting agency,
prominent in Russia were famed members of tsarist Exportkhleb, was a director of the Russian Bank for
society.” Indeed, as a part of Lenin’s war on the intelli- Foreign Trade, Roskombank (later Vneshtorgbank of
gentsia in 1922–23, hundreds of individuals prominent the U.S.S.R.), and in 1926 began his work for the Peo-
in pre-revolutionary Russia’s arts, literature, jurispru- ple’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade of the U.S.S.R.
dence, diplomacy, and industry, were either sent into (When in the summer of that year Stalin picked a
exile to Siberia or were forced to emigrate, despite regional party leader from the North Caucasus, A.I.
their value to a country still mostly rural and poorly Mikoyan, as the next commissar for foreign trade,
educated. A few years later the Soviet government was he assured the hesitant candidate that to help him,
scraping to find those left who possessed education the leader would dispatch some experienced people,
and experience to lead industrialization and represent including Bron, who could “boost any commissariat.”)2
the state in its struggle for foreign trade and diplo-
matic recognition. It was specifically looking for those In 1926 the Soviet Union was still not recognized by
who had lived abroad and knew foreign languages. the United States government, and the Commissar for
Saul Grigorievich Bron was just such a man. (figure 1) Foreign Affairs, G.V. Chicherin, who was closely watch-
ing the political situation in Washington, was con-
Born on January 25, 1887, in Odessa, Bron began his vinced that the time was right to take advantage of the
higher education at the Kiev Institute of Commerce, favorable views of some American officials toward the
but was expelled for involvement in the social-demo- Soviet Union, especially Senator William Borah, then
cratic movement, which was popular among secular chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Jews in the Ukraine as a reaction to tsarist anti-Semi- Chicherin suggested delegating to America a person
tism. He continued his education in Germany, France, capable of conducting unofficial discussions with U.S.
and Switzerland, where he studied the grain trade and representatives and at the same time promoting com-
earned a doctorate in economics from the University merce between the two countries. This role would be
of Zurich. In 1921–1923 Bron acted as commissioner assigned to a new chairman of Amtorg Trading Corpo-
for foreign trade for Ukraine and after formation of ration. In March 1927, following an urgent request by
the U.S.S.R. in 1922, served on the Supreme Economic the Commissariat for Foreign Trade, the Central Com-
Council of the R.S.F.S.R. (the Russian Soviet Federa- mittee appointed Bron chairman of Amtorg.3

Amtorg Trading Corporation, a quasi-private Russian-

American joint-stock company, was established in 1924
by merging Armand Hammer’s Allied American Cor-
poration (Alamerico) with Products Exchange Corpo-
ration (Prodexco) and Arcos-America.4 Amtorg’s pur-
pose was to seek out prospective business opportunities
in the U.S. and facilitate trade between the U.S. and
the U.S.S.R. (where foreign commerce was a monopoly
of the state) by playing the practically exclusive role
of intermediary between American companies and
Soviet industrial and trading organizations.5 Although
Amtorg was an American corporation and hence sub-
ject to United States laws, it occupied a unique posi-
tion in business as the single purchaser for a com-
munist state. As a seller, it had to compete with other
sellers of similar goods; but as a buyer, it represented
an enormous single purchaser whose orders were at
times and for some firms the largest they had ever
been offered.6 Even though Amtorg did not officially
Figure 1. Saul G. Bron, 1930s. Photo courtesy represent the Soviet government, it was controlled by
the Bron family. the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade and prior

6
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

to the establishment of diplomatic relations between percent of exports by all American companies.10 This
the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in 1933, served as a de facto was soon to change. In a statement issued shortly after
trade delegation and a quasi-embassy. his arrival in the U.S., Bron emphasized: “Industrial
leaders in the Soviet Union are fully awake to the value
Amtorg handled almost all imports from the U.S.S.R., of utilizing American technical and industrial skill to
comprising mostly lumber, furs, flax, bristles, and cav- assist in developing the rich natural resources of the
iar, and all exports of raw materials and machinery for country and promoting its industrialization.”11 As for
Soviet industry and agriculture. It also provided Ameri- the U.S. government, it was holding an ambiguous
can companies with information about trade opportu- position. On the one hand, the Coolidge administra-
nities in the U.S.S.R., and supplied Soviet industries tion announced that it would not formally recognize
with technical news and information about American the Soviet government and imposed various restric-
companies. The headquarters was located in Manhat- tions on trade with the U.S.S.R., but on the other
tan, at 165 Broadway, and after 1929, at 261 Fifth Ave- hand, it did not prevent private entrepreneurs from
nue, with several branch offices, including at different entering into business relationships with the Soviets.
times, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Such was the thorny situation when Saul G. Bron
and Seattle. At the time of Bron’s taking office in 1927, entered the scene.
Amtorg had more than one hundred full-time employ-
ees, many of them Russian immigrants, supervising Bron’s arrival in the U.S. nearly coincided with the Brit-
and assisting about the same number of non-Russian- ish government’s breaking of diplomatic and trade rela-
speaking representatives. The corporation had a board tions with the U.S.S.R. following Scotland Yard’s raid of
of seven directors, most of whom were former Soviet Arcos in London on May 12, 1927. This event profound-
officials, with at least one director at any time (in order ly affected Soviet-American trade relations, as well. Nev-
to comply with New York law) being a citizen of the er before had the American press published so eagerly
United States. The stock was issued in the names of the and fully any news about Soviet-American trade, with
board members, and it was said that as an additional over 200 national and local newspapers quoting Bron’s
precaution, prior to being dispatched to America, statement about the prospects of this trade.12 “The So-
newly-appointed directors were required to sign per- viet indus­trial program, the increase in orders placed
sonal notes for double the face value of their shares.7 here, and the curtailment of trade with Britain, all show
the direc­tion to be taken by Soviet trade with the Unit-
Bron and his family arrived in New York on June 8, ed States,” predicted Bron in his statement to the press,
1927. Bron was the third chairman of Amtorg. He explaining that the break with England would facilitate
replaced A.V. Prigarin, who managed Amtorg for the effort by Soviet industrialists to trade directly with
about a year after replacing the first chairman of American firms, through the authorized trading com-
Amtorg, I.Y.  Khurgin, who in 1925, less than a year panies in the U.S., such as Amtorg, eliminating the Eu-
after his appointment, drowned in a lake in upstate ropean middle-man, and to enter into “closer relations
New York in an odd kayaking accident. 8 One of with the American technical world.”13
Amtorg’s American directors, J.M.T. Feinstein, noted
that Bron was the first president of Amtorg whose com-
mand of English enabled him to negotiate without the
“A ruble in the hand”— plus electrification of the
aid of interpreters (he was also fluent in German and
whole country
French).9 Time magazine, which closely followed the
arrival of the new head of Amtorg, didn’t spare expres- Less than one year after Bron’s arrival in the U.S., a
sive adjectives, describing Bron as “affable,” “heavy- new peak in trade between the United States and the
set, but not gross,” “potent,” “untidy,” “jovial,” and U.S.S.R. had been reached. By the end of March 1928,
“shrewd,” and calling him an “able Russian financier” the total trade was estimated at $80,000,000, against
with “all the emphasis at his booming command.” $34,000,000 for the corresponding six months the year
before.14 A year later, under the headline “A Ruble in
When Bron took over as chairman of Amtorg in 1927, the Hand,” Time wrote: “It is not so many years since
sales of Soviet goods to the United States amounted ‘Bolshevik’ was a popular synonym for a low, ruffianly
to a mere 0.3 percent of American imports, and total fellow and ‘ruble’—for the ultimate in worthless money.
Soviet purchases in the U.S. amounted to only 1.15 But though the U.S. Department of State remains un-

7
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

aware of the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics, U.S. industry is now inclined to believe that
Russians habitually pay their bills and that a ruble in the
hand is as good as 51½¢ in the bank.” Time listed the
contracts with American corporations recently signed
by Amtorg. Besides Albert Kahn, Inc.,15 these included
Hugh L. Cooper and Company, Inc., for a $100 million
hydroelectric power plant, Dneprostroi, then the larg-
est in the world; Freyn Engineering for design of steel
mills; Stuart, James & Cooke for building and equip-
ping coal mines; E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Nitro-
gen Engineering for construction of fertilizer factories;
and other major American companies.16 (figure 2)

Time’s list was oddly missing two extremely important

contracts with the International General Electric Com- Figure 3. Signing contract for hydraulic turbines and generators for
pany (I.G.E.): one signed by Bron on May 24, 1929, for Dnieper River Hydroelectric Power Plant (DneproGES), 1929: sitting
assistance in the development of the electrical power left to right, Col. Thomas B. Whitted, Vice-President of NewportNews
industry, and an earlier, highly significant six-year con- Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co.; H.H. Dewey, Vice-President of
tract he negotiated with General Electric’s chairman, International General Electric Co.; Saul G. Bron, Chairman of
Amtorg; A.V. Winter, Chief Engineer; and Col. L. Cooper, Consulting
Owen D. Young, I.G.E. president Clark Minor, and Engineer for Dneprostroi. Economic Review of the Soviet Union 4, no. 7
I.G.E. director, S.A. Trone (the latter had experience (1 April 1929): 131.
in managing hydroelectric projects in pre-revolution-
ary Russia).17 Under this contract, signed on October
9, 1928, I.G.E. would establish a technical bureau in providing for five-year credit for purchases of electri-
Moscow to supervise the installation of the equipment cal equipment up to $26,000,000, with only a 25 per-
and maintain direct contacts with Soviet electrical proj- cent down payment. Finally, the contract provided for
ects. The contract also set an important precedent by settlement by the end of six years of G.E.’s $1.75 mil-
lion claim against the Soviet government (the value of
its interests in Russia that were nationalized after the
revolution) achieved by charging “supplementary inter-
est” over the rate normally extended by the company
to its best customers. (Although the interest rate was
higher than G.E. might have required of another buyer,
it was much lower than the Soviets had until then re-
ceived elsewhere on long-term credit.) This clause had
special significance since the refusal to pay Americans
about $800 million for confiscated property and pre-
revolution debts remained the main reason for the U.S.
administration’s unwillingness to recognize the U.S.S.R.
and for American banks’ refusal to extend credits and
loans critical for the further development of Soviet-
American trade.18 (figure 3)

The importance of the General Electric contract in So-

viet industrialization is hard to overestimate. It was a key
element in carrying out the electrification plan of the
Figure 2. Signing contract: sitting left to right, Albert Kahn; Saul
Soviet Union, GOELRO.19 In addition to the company’s
G. Bron, President of Amtorg; standing left to right, N. Ol’khovsky,
attorney at Amtorg; Moritz Kahn, and J. Michaels, attorney at involvement in the major electrification projects in
Amtorg. Detroit, 9 January 1930. Photo courtesy Albert Kahn the U.S.S.R., including Dneproges,20 and the electricity
Associates, Inc. generated by G.E. equipment in Soviet power stations,

8
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

thousands of G.E. motors and other electrical equip- On July 13, 1928, the Soviet Council on Labor and
ment were used in Soviet plants and factories all over Defense (STO) determined to develop an automobile
the country. No significant branch of Soviet industry de- industry in the U.S.S.R. When deciding on the type of
veloped in the 1930s without assistance from the Gen- automobile, American models were to be considered
eral Electric Company.21 first and foremost, with two criteria in mind: 1) the fu-
ture Soviet automobile must have the lowest cost and
Interest in American technical achievements in the simplest design, and 2) considering the state of Russian
U.S.S.R., according to Bron, was so keen, even among roads, it must be the hardiest vehicle possible. A special-
the general public, that the words “modern” and “Amer- ly-appointed commission––headed by the vice mayor
ican” had become virtually synonymous, and modern- of the Moscow City Council, M.I. Rogov, and including
ization of Soviet industry became practically equivalent M. L. Sorokin, the director of Moscow Automobile Trust
to “Americanization of industry.”22 Despite the decline (Avtotrest), and I.A. Khalepsky––was instructed that the
in the total volume of Soviet foreign trade during that supplier of component parts must furnish a complete
period, in the 1927–28 fiscal year, the volume of Soviet- set of working drawings for the chosen model and, in
American trade totaled about $120,000,000, compared exchange for the massive order (6–7 million rubles a
to $92,600,000 for 1926–27 and $48,000,000 for 1913.23 year for 3–4 years), would provide technical assistance
Commenting on this remarkable growth in trade be- in construction of a new plant and its further opera-
tween the two countries in the absence of a formal po- tion.27 On August 30, 1928, Bron brought the Rogov
litical or economic agreement, Louis Fischer wrote in commission to the U.S. The next day’s New York Times
1930 that “the greatest improvement in Russia’s foreign mentioned the commission among the passengers ar-
position during 1928 and 1929 was the favorable trend riving on the Mauretania and quoted them as saying
of relations with the United States. In the absence of that they came to study the tractor and truck industry
diplomatic relations, a kind of extra-diplomatic rela- with a view to building plants in Russia. “The program
tions has come into existence which are occasionally as in which they are interested calls for an expenditure of
satisfactory as some of the Soviet Union’s usual diplo- $40,000,000,” wrote the Times, also quoting the Russians
matic contacts with European countries.”24 as saying that they were mostly interested in trucks and
tractors because their people were too poor for plea-
sure vehicles.28
Ford: “Helping the Russians to help themselves”
Following the historic agreement with Albert Kahn and After a year-long study, on March 4, 1929, VSNKh cre-
groundbreaking contract and settlement with General ated the state automobile trust, Avtostroi, to facilitate
Electric, Bron secured numerous other contracts with development of the automotive industry, and on April 6
leading American companies. But the main focus re- of the same year it decided to build another industrial
mained the tractor and automobile industries. Just as giant, an automobile plant 250 miles east of Moscow,
the domestic tractor industry at the onset of the Five- near Nizhny Novgorod (soon renamed as Gorky).29 The
Year Plan in 1928 was practically non-existent, the con- plant would have the capacity to produce 100,000 au-
dition of the auto industry was rudimentary and the tomobiles per year by the end of 1932. At the time of
system of highways insignificant, considering the enor- this decision, the U.S.S.R., with its rapidly growing in-
mous expanse of the country. “Mud is knee deep, bridg- dustries, possessed only 20,000 cars and trucks––half of
es are damaged, horses are exhausted, and the drivers them not in working condition, amounting to 5 percent
strain themselves so much that one might think they of the traffic on Soviet roads.30 It was no wonder then
are trying to drag their own cart,” admitted U.S.S.R. in that Moscow was “thrilled” by the news from New York
Construction, an illustrated Soviet propaganda maga- that Ford was considering technical assistance to the
zine.25 There were only two pre-revolution auto facto- Russian automobile industry and was actually advocat-
ries: the AMO factory in Moscow, built during WWI and ing recognition of the Soviet government. “Cheap mass
equipped with American machinery, which was produc- production is a Soviet goal, more precious from the
ing 600 trucks, and the Yaroslavl factory, with annual practical standpoint than world revolution,” the New
output of 200–300 three-ton trucks.26 “If we do not de- York Times’ Walter Duranty reported from Moscow. In
velop our automobile industry, we are threatened with Soviet eyes, Ford was “the arch-mogul of that achieve-
the heaviest losses, if not defeats, in a future war,” wrote ment.” Reporting her impressions of Russia ten years
Pravda on July 20, 1927. after the October Revolution, the New York Times corre-

9
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

spondent, Anne O’Hare McCormick, wrote: “The word “Greatly displeased with the delay in the negotiations
for industrialization in Russia is Americanization, and on the auto plant. Command to speed up the business
the passion to Ford-ize the Soviet Union is even stron- and report the results of negotiations with [General]
ger than the passion to communize it.”31 Motors.” And on February 11: “We repeat. Command
acceleration in negotiations with Motors not to miss the
But Bron’s task in Dearborn was not easy. Getting Albert construction season. Command regular information on
Kahn on board certainly “broke the ice” and even left the progress of negotiations with Ford and Motors.”37
Ford feeling somewhat left out, as he had de facto relin-
quished his interest in the Soviet tractor industry.32 The On May 31, 1929, after complicated negotiations and
idea of “helping the Russians to help themselves” evi- despite the absence of official relations between the two
dently was more attractive to Ford than building a plant countries (and thus without full legal protection for
as a concession, as had been offered to him in 1926.33 American entrepreneurs), the largest Soviet contract
(Just as he had feared, most of the foreign concessions with an American firm was signed by Henry Ford, Ford
in the U.S.S.R. were cancelled at the end of the decade.) Motor Company Vice-President Peter E. Martin, Saul G.
But Ford certainly still remembered the scathing 1926 Bron for Amtorg, and Valery I. Mezhlauk on behalf of
report by his experts and the failed attempt to offer him VSNKh for assistance in building near Nizhny Novgorod
at that time a contract to build a tractor plant as a conces- a colossal automobile plant with projected annual ca-
sion, and a more recent attempt to approach Ford had pacity of 70,000 trucks and 30,000 cars. (figure 4) The
been a complete fiasco. The Soviet commission that had agreement was to run for nine years, including techni-
arrived in Dearborn in early 1928 seemed to have had lit- cal cooperation between the Ford Motor Company and
tle idea of how to conduct negotiations, especially since Avtostroi for five years after the completion of the plant,
none of its six members could speak English. As Ford’s which was expected to go into operation within four
production director, Charles Sorensen, remembered, years. It involved the purchase of $30,000,000 worth
“Not only words had to be translated, but working princi- of Ford cars and parts with­in four years and specified
ples of private enterprise had to be explained to uncom- VSNKh’s desire “to erect in the U.S.S.R. an automobile
prehending Communists. I might just as well have been plant or plants for the manufacture of passenger auto-
talking to a delegation from Mars.” After two months of mobiles similar to the Ford Model ‘A’ and commercial
tiresome discussions, the delegation left without reach-
ing any agreement. “Much to my surprise,” continued
Sorensen, “another Soviet commission came over in the
later part of 1928.”34 Besides Bron, this group included
vice chairman of the VSNKh, Valery I. Mezhlauk, and
chairman of the State Bank of the U.S.S.R., A.L. Shein-
man, dispatched by Stalin to strengthen Bron’s position
in the negotiations by demonstrating that he was fully au-
thorized to make a major financial commitment and that
the Soviets meant business.35

Nevertheless, the negotiations moved slowly and since

the outcome was not obvious, Bron continued the nego-
tiations he had started in 1928 with the General Motors
Company, which seemed to be open to the concession
scenario and to providing credit.36 Stalin watched the
progress of both negotiations with great impatience. He
instructed Bron that the Soviet Government would pre-
fer Ford, but that the absence of credit was an obstacle. Figure 4. After signing contract for technical assistance in building
the Nizhnii Novgorod (Gorky) Automobile Plant: left to right,
General Motors’ vehicles, on the other hand, cost more
Valery I. Mezhlauk, Vice Chairman of the Supreme Council of
and the company was less inclined to take full responsi- the National Economy of the USSR; Henry Ford; Saul G. Bron,
bility for construction of the future plant. On February President of Amtorg. Dearborn, Mich., 31 May 1929. Photo
8, 1929, he sent an urgent coded telegram to Amtorg: courtesy of the Bron family.

10
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

trucks similar to the Ford Model ‘AA’ with all improve- which it would gradually switch to Soviet-made compo-
ments which may be embodied therein by the Ford nents.40 The architectural and engineering design and
Company during the term of this agreement.” on-site construction supervision of the main plant in
Nizhny Novgorod, as well as of a nearby city to house
The contract also granted VSNKh the right to use all 35,000 workers and their families, was done by the Aus-
present and future Ford patents and inventions for tin Company of Cleveland, Ohio.
materials, component parts, and methods of produc-
tion for these models. It also granted VSNKh the full Following a visit by Austin engineers to the proposed
rights to make, sell, and use Ford units throughout the site, the company signed the initial contract with Av-
U.S.S.R. and to make and use all River Rouge plant tostroi on August 23, 1929.41 This contract was supple-
tools and machinery. Further, Ford agreed to permit mented by the typical three-way Amtorg contract signed
access to his plants in Detroit and Dearborn to up to
fifty Soviet engineers, foreman and other employees of
VSNKh per year, “for the purpose of learning the meth-
ods and practice of manufacture and assembly in the
Company’s plants,” and to send his own “experienced
and competent technical personnel” to Russia to help
install the equipment and train the working force.38

Nizhny Novgorod:
“Where Russian Fords are produced”
In the beginning Ford “A” cars and “AA” trucks were
assembled, using parts shipped from Detroit, at two
smaller prototype plants (assembly plants No. 1 and 2):
a conversion of the old Gudok Oktyabrya (“Whistle of
October”) factory in Kanavino near Nizhny Novgorod
for assembling 12,000 vehicles a year, and a new KIM
plant in Moscow for assembling 24,000 thousand ve- Figure 5. First Soviet Ford AA truck leaving Assembly Plant No. 1
“Gudok Oktyabrya” in Nizhni Novgorod, 1930. Photo by Max Alpert,
hicles. Both plants would be designed by the Albert courtesy of RIA Novosti.
Kahn firm. In mid-August 1929 the firm mailed detailed
drawings of the KIM plant from Detroit to Russia so that
construction could start before the cold weather. As
was done for the tractor plant in Stalingrad, the struc-
tural steel elements were prefabricated in the U.S. by
McClintic-Marshall Products and disassembled down to
nuts and bolts for shipment to Moscow. On February
1, 1930, the first Soviet Ford “AA” truck, a 1.5-ton polu-
torka, rolled off the conveyor belt of the Assembly Plant
No. 1 (Gudok Oktyabrya) in Kanavino. (figure 5) On
November 6 of that year Assembly Plant No. 2 (KIM) in
Moscow began delivering the same model.39 (figure 6)

Meanwhile, the Ford company provided complete sets

of working drawings and specifications for the cars
and trucks, furnished a general layout and technologi-
cal project of the main plant in Nizhny Novgorod, and
shipped 72,000 knocked-down Fords for assembly dur- Figure 6. Conveyor belt at Assembly Plant No. 2 (KIM) in Moscow,
ing the first four years of the plant’s operation, after 1931. Economic Review of the Soviet Union 6, no. 4 (15 February 1931).

11
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

by Saul G. Bron with the Austin vice president, George

A. Bryant, and the head of Avtostroi, S.S. Dybets, on Oc-
tober 30, 1929.42 It was the largest single foreign contract
awarded by the U.S.S.R., for which the Austin Company
was to receive $40,000,000 in gold. If the work was fin-
ished in fifteen months, as the company promised (the
Soviet preliminary calculation was four years), it would
receive a bonus. The Soviet organizations Avtostroi
and Metallostroi were to supply construction materials,
equipment, and the workforce.

Over 100 Austin staff in Cleveland worked on the draw-

ings during the winter of 1929–1930, while 120 Soviet
engineers and technicians, stationed in Dearborn and
assisted by Ford engineers, were preparing specifica- Figure 7. Building of Nizhnii Novgorod (Gorky) Automobile Plant.
tions for equipment. The Soviet workers occupied of- USSR in Construction, no. 1 (1933).
fices on the second floor of a building on Miller Road,
within the River Rouge complex, and had access to ev-
erything that went on there during the next six years,
until 1935. So much a part of the Ford organization had last Austin engineer left the site on December 1, 1931,
they become that they even had stationery printed with and on January 1, 1932, the manufacture of automobile
the Ford Motor Company address. Ironically, in 1932, parts began, supervised by American machine opera-
in the midst of the Great Depression, when Commu- tors. (figures 8–10)
nist “hunger marchers” stormed the plant, the Soviet
engineers, whose number had grown from fifty a year Originally called Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant
to almost four times that number, watched the demon- (NAZ), in 1933 it was renamed Gorky Automobile Plant
stration from their office windows and stayed on to con- (GAZ), and from 1935 to 1957, the Molotov Automo-
tinue their study of Ford methods.43 bile Plant (ZIM). It was the largest automobile plant
in Europe, second only to Ford’s River Rouge plant,
On May 1, 1930, the first Austin engineers, including designed by Albert Kahn, after which it was modeled
George A. Bryant and Allan Austin, son of the com- (as had been stipulated by Ford). It consisted of twenty
pany president, Wilbert J. Austin, arrived on the site completely equipped structures with steel or reinforced
of the future “Ford” plant, a deserted stretch of land concrete frames, masonry and steel sash walls, insulated
between the rivers Volga and Oka, near the village of wood roofs, and wood block floors. It covered an area
Monastyrka, twelve kilometers from Nizhny Novgorod. of 600 acres, with approximately 3,000,000 square feet
The company aimed at having as much work done as of floor space, and was surrounded by a modern sys-
possible during the summer months, when the days in tem of reinforced concrete highways. The dimensions
the area are long and the climate is very much like the of the largest structure, the assembly building, all steel
northeastern United States. Winter conditions are quite and glass, which included six assembly lines, was 1,800-
different. (figure 7) From November until April the sun ft. long and 350-ft. wide. The cost of the plant with
is up for only six hours and the temperature is always equipment was $120 million. Its projected capacity was
below freezing, reaching 22 degrees below zero Fahren- 94,000 1.5-ton trucks and 50,000 cars a year. (This goal,
heit, with frost up to six feet deep, presenting many con- though, was never fully achieved.)45
struction problems not encountered in milder climates.
The construction process was also ridden with problems The first truck rolled off the NAZ assembly line on Janu-
caused by the lack of skilled workers and conflicts be- ary 29, 1932. (figure 11) By the time the construction
tween the Austin Company and its Soviet counterparts, and equipment of the plant were completed, a total of
and between the counterparts themselves.44 But despite 102 American firms had supplied tools and machinery.
all these difficulties, by November 1, 1931, just a few A later memo by the Austin company, describing the
days before the fifteen-month deadline, the automobile Nizhny Novgorod project and listing all the machinery,
plant in Nizhny Novgorod was mostly completed. The equipment, and their manufacturers, stated:

12
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Figure 8. Automobile Plant and Worker’s City in Nizhnii Novgorod (Gorky).

General plan, rendering by The Austin Company, 1929. Photo courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society.

Figure 9. Panoramic view of Nizhnii Novgorod (Gorky) Automobile Plant. USSR in Construction, no. 1 (1933).

13
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

Figure 10. Construction of assembly shop at Nizhnii Novgorod Figure 11. First Ford AA truck rolling off the main conveyor at Gorky
(Gorky) Automobile Plant. USSR in Construction, no. 3 (1933). Automobile Plant, 1932. Photo from the GAZ Group archive.

  . . . [A]lthough, at no time, during the construction period, was 1929–1930.48 According to the U.S. Department of
there any serious discussion of other possible use than for its Commerce, by early 1930 exports to only the European
original intended purpose, it seems logical to assume that such
a well equipped plant—just as has recently been done in the
part of the U.S.S.R. ranked sixth among the markets
U.S.A.—could easily be converted to the manufacture of many for American products, compared to twentieth place in
implements of war.46 1928, with industrial equipment amounting to 80 per-
cent of all purchases.49 By March 1, 1930, 1,700 Ameri-
As early as 1935 the plant started production of an ar- can firms sold goods to Amtorg, more than 400 firms
mored truck which would be extensively used during were involved in an ongoing trade with the U.S.S.R.,
WWII. In 1935, it manufactured a number of T-38 light and 104 technical assistance contracts with foreign
tanks and in 1938, several BT tanks. During the war the companies, most of them American, were in operation
plant switched almost fully to military production. The in Soviet industries.50 (Only a year earlier Germany had
Ford AA engines and their Soviet analogues GAZ-AA held the leading position in the U.S.S.R.’s imports.) In
and GAZ-M were installed in T-37, T-38, and T-40 tanks. many cases these contracts were saving American jobs,
In June 1941the plant was making T-60 light tanks and and after the beginning of the Great Depression the
later T-70s. In October 1943 the plant switched to mak- U.S. government was especially reluctant to block mil-
ing the SU-76 self-propelled vehicles used for anti-tank
artillery, producing 380 of them per month by Septem-
ber 1944. Components of Ford’s Model AA were used
in the three-axle BA-I armored cars, made at Gudok
Oktyabrya in Kanavino, and in production of tankettes
at the KIM plant in Moscow, where its engine and trans-
mission were also used in building the T-41 and T-37
amphibious tanks.47 (figure 12)

Great Depression and “Red Business”

The arrangement with Ford created a powerful impres-
sion on the American business and political world, serv-
ing to convince a large number of hesitant firms that
the Russians were good customers. Soviet-American
trade, facilitated by Amtorg under Bron’s leadership, Figure 12. Assembling T-70 tanks at Molotov (Gorky) Automobile
more than doubled during 1928 compared with 1927 Plant, 1942. Photo courtesy of the State Political Archive of the
and reached a high of $128,793,000 in the fiscal year Nizhny Novgorod Region.

14
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

lions of dollars in purchases from American companies Amtorg from a number of leading firms during 1929.
promised by Bron following the Soviet break with Great Credits for one year or more were extended by nearly
Britain. If the U.S. government did not respond favor- 200 companies.”57
ably, it could be logically expected that the Soviet buy-
ers would turn to Germany which had the advantage of On September 23, 1929, in “Big Red Buyers,” Time
proximity as well as regular diplomatic relations and a wrote: “Reviewing the Soviet-U.S. trade situation last
trade treaty that included extensive government-backed week, big, jovial, loosely clad Comrade Saul Bron,
long-term credits. Chairman of the Amtorg Trading Corp., observed that
his organization alone purchased for the Soviet Gov-
American businesses, concerned about keeping their ernment two years ago $2,500,000 worth of U.S. goods,
factories in operation, were eager to tap into vast So- bought $11,000,000 last year, is buying $25,000,000
viet markets despite the continuing warnings by the worth in 1929.” According to Bron, more than 2,000
State Department that due to the lack of diplomatic American firms were trading with Soviet Russia by that
representation in the U.S.S.R., the U.S. government time. Time also commented:
was unable to provide security to Americans conduct-
ing business there, and any companies transacting such   [W]hen he first came to Manhattan three years ago, cheerful
business “must do so at their own risk.”51 Feinstein de- Comrade Bron used to ask business acquaintances why the U.S.
did not recognize Soviet Russia. Today he considers that ques-
scribed that in 1929–1930 representatives of the larg- tion of academic and rather secondary importance. Commercial
est American companies “cooled their heels” in the re- recognition of the Soviet Union by U.S. industry is now whole-
ception rooms of Amtorg with the hope of obtaining hearted, enthusiastic.
contracts.52 “What are we going to do about the Russian
menace anyway? Shall we stop selling them machinery Bron’s correspondence with Moscow, though, makes it
and equipment?” asked vice president of General Mo- clear that he did not consider the issue of recognition
tors, James D. Mooney. “I visited a great variety of mines, to be of secondary importance. However, as he must
factories and powerhouses in Russia and I saw very little have realized early on, it was rather difficult to balance
machinery and equipment that could not be duplicated the promotion of Soviet commercial interests with in-
out of European countries, and that these countries volvement in the pursuit of the Soviet political goals.
would not be glad to sell Russia.”53 In December 1927, while advising on the prospects for
normalization of Soviet-American relations, Bron ex-
As all Amtorg’s commitments on purchases were met, plained in a letter to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs,
the manufacturers extended direct credits, euphe- G.V. Chicherin, and Commissar for Foreign Trade, A.I.
mistically termed “scheduled partial payments.” The Mikoyan, that the sensitive position of Amtorg in the
contracts of I.G.E. and General Motors, for example, United States did not allow for explicit engagement in
allowed that payment for goods would be made in 25 political discussions.58 Although he was a participant in
percent installments at the time of delivery, and then six many such discussions behind the scenes, Bron’s main
months, one year, and eighteen months after delivery.54 focus remained on trade and technical assistance con-
Even though the U.S. government was less flexible when tracts with American firms, which he believed would
a proposed deal would involve credits rather than pro- inevitably pave the road to recognition. In 1929, refer-
curements, long-term credits were also becoming more ring to the Department of State’s positive statement on
frequent, and officials had no complaints as long as the the status of Soviet-American relations in connection
arrangements did not turn into loans.55 Ninety percent with Ford’s contract on the one hand, and the Hoover
of the orders placed in 1929 involved credits. Besides administration’s philosophy of “development of good
the five-year credit Bron secured from I.G.E., complete business relations and cultural understanding in the ab-
equipment for a power plant for the Stalingrad Trac- sence of recognition” on the other, he wrote that “the
tor Plant was ordered on a five-year credit from the serious public here understands better and better the
Westinghouse Electric International and International absurdity and inconsistency of the official position. Do-
Combustion Engineering.56 “Not only has the number ing big business is the only method of bringing this ab-
of American firms granting credits to Soviet purchas- surdity to the logical limit.”59
ing organizations increased,” Bron was quoted in the
Soviet press, “but the terms have become more favor- And big business he did. In his book Soviet Economic De-
able. Credits of three years or more were received by velopment and American Business, published in New York

15
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

in early 1930,60 Bron assessed the results of the first years and head of the U.S.S.R. Trade Delegation. In review-
of the Five-Year Plan. Reviewing the book, an American ing the development of Soviet-American trade before
critic wrote that he was especially impressed by “its reve- his departure, Bron said:
lation of the extent to which American business is aiding
the Russians, in a technical and material way, adapting   The rapid growth of Soviet-American trade is shown by the fact
that the business of the Amtorg has doubled since 1927. From a
the methods of American mass-production to a com-
comparatively insignificant organization formed six years ago,
munistic state of society.”61 Using this as the basis of a the Amtorg Trading Corporation has developed into probably
plea for U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union and for es- the largest exporting organization for American industrial and
tablishing normal trade relations, Bron cited the three- agricultural equipment. In leaving this country I wish to say that
fold increase in trade from 1927 to 1929, with American it has been my privilege to work with a number of your leading
men in the field of business and it is, to a great extent, their
exports to the U.S.S.R. during the first nine months of
wholehearted cooperation that has made possible the notable
1929 valued at $91,768,531. According to Bron, in ad- development of Soviet-American business relations.66
dition to the forty-four leading American companies
providing technical assistance to Soviet Russia (as was
reported that year by Amtorg to the Department of “What more do we need as business men?”
Commerce), more than fifty additional technical assis- After a successful term as head of Amtorg in New York,
tance contracts in almost all important industries were Bron was energetically pursuing a similar policy in
under negotiation. Three years after Bron took office Great Britain, and by June 1930 had already negotiat-
in 1927, with still no diplomatic relations between the ed several large contracts. Most important, the British
two countries, the Soviet Union was America’s seventh- government had agreed to guarantee $150,000,000 in
largest customer and its largest foreign purchaser of in- credits for business with the U.S.S.R. during the next
dustrial machinery.62 two years. On April 11, 1930, soon after the Anglo-Sovi-
et Trade agreement was signed, Bron signed contracts
However, investments by Americans in the development with Imperial Chemical Industries to supply fertilizers
of Soviet Russia were still impossible, because the U.S. and with Armstrong-Vickers to supply tractors—both
government banned foreign countries that had not set- on a credit basis. On November 17, 1930, he signed an
tled their debt to the United States from offering securi- agreement with the Associated British Machine Tool
ties for sale in the U.S. Quoting Bron’s book, Time wrote Makers (the largest contract this company had ever en-
under the heading “Everybody’s Red Business”: tered into with a single buyer), and on April 28, 1931,
with Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company for tech-
  Comrade Bron’s logical conclusion: The U.S. will sooner or nical assistance in the manufacture of steam turbo-
later, and probably sooner, extend full diplomatic recognition
generators and industrial motors. At a luncheon at the
to Soviet Russia, because American manufacturers and finan-
ciers are beginning to realize that the real possibilities of Soviet- Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, held on July 17,
American trade cannot be attained under the present abnormal 1930, British Secretary for Overseas Trade, George Gil-
relations.63 lett, quoted Bron reporting that the value of manufac-
tured products exported by the United Kingdom to the
Bron’s conclusion echoed Moritz Kahn’s belief expressed Soviet Union during the first half of 1930 was double
in his October 1929 letter from Russia to Albert Kahn: the 1929 exports.
“Although communism can thrive in Russia, it can never
thrive in America, because the economic conditions In Fighting the Red Trade Menace, H.R. Knickerbocker
of the two peoples differ so radically. But I believe that recounted Bron’s visit to Manchester shortly after his
sooner or later America is bound to recognize Russia, arrival in England. He described Manchester as “a per-
and if so, then why not sooner than later?”64 fect example of a divided personality” typical of Western
business groups when brought in commercial contact
It would take another three years before diplomatic with Soviet Russia, “with its lure and with its threat,”
relations between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. were es- pointing out that Manchester was caught in the tension
tablished in 1933.65 By that time Kahn architects had between the manufacturers of textile machinery, hap-
already left Russia and Bron had been transferred to py with their profit from sales of their machines to the
London, where, in early 1930, after diplomatic relations U.S.S.R., and the textile manufacturers, fearing losses
between Great Britain and the U.S.S.R. were resumed from increased Soviet competition resulting from the
in October 1929, he was appointed chairman of Arcos export of these machines. According to Knickerbocker,

16
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

it was proof that “Manchester wanted to have its cake Bron back to the U.S.S.R.68 In Stalin’s eyes Bron, like
and eat it too.” (The last observation could probably Kahn, had fulfilled his mission. The Soviet ambassador
also describe the U.S. State Department’s attitude to- in London informed His Majesty’s government that
wards Amtorg’s procurements in the U.S.) “Mr. Saul G. Bron has left London on a temporary visit
to Moscow.”69 He never came back.
In welcoming Bron at the crowded session of the Man-
chester Chamber of Commerce devoted to Russia for Bron’s recall coincided with correspondence between
the first time since before WWI, the Chamber’s presi- L.M. Kaganovich70 and Stalin about the selection of an
dent, Herbert W. Lee, stated that Manchester now be- editorial board for the monumental project, “History
lieved that the potential for safe and profitable trade of Factories and Plants,” initiated by Maxim Gorky who
with Russia had significantly improved and that “if Rus- wrote in his article about the project that “to better un-
sia places large orders, if she keeps to the spirit as well derstand the present, we need to learn about the past.”71
as the letter of her contract, what more do we need as The project’s objective was to take over the “amateur”
business men?” initiatives that had started sprouting at the factories
and, as described in the decisions of the Politburo and
Continued Knickerbocker: the Central Committee of September 5 and October 10,
1931, “to portray the entire picture of development of
  Bron, be it said, has accomplished a job reminding one that old and new plants and their role in the country’s econo-
the Soviet foreign trade monopoly not only has all the well-
known advantages of a trust but disposes over diplomatic tal-
my.”72 The original list of chief editors for this ambitious
ent of a high order. His task was to take over an organization series on the history of industrial enterprises across the
“Arcos,” that had been literally dynamited out of existence by U.S.S.R., including all the industrial giants built under
British authorities in the famous raid that led to the break in the First Five-Year Plan, was prepared by N.I. Bukharin
diplomatic relations in 1927, and as that organization’s head to and was comprised of well-known Soviet writers, indus-
regain the confidence of the British trading public. Plainly, no
easy assignment, but Bron has achieved something when a Man- trial leaders, and several party leaders. Kaganovich pre-
chester business man says of him as he did to me, “He made a sented to Stalin his own list, which excluded Bukharin
good impression, an honest man; a capable fellow who puts his and added Mezhlauk and G.M. Krzhizhanovskii (then
case well.” head of the energy commission at the Commissariat for
Heavy Industry). But Stalin removed both Mezhlauk
As we now know, the British trading public’s confi- and Krzhizhanovskii and suggested adding more high-
dence would be put to the test many times during the ranking state officials and members of the Central Com-
following decades. But at that time, in the words of mittee, including Kaganovich himself.73 This important
Knickerbocker, “When Lancashire textile machinery project could not be left without close ideological cen-
manufacturers met Lancashire textile manufactur- sorship and Party control. Publication of the series was
ers in the Club, the most frequent remark heard was, entrusted to the Association of State Book and Magazine
‘Well, if we didn’t, somebody else would.’” Publishers, OGIZ, founded in 1930 and subordinated
to the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom),
Knickerbocker concluded his book with a prophetic thus establishing the state monopoly over publishing in
analogy: “We have never experienced a five-year plan the U.S.S.R. By putting high-ranking Party and state of-
before. We have never witnessed the effect upon our- ficials in charge of the “History of Factories and Plants”
selves of a nation, Communist or otherwise, operating project, Stalin de facto started the process of the ideo-
under a planned national economy. . . . If this is cryptic logical monopolization of Soviet history, as well.
it is because the Five-Year Plan is cryptic and only Marx-
ists claim the future can be mapped.”67 After his return to Moscow, Bron remained for some
time a member of the Collegium of the Commissariat
for Foreign Trade. He and his family even moved in at
History of “History of Factories and Plants” 2/20 Serafimovich Street, known as Dom pravitel’stva
This mapped future, however, was not a part of the (“Government House”), the recently built residence of
personnel policy of one Marxist named Stalin. Despite the upper echelons of the Soviet hierarchy described
Bron’s achievements in the U.S. and Great Britain to- by Yuri Trifonov in his novel, House on the Embankment.
ward the industrialization of his country, on September In 1933 Bron was appointed chairman of the Chamber
20, 1931, the Politburo adopted a decision to recall of Commerce of the U.S.S.R., mostly a ceremonial posi-

17
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

tion, but in 1935 he was further demoted and given a Bron had been arrested on October 25, 1937. (figure
job as a deputy to the head of OGIZ, Mikhail P. Tom- 13) Three months later, in January 1938, publishing
sky,74 a far cry from his position as president of Amtorg of the “History of Factories and Plants” was discontin-
or head of the trade delegation in London. ued, the editorial section of OGIZ responsible for the
project was closed, and its archive and 267 manuscripts
Returning from his trip to Russia in 1936, the head of prepared for publication were confiscated by NKVD;
the Trades Union Congress in Great Britain, Sir Wal- much of it was destroyed.78 Only thirty manuscripts had
ter Citrine, described his meeting in OGIZ with Tom- been published by that time. The reasons for termina-
sky, who had been recently deposed as the head of the tion of the series were complex, most immediately be-
Trade Unions of the U.S.S.R., and Bron, whom he had cause editing and rewriting of the texts could not keep
met a good deal in England: “We had a long chat to- up with the changes that were taking place in the So-
gether, in the course of which both impressed upon me viet approach to history and with the disappearance of
that the Revolution had proved worth while.” Citrine the people, described in these texts, because of their
was amazed that both Tomsky and Bron were so enthusi- arrests. Gorky’s idea of the necessity of learning about
astic despite their own bitter experience. “Then again,” the past had given way to the Stalin ideology of revising
added Citrine, “I did not know what the position of our that past.
interpreter was. He might conceivably be a GPU man,
and they might quite well know this.”75
“Traitors, spies, wreckers, and saboteurs”
Citrine was right; if there was a place in Soviet Russia
By the end of the second piatiletka, industrial develop-
where one could hide from the Stalin-OGPU-NKVD
ment had slowed, with industrial growth falling from
omniscient eye, OGIZ certainly was not such a place. On
28.8 percent in 1936 to 11.8 percent in 1938.79 But Stalin
August 23, 1936, during the first Moscow show trial,76 af-
and other Soviet leaders, reluctant to acknowledge how
ter realizing that he was about to be arrested, Tomsky
much the first five-year plan depended on foreign tech-
committed suicide. Bron then remained in charge of
nical aid, refused to recognize that among the reasons
OGIZ until the end of October 1937. One of his respon-
for the Soviet industrial deceleration in the mid- and
sibilities was to oversee the publication of the “History
late-1930s was the nation’s inability to continue import-
of Factories and Plants” series.
ing Western technology and expertise at the high rates
of the early 1930s. Instead, they attributed the econom-
In November, the new director, Pavel F. Yudin, in line
ic problems to alleged subversive activity, espionage,
with Stalin’s unfolding vigilance campaign against
and anti-Soviet conspiracy orchestrated from abroad.
“alien elements,” declared that OGIZ was contaminated
with members of “Trotskyist-Bukharinist, Cadet, Social
Revolutionary, Menshevik, Bundist, and German-Japa-
nese organizations,” and “traitors and spies beginning
with . . . Tomsky and Bron.” He demanded that “all this
scum be kicked out, burned out with a red-hot iron”
and ordered the heads of divisions to submit lists of all
foreigners working there, even if they had lived in the
Soviet Union for fifteen years, and everybody who had
been in any opposition parties or lived abroad. This was
followed on November 5 by a memo to Stalin from the
Commissar of Defense, L.Z. Mekhlis (nicknamed “Red
Army Inquisitor”), which read: “Comrade Yudin submit-
ted a list of 29 employees. Most of them have already
been expelled from the Party or arrested. But there still
are dozens of questionable people in OGIZ who are hos-
tile to the Soviet government.” A handwritten note on Figure 13. Saul G. Bron’s photo from NKVD file after his arrest.
the first page of Mekhlis’ memo read: “To Com. Yezhov. Lubyanka prison, Moscow, 25 October 1937. Photo courtesy of the
Must arrest all this OGIZ scum. I. Stalin.”77 Bron family.

18
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Stalin’s remedy for all shortcomings was even greater rested, most of them were accused of espionage. Follow-
repression. The entire Soviet industry became impaired ing the arrests, productivity plummeted.82 (A grim joke
by Stalin’s purges; the mass arrests and executions of was that if the factories had as many engineers as were
experienced managers and their replacement with in- held by GPU-NKVD, they would have the job done.)
experienced ones disrupted production and addition- The American workers, who had come to the U.S.S.R.
ally contributed to the country’s industrial slowdown.80 in great numbers during the Depression, had been dis-
appearing from Gorky, too. By 1937 most of them had
On January 23, 1937, the second in the series of infa- either returned to the U.S. or been arrested. Some of
mous Moscow show trials began. It became known as a them never returned, evidently perishing in the Gulag,
trial of the industrial elite. Most of the accused were the while others managed to return to America only de-
Soviet industrial leaders from the most important com- cades later.83
missariats, including heavy industry, transport, energy,
and coal and chemical industries. The defendants were Along with repressions against foreigners and those
accused of a conspiracy to “violently overthrow the So- who went through training in the U.S., Stalin’s machine
viet government” in order to “restore capitalism” and to inevitably turned to those who facilitated Albert Kahn’s
weaken the U.S.S.R. to bring its defeat in a future war and other westerners’ contributions to Soviet industrial
through “wrecking, diversionary and spying activities.” development. During the second wave of Stalin’s show
The trial ended with death sentences for thirteen of the trials, those who worked at the commissariats for for-
accused, and long-term sentences to prison and hard eign trade became particularly vulnerable. Technical
labour for four others. In February 1937, watching the intelligentsia, including highly qualified specialists who
sweeping arrests and executions of industrial managers had been trained in pre-revolutionary times or abroad,
at all Soviet plants built under his leadership, the Com- also were among the primary targets. A prolonged stay
missar of Heavy Industry, G.K. Ordzhonikidze, commit- or frequent visits abroad and regular contacts with for-
ted suicide.81 eigners became sufficient cause for accusations of espio-
nage.84 Under the headline “Red leaders feared victims
The situation became especially grave in the automo- of cleanup,” The New York Times reported on November
bile industry which, largely due to shortages of steel 30, 1937, that five high Soviet officials had disappeared
that was badly needed for military production, did not from pub­lic life, and that among those missing was Saul
prove to be as successful as tractor production. To make G. Bron. The news was especially alarming in light of
things worse, Ford’s contract was terminated in Novem- the 704 executions on charges of treason, spying and
ber 1934, five years sooner than anticipated, after a suc- sabotage during the previous four months. A dispatch
cession of disagreements and in accordance with the from the American Embassy in Moscow, dated Janu-
new Soviet policy of discontinuing foreign aid (with a ary 7, 1938, contained a list of over a hundred promi-
$578,000 loss to Ford). By 1935 no American special- nent Soviet figures who had recently suffered from the
ists remained in Gorky to train Soviet workers to handle purge, specifically naming officials who had been con-
the imported machinery. On October 7, 1937, as a part nected with the U.S. “through the nature of their work.”
of Stalin’s campaign against ”spies, wreckers, and sabo- Besides Saul G. Bron and his successor at Amtorg, Peter
teurs,” Pravda ran an article accusing the Gorky plant of A. Bogdanov, the list also included Ivan L. Arens, for-
“deplorable” work: the expensive imported machinery mer Soviet Consul General in New York, and Valery I.
stayed idle or was broken due to negligence and lack of Mezhlauk, former vice chairman of the VSNKh.85
proper maintenance. (Out of fear of severe punishment
for not meeting the demands of the production plan, During the interrogations at the Lubyanka prison Bron
Soviet foremen often kept exhausted machinery run- was initially accused of overpaying for imported ma-
ning rather than stopping an assembly line for repair.) chinery and of revealing in 1935 to a visiting English-
During the first six months of 1938 alone, 407 special- man facts about the famine in the Ukraine, repressions
ists at the plant were arrested. It was not a coincidence against the “Trotskyites,” and other negative informa-
that so many “wreckers” and “spies” were found at the tion about conditions in the U.S.S.R. As interrogations
plant which was built with the help of foreign experts continued, the accusations grew more ominous. After
and where most of the engineers and skilled workers five months in prison, on April 21, 1938, Bron was tried
went through training abroad. Virtually every Soviet in a closed session by the troika (the three-member Mili-
engineer who had any connection with Detroit was ar- tary Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.).

19
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

According to the minutes, the trial started at 16:45 and Russia, perished during Stalin’s purges. Their liquidation
ended fifteen minutes later, at 17:00. The sentence stat- helped to conceal the truth about the origins of the ear-
ed that since 1928 Bron had been “an active member ly stages of accelerated industrialization in the U.S.S.R.
of a right-wing anti-Soviet diversionary terrorist organi- which was supposed to go into history as an unparalleled
zation and an associate of one of its leaders, Tomsky, achievement of the brilliant genius of the “great architect
together with whom he was engaged in subversive ac- of Communism,” Comrade Stalin. In his speech to the
tivity by publishing Trotskyite counter-revolutionary lit- Central Committee on results of the Five-Year Plan on
erature”; that he was “preparing a terrorist act against January 7, 1933, Stalin recited three basic forces respon-
Comrade Stalin”; and that he was “an agent of British sible for this historic achievement: the enthusiasm of the
intelligence.” He was sentenced to death by firing squad workers, the leadership of the Party, and the advantages
and was executed the same day. His wife, Klara Bron, of the Soviet economic system.88
died in a labor camp for wives of “enemies of the state.”86

Saul G. Bron, the largest “Red Buyer,” was buried in a “National suicide” or joint victory?
mass grave at Kommunarka, Butovo, near Moscow, one
of the sites of mass executions during Stalin’s terror In 1944, in a conversation with the president of the
in the 1930s–50s. (He would be posthumously reha- American Chamber of Commerce, Eric Johnston, Stalin
bilitated by Khrushchev in 1956 but would remain “un- admitted that “about two-thirds of all the large indus-
touchable” by Soviet historians.) Also at Kommunarka trial enterprises in the Soviet Union had been built with
rest the remains of Valery I. Mezhlauk, Bron’s neighbor United States material aid or technical assistance.”89 As
at 2/20 Serafimovich Street, who together with Bron this study shows, the crucial share of this aid and assis-
signed the contract with Ford in 1929. Bron’s two other tance was secured by Saul G. Bron during his tenure as
neighbors and his travelling companions, who in 1928 chairman of Amtorg and brought to fruition during the
arrived with him in New York on the Mauretania, In- Albert Kahn firm’s three-year term as consulting archi-
nokentii A. Khalepsky and Mark L. Sorokin, lie there, tects to the Soviet Government, laying the foundation
as well. It is estimated that one-third of the Government for the entire Soviet automobile, tractor, and tank in-
House residents, about 700 people, including Marshal dustries. During the following decade, the Soviet Union
Tukhachevsky, became victims of Stalin’s repressions. accomplished what E.H. Carr later described as “a mon-
Also buried at Kommunarka are Sergey Dyakonov, the umental achievement at a monstrous price.”90 Millions
first director of the Gorky Auto Plant, who received a of Soviet citizens and hundreds of thousands of foreign-
photograph signed “from American Ford to the Soviet ers gave their labor, and often lives, to the industrializa-
Ford”; Stepan Dybets, the head of Avtostroi, who signed tion effort. Still, the goal was achieved. By the end of the
the Austin contract; and Eliazar I. Gurevich, who once 1930s, Soviet leaders could declare that the U.S.S.R. was
worked at the Cheliabtraktorstroi office in Detroit and one of world’s major industrial powers, competing with
later became a chief engineer of the Chelyabinsk plant. such industrial giants as the United States, Germany,
Most of the specialists and workers at the plant who and Great Britain.91 And hundreds of industrial enter-
worked at 500 Griswold Street or went through train- prises that were built in the 1930s east of the Volga River
ing in Detroit became victims of Stalin’s repressions in and beyond the Urals, far from the future front line,
the late 1930s.87 The first director of the Chelyabinsk constituted the industrial base for military production
Tractor Plant, Kazimir P. Lovin, who set up the tractor that would become a decisive factor in the Soviet victory
construction bureau in Detroit, and the first directors over Nazi Germany.
of the Stalingrad and Kharkov plants, V.I. Ivanov and
P.I. Svistun, were executed, too. Albert Kahn died in 1942. Late in life he recalled, prob-
ably with a twinkle in his eye: “When I began, the real
While the “economy axe” ended Kahn’s cooperation architects would design only museums, cathedrals, capi-
with the U.S.S.R., it was a real axe that was in store for tols, monuments. The office boy was considered good
most of his Soviet counterparts. Practically everybody enough to do factory buildings. I’m still that office boy
who was involved in securing the foreign aid contracts designing factories. I have no dignity to be impaired.”92
and purchasing equipment for construction of the indus- Being forgotten by Soviet historians did not impair his
trial giants of the first Soviet five-year plan, who traveled dignity either. Sixty of Kahn’s buildings are listed in
abroad or worked side by side with foreign specialists in the American National Register of Historic Places. His

20
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

many awards included the Chevalier légion d’honneur, to the Soviet Union.95 Sutton’s research, however, conduct-
a gold medal at the Paris International Exposition of ed during the height of the Cold War, focused only on
Arts and Sciences; a silver medal of the Architectural the negative effect on the U.S. of its technology transfer
League; and a special award by the American Institute to the U.S.S.R., exploring Kahn’s Russian legacy in that
of Architects for his outstanding contribution to the context and claiming that by giving the U.S.S.R. the ca-
nation’s WWII effort, including the Chrysler Tank Ar- pacity to produce military vehicles, the U.S. committed
senal, the Ford Willow Run Bomber Plant, and Wright “national suicide.”
Aeronautical “Plant 7” in Wood Ridge. To some degree,
in meeting the challenge of building the defense indus- Now in the post-Soviet era, we can objectively appreci-
try of his country during 1938–1942, Kahn utilized the ate the historical significance of Kahn’s work in Russia.
experience of building this industry ten years earlier for As we now know, it did not result in America’s national
Soviet Russia, with his plants building tanks and aircraft suicide, and despite all the transferred technology, the
“in every Allied industrial stronghold from Detroit to U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, short of the seventy-fifth an-
Novosibirsk,” his Soviet tanks attacking the Nazi from niversary of the Bolshevik revolution. Instead, at the
the East, and his Liberator bombers from the West.93 time of the Nazi threat to the world, Kahn’s work in both
countries ultimately led to strengthening the U.S.S.R.
Twice in his life Kahn happened to be the right man in and the Allies in their fight against the common enemy.
the right place at the critical time. If in 1903 Detroit was
to become the center of the automotive industry, it may
have been inevitable that it would produce a new indus- Postmortem: Only one such account
trial architecture. Yet it was the emigration of a poor The architectural firm Albert Kahn, Inc., continues to
rabbi’s family from Germany to Detroit that resulted in exist today. The ink-on-linen drawings for the Stalin-
the Ford-Kahn collaboration—and twentieth-century grad, Chelyabinsk, and other Russian plants designed
industrial architecture was born. If in 1928 Russia was in Detroit by Albert Kahn architects are now in the
to move “from a plow-horse to a horsepower economy,” collection of the Bentley Historical Library, Univer-
it may have been inevitable that it would turn to Ameri- sity of Michigan. Promstroiproekt in Moscow, formerly
ca for assistance. But it was the combination of two men, Gosproektstroi, where Kahn architects and engineers
both excised from Soviet history in the country they worked in 1930–1932, was dissolved as a state-run orga-
helped to build, both Jewish, one American and one nization in 1990 and is now a private company. Amtorg
Russian, one a capitalist who believed that “it was the Trading Corporation, surrounded by controversy, sur-
right thing to do,” the other a Bolshevik who believed vived the Cold War but did not survive the collapse of
in the power of “American technique”—those two men the Soviet Union, quietly disappearing in 1998.
turned out to be the catalyst, and industrialized Russia
was born. Russia’s oldest car manufacturer, the automobile plant
in Nizhny Novgorod, is today the key holding of the
Sadly, both Kahn and Bron during their lifetimes were privately-owned GAZ Group. Except for the trucks and
unfairly accused of being traitors in their home coun- off-road vehicles for military use assembled under the
tries (with the consequences for the former, fortunately, U.S. Lend-Lease Program during WWII, the plant never
far less tragic than for the latter): one for providing pro- produced foreign models after the Ford contract had
fessional services to the ideological enemy, the other, as been terminated. But in 2012, eighty years after the first
a result of providing these services to his own people. Soviet Fords rolled off its assembly line, as if mirroring
that historic contract, the plant began manufacturing
In 1944, Louis Kahn, then President of Albert Kahn, Inc., the Skoda Yeti under a contract with Volkswagen. It
wrote about Kahn’s plants in Russia: “What those plants also contracted with Daimler to manufacture Mercedes-
have meant to the democracies in turning back Hitler’s Benz Sprinter and—finally—with General Motors to as-
hordes is a story only the postwar world will hear.”94 But semble the new Chevrolet Aveo. (figure 14)
it was more than a quarter century after WWII when
the first investigation of the Kahn firm’s role in Soviet The Kahn-designed tractor plant in Stalingrad was com-
industrialization was done by historian Antony C. Sut- pletely destroyed during WWII but rebuilt in 1944. The
ton in his books Western Technology and Soviet Economic plant was privatized in 1992, went through a bankrupt-
Development 1917–1930 and National Suicide: Military Aid cy in 2005, and was reborn as the joint-stock Volgograd

21
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

Tractor Company. At the time of this writing, it is part

of the multinational enterprise Concern Tractor Plants,
Russia’s largest tractor producer in a joint venture with
AGCO Corporation. (figure 15)

The AZLK “Moskvich” (formerly KIM) auto plant in

Moscow, following privatization in 1991, went bankrupt
and ceased production in 2002. A portion of the aban-
doned plant, now owned by Renault, is producing Lo-
gan and Sandero models. (figure 16)

Chelyabinsk, in 1930 a typical provincial Russian town

with nothing but decrepit wooden houses, has become
a thriving industrial center. The Chelyabinsk Tractor
Plant, now ChTZ-Uraltrac, is still the main manufactur-
Figure 14. Gorky Automobile Plant in Nizhny Novgorod (GAZ), er of powerful crawler tractors in Russia. However, the
2011. www.skyscrapercity.com. legendary facility, still one of the largest in the world,
has fallen on hard times in recent years due to out-
dated equipment and lack of funds for modernization.
In 2011, coming full circle since 1930, the plant’s new
owners secured the aid of an American company, Cat-
erpillar, to provide investment and expertise for joint
production of industrial machinery. (figure 17)

***

Soviet industrialization was a complex economic and

political undertaking about which much remains un-
clear due in large measure to a deliberate policy dur-
ing the Soviet era of replacing the facts about one of
the most important periods of Soviet history—from the
early days of industrialization to the beginning of the
Figure 15. Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) Tractor Plant, 2011.
www.volganet.ru
Great Patriotic War, including American involvement in

Figure 17. Interior of the assembly building at Chelyabinsk Tractor

Plant, 2007. Photo from S. Ustiantsev, Elita rossiiskoi industrii:
Figure 16. AZLK “Moskvich” (formerly KIM) auto plant in Moscow, Cheliabinskii traktorny zavod (Nezavisimyi Institut istorii material’noi
1970s. www.mzma- club.ru kul’tury, 2008).

22
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Soviet industrial development––with censored or fabri- Hugh L. Cooper and Company, Inc., New York, New
cated accounts. Throughout the Cold War years neither York—Consulting engineers for construction of
country was willing to publicly admit reaching out to the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Plant (Dneproges, ex-
other during the Great Depression: the Soviet Union tended in 1928).
would have to admit that to build Socialism it needed
to turn for help to the world’s utmost capitalist country; Arthur P. Davis, Lyman Bishop & Associates, Oakland,
the United States, that it provided help to the Bolshe- California—Consulting engineers for irrigation proj-
viks in order to keep some of its own factories working. ects in Central Asia and Transcaucasia.
Regrettably, the resistance to restoration of this history
persists in modern-day Russia where many still see such Frank E. Dickie, Detroit, Michigan—Technical assis-
restoration as a threat to Russia’s national self-image tance for Aluminum Plant Construction Bureau.
and international prestige, somehow detracting from
Russia’s role in defeating Nazi Germany. It is hoped that DuPont de Nemours & Company, Wilmington, Dela-
the full account of the origin of the Soviet industrial gi- ware—Technical assistance in chemical industry and
ants, including the role of foreign aid in their creation, construction of nitric acid and fertilizer plants.
will one day paint a complete and accurate picture of
the history of the industrialization of Russia, and that Eastman Construction Engineering Company, Philadel-
this story of two men and of their contribution to bring- phia, Pennsylvania—Technical assistance in production
ing the Russian economy into the modern industrial of cellulose.
age will serve as one such account.
Electric Auto-Lite Company, Toledo, Ohio—Technical
*** assistance in production of electrical equipment for au-
tomobiles and tractors.
Main trade and technical assistance contracts between
Hardy S. Ferguson and Company, New York, New
Amtorg and American manufacturing and engineering
York—Technical assistance to Severoles in construction
companies signed from 1928 through March 1, 193096
of a paper mill near Archangelsk.
Akron Rubber Reclaiming Company, Akron, Ohio—
Ford Motor Company, Detroit, Michigan—Technical
Technical assistance in construction of a rubber recla-
assistance in construction and operation of Nizhny
mation plant.
Novgorod (Gorky) automobile plant and production of
cars and trucks.
Allen and Garcia Company, Chicago, Illinois—Techni-
cal assistance in design and construction of coal mines
Freyn Engineering Company, Chicago, Illinois—Con-
in Donbass in the Ukraine and Kuzbass in Siberia.
sulting engineers to Gipromez in designing and equip-
ping 18 new metallurgical plants, including Kuznetsk
The Austin Company, Cleveland, Ohio—Technical as-
Metallurgical Plant, and re-equipping 40 other plants
sistance in design and construction of automobile plant
(extended in 1928).
and adjoining workers’ city in Nizhny Novgorod.
Harry D. Gibbs, Hyattsville, Maryland—Technical assis-
E.B. Badger & Sons, Boston, Massachusetts—Technical
tance in chemical industry in production of aniline.
assistance in chemical industry for dry wood distillation.
Goodman Manufacturing Company, Chicago, Illinois—
Arthur J. Brandt, Detroit, Michigan—Modernization
Technical assistance in manufacture of coal-cutting
and expansion of AMO automobile plant in Moscow.
equipment in Donetsk, Ukraine.
Brown Lipe Gear Company, Syracuse, New York—Tech-
T.G. Hawkins, Jr., New York, New York—Technical as-
nical assistance in automobile and tractor industry.
sistance in modernizing coal industry.
Burrell-Mase Engineering Company, Pittsburgh, Penn-
Hercules Motor Company, Canton, Ohio—Assistance
sylvania—Modernization and expansion of gas and oil
in production of engines for trucks at AMO automobile
industry in Grozny, Southern Russia.
plant.

23
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

John J. Higgins, East Orange, New Jersey—Technical as- Roberts & Schaefer Company, Chicago, Illinois—Tech-
sistance in electro-technical industry. nical assistance in mine construction for coal industry
in Donbass.
International General Electric Company (I.G.E.), Sche-
nectady, New York—Technical assistance in develop- C.F. Seabrook Company, New York, New York—Techni-
ment of electrical industry. cal advisors in road-building near Moscow.

Irving Air Chute Company, Inc., Buffalo, New York— Seiberling Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio—Technical
Technical assistance in aviation industry. assistance for design and construction of a tire plant in
Yaroslavl.
Albert Kahn Architects and Engineers, Inc., Detroit,
Michigan—Designing buildings for the Stalingrad Trac- Southwestern Engineering Corporation, Los Angeles,
tor Plant and general contract for consulting services in California—Technical assistance in non-ferrous metal
industrial construction. industry for design, construction and operation of con-
centration plants.
Koppers Construction Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-
vania—Technical assistance in designing and installing Sperry Gyroscope Company, Brooklyn, New York—
coke ovens. Technical assistance in manufacture of sonic detectors,
directoscopes, gyroscopes, and other instruments.
Lockwood-Green and Company, New York, New York—
Technical assistance in design and construction of tex- Stuart, James & Cooke, Inc., New York, New York—
tile mills. Technical assistance for modernization of coal mines
in Donbass in the Ukraine (Donugol), Kazakhstan, and
Lucas & Luick, Chicago, Illinois—Technical assistance near Moscow.
in construction of a gas plant in Moscow.
Timken-Detroit Axle Company, Detroit, Michigan—
McDonald Engineering Company, Chicago, Illinois— Technical assistance in automobile and tractor industry.
Technical assistance in construction of industrial plants.
E. Waite, Walpole, Massachusetts—Technical assistance
Arthur G. McKee and Company, Cleveland, Ohio— in manufacture of asbestos products.
Technical assistance in design and construction of Mag-
nitogorsk Metallurgical Plant in the Urals. Westvaco Chlorine Products, Inc., Charleston, West Vir-
ginia—Technical assistance in production of chlorine.
Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company,
Newport News, Virginia—Technical assistance in con- Archer E. Wheeler and Associates, New York, New
struction of hydraulic electric turbines and generators. York—Technical assistance in copper and other non-
ferrous metals industry.
Nitrogen Engineering Corporation, New York, New
York—Technical assistance in construction and opera- Winkler-Koch Engineering Company, Wichita, Kan-
tion of a large synthetic ammonia and fertilizer plant. sas—Technical assistance in oil industry, supplying
equipment for cracking plants.
Oglebay Norton & Company, Cleveland, Ohio—Tech-
nical assistance in design, construction and operation J. C. White Engineering Co., New York, New York—
of iron mines near Krivoi Rog in Southern Ukraine. Consulting services for Svir Hydroelectric Plant near
Leningrad.
Radio Corporation of America, New York, New York—
Technical assistance in radio communication. Norman D. Wimmler—Technical assistance in non-fer-
rous metal industry.
Radiore Company, Los Angeles, California—Technical
assistance in non-ferrous metal industry for exploration W. A. Wood—Technical assistance in non-ferrous metal
of ore deposits. industry.

24
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

Acknowledgements Notes
The author is greatly indebted to Prof. V.V. Veeder QC   1. Address by Mr. Saul G. Bron, Chairman of Board of Directors, Amtorg
Trading Corporation, at the luncheon meeting of Export Managers’ Club
(King’s College, University of London), to Dr. Steve
of New York. November 27, 1928 (New York: Amtorg Trading Corpo-
White, and to her husband David G. Raich, PhD, for ration, 1928), 7.
their inspiration, encouragement, invaluable help, and   2. Mikoyan begged Stalin to excuse him from the appointment ex-
constructive criticism. She is immensely grateful to Prof. plaining that he did not have enough education (“could not put
Mikhail Y. Mukhin (Institute of Russian History) and two words together in writing,” in his own words) and had a short
temper not conducive to the position. See Mikoyan’s letter to Sta-
Prof. Boris M. Shpotov (Institute of World History) of
lin, 27 July 1926, and Stalin’s letter to Mikoyan, 10 August 1926,
the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as Prof. Victor RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 34, ll. 87, 102, 105 (cited in S.S. Khro-
E. Gurevich (The Bonch-Bruevich St. Petersburg State mov, Po stranitsam lichnogo arkhiva Stalina [Moscow: Moscow State
University) for their generous responses to her many University, 2009], 97, 99).
inquiries. She also would like to express gratitude to   3. Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (hereafter AP
RF), f.3, op. 66, d. 283, ll.39–40 (cited in G.N. Sevost’ianov, Mos-
Albert Kahn Associates, Inc., and the archivists at the
cow-Washington, The Road to Recognition. 1918–1933 [Moscow: Nau-
Bentley Historical Library (University of Michigan), ka, 2004], 89); Memo from the People’s Commissariat of Foreign
Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant Museum, and the Western Trade of the U.S.S.R. to I.V. Stalin, 28 March 1927, AP RF, f. 3, op.
Reserve Historical Society (Cleveland, Ohio), as well as 66, d. 276, l. 40 (incl. in Moscow-Washington, Policy and Diplomacy
filmmaker Dieter Marcello97 and Ron Romano and the of the Kremlin, 1921-1941. Collection of documents in 3 vols., ed.
G.N. Sevost’ianov [Moscow: Nauka, 2009], 1:322–333); Norman E.
staff of the SFPL inter-library loan department, for in-
Saul, Friends or Foes? The United States and Soviet Russia, 1921–1941
valuable help in accessing remote and rare resources. (Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 134.
She would also like to extend special thanks to Brian  4. Arcos-America was a division of Arcos (All-Russian Cooperative
Kahn and the Bron family for allowing use of docu- Society) which was acting as a Soviet trade mission in Great Britain
ments from their personal archives. from 1920.
 5. The few exceptions included the All-Russian Textile Syndicate,
agricultural cooperatives Tsentrosoiuz and Sel’skhosoiuz, and sev-
eral fur trading companies which later were absorbed by Amtorg.
On translation and transliteration:   6. Ernest C. Ropes, “The Shape of United States-Soviet Trade, Past
and Future,” Slavonic and East European Review 22, no. 2 (August
For the convenience of non-Slavist readers, the author 1944): 91–92.
uses the Library of Congress system of transliteration  7. J.M. Tatcher Feinstein, Fifty Years of U.S.-Soviet Trade (New York:
with some modifications, including, for Russian names Symposium Press, Inc., 1974), 55.
in the body of the text, transliteration of Cyrillic letters   8. It was suspected that Khurgin’s death might have been collateral
in initial and final positions (e.g., Iu=Yu, as in Yudin; damage and that the accident was arranged by Stalin’s long arm
to remove Khurgin’s guest, Ephraim Sklyanskii, who was Trotsky’s
iia=ia, as in Izvestia; nyi=ny, as in Krasny), and omitting closest companion and supporter.
hard and soft signs. For well-known names of people   9. Feinstein, Fifty Years, 40 (see n. 7).
and places, the customary English spelling is retained 10. M.Y. Mukhin, “Amtorg: Nelegal’noe torgpredstvo,” Poligon, no. 2
(e.g., Joseph Stalin, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, (2000): 31–34.
Gorky). However, all bibliographic notes preserve the 11. “New Head of American-Soviet Trading Organization,” Soviet
Union Review 5, no. 6 (June 1927): 92. Soviet Union Review was a
standard Library of Congress system of transliteration. monthly bulletin about economic and cultural life in the U.S.S.R.
On first usage, the names of Russian institutions are published by Soviet Union Information Bureau, Washington, DC.
given in English translation followed by a transliterated 12 “Economic Conditions in the United States,” a memo by the Peo-
Russian acronym. When citing sources from Russian ple’s Commissariat of Foreign and Domestic Trade of the U.S.S.R.,
archives, the standard citation convention for these ar- AP RF, f. 3, op. 66, d. 468, ll. 19–27 (incl. in Moscow-Washington,
Policy, 1:341 [see n. 3]).
chives is used where every document is identified by its 13. “Amtorg Head Says Orders Are Coming Here That Would Have
collection number (fond in Russian), the number of Gone to England,” The New York Times, 4 June 1927; “Mr. Bron on
the record group (opis), the number of the file (delo), Soviet-American Trade,” Soviet Union Review 5, no. 7–8 (July–Au-
and the page number (list), with the name of the ar- gust 1927): 121.
chive in the beginning of the citation (e.g., RGASPI, f. 14. Frederick L. Schuman, American Policy Toward Russia (New York:
International Publishers, 1928), 251.
558, op. 11, d. 739, l. 28.) All translations from Russian 15. See Sonia Melnikova-Raich, “The Soviet Problem with Two ‘Un-
are by the author, unless specified otherwise. knowns’: How an American Architect and a Soviet Negotiator
Jump-Started the Industrialization of Russia, Part I: Albert Kahn,”
IA: Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 36, no. 2 (2010):
57–80.

25
Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

16. “A Ruble in the Hand,” Time, 17 June 1929. Lehigh Structural Steel Co. in Allentown, Pa) and shipped to the
17. The fascinating story of Solomon A. Trone, a Latvian-born Jewish U.S.S.R. (V.D. Tsvetaev, Sovremennaia fabrichno-zavodskaia arkhi-
engineer who worked for General Electric and negotiated the 1928 tektura [Moscow–Leningrad: Gosstroiizdat, 1933]: 59).
I.G.E. contract with Bron, and who was involved in construction of 27. Resolution of the Soviet Council on Labor and Defense on devel-
the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Plant (Dneproges), is told in a opment of automobile industry in the U.S.S.R., The State Archive
documentary by M. Chanan, “The American Who Electrified Rus- of the Russian Federation (hereafter GARF), f. R5446, op. 4, d.
sia” (2009). DVD and streaming are available from Artfilms.com. 536, l. 2 (incl. in S.S. Khromov, Industrializatsia Sovetskogo Soiuza:
18. Direct Settlement with General Electric Company, U.S. State De- novye dokumenty, novye fakty, novye podkhody, 2 vols. [Moscow: In-t
partment Decimal File, 861.51/2566-2735, Financial Conditions, rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 1997], 2:37–40).
Foreign Credits/468, U.S. National Archives and Records Admin- 28. “ Mauretania Here After a Fast Trip,” The New York Times, 31 August
istration (hereafter NARA); Letter from S.G. Bron to A.I. Mikoyan 1928. It’s worth mentioning that one of the members of the Com-
about signing of the agreement with General Electric Company, 17 mission, I.A. Khalepsky, likely had an additional agenda. He was a
October 1928, AP RF, f. 3, op. 66, d. 288, l. 87; Agreement between leading Soviet tank expert and a close associate of Tukhachevsky,
Amtorg and International General Electric Company, 9 October and his inclusion on the government commission appears consis-
1928, Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation tent with a working agreement that in June 1928 Amtorg was re-
(hereafter AVP RF), f. 0129, op. 5, P. 125, d. 309, ll. 17-24; Owen quired to sign with the Red Army’s Procurement Administration,
D. Young’s letter to Amtorg, 9 October 1928 (reproduced in Louis which for obvious reasons could not directly contract with Ameri-
Fischer, The Soviets in World Affairs: A History of the Relations Between can firms. In 1930 Khalepsky, by then the head of the Red Army’s
the Soviet Union and the Rest of the World, 1917–1929 (London: J. Mechanization and Motorization Directorate (UMM RKKA),
Cape, 1930), II:766–767. would arrange the purchase and shipment of two Christie M-1930
19. GOELRO (State Commission for Electrification of Russia), the first tanks, complete with detailed working drawings and accompanied
Soviet plan for economic recovery announced by Lenin in 1920 by a Christie’s engineer. See I.A. Khalepsky, Report of a business
under the slogan “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrifica- trip abroad, 6 June 1930, Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), f.
tion of the whole country.” 31811, op. 1, d. 7, ll. 35–47; M.Y. Mukhin, “Amtorg. Amerikanskie
20. The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, also known as Dneprostroi tanki dlia RKKA,” Otechestvennaia istoriia (May 2001): 55.
Dam, the largest hydroelectric power station in Europe at the time 29. The city was named Gorky after the famed Soviet writer, Maxim
of its construction and one of the largest in the world. It was con- Gorky. In 1990 the name was changed back to Nizhny Novgorod.
structed under the direction of Col. Hugh L. Cooper; GE engi- 30. “Ford Company to Aid Development of Soviet Automobile Indus-
neers took part in the construction, and the first five giant genera- try,” Economic Review of the Soviet Union 4, no. 12–13 (1 July 1929):
tors were manufactured by General Electric. 231; “The Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant,” Economic Review of
21. Alan M. Ball, Imagining America: Influence and Images in Twentieth- the Soviet Union 6, no. 23 (1 December 1931): 531.
Century Russia (Oxford, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 31. Walter Duranty, “Talk of Ford Favors Thrills Moscow,” The New York
2004), 133. Times, 17 February 1928; Anne O’Hare McCormick, The Hammer
22. “American and German Technique in the U.S.S.R.,” Economic Re- and the Scythe: Communist Russia Enters the Second Decade (New York:
view of the Soviet Union 4, no. 6 (15 March 1929): 114. More on Sovi- Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), 26. On Ford’s history in Russia, see Allan
et fascination with American industrial progress, see Hans Rogger, Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, “The Russian Adventures,” in Ford:
“Amerikanizm and the Economic Development of Russia,” Com- Expansion and challenge, 1915–1933 (New York: Scribner, 1954);
parative Studies in Society and History 23, no. 3 (July 1981): 382–420. Mira Wilkins and Frank E. Hill, American Business Abroad: Ford on
Economic Review of the Soviet Union was a semi-monthly survey of So- Six Continents (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1965).
viet economic developments and of trade between the U.S. and the 32. Malcolm W. Bingay, Detroit Is My Own Home Town (New York: Bobbs-
U.S.S.R. published by Amtorg. Merrill, 1946), 309; Christine White, “Ford in Russia: in pursuit
23. The Soviet Union: Facts, Descriptions, Statistics (Washington, DC: So- of the chimeral market,” in Henry Ford: Critical Evaluations in Busi-
viet Union Information Bureau, 1929), 161. ness and Management, ed. John Cunningham Wood and Michael C.
24. Fischer, The Soviets, II:806 (see n. 18). Wood (New York: Routledge, 2003), 2:64.
25. USSR in Construction 1 (1933). USSR in Construction was a propa- 33. The failure of the domestic tractor program prompted the Soviet
ganda picture magazine published from 1930 to 1941 in the Soviet government in 1926 to approach Ford with an offer to build a
Union in Russian, French, English, and German to “reflect in pho- tractor plant as a concession. After spending five months in the
tography the whole scope and variety of the construction work now U.S.S.R. in April–August 1926, Ford experts expressed a number
going on in the U.S.S.R.” Propaganda aside, it became an artistic of concerns, chiefly the fate of foreign companies whose plants in
gem, with oversized pages and multi-page fold-outs offering great Russia had been nationalized, making them less than confident
examples of early twentieth-century photography. that the same would not happen again, especially in the absence
26. “Development of Automobile Traffic in the U.S.S.R.,” Soviet Union Re- of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Further-
view 6, no. 7–8 (July–August 1928): 117–118. AMO (Avtomobil’noe more, VSNKh’s Main Concessions Committee, Glavkonsesskom,
Moskovskoe Obshchestvo) was founded in 1916 as Moscow Auto- asked Ford to advance credit to the Soviet government for the
mobile Joint-Stock Company. It became Stalin Auto Plant (ZIS) purchase of manufactured tractors at the government-set fixed
after reconstruction and modernization with American assistance prices, in addition to investing millions of dollars in a plant; Ford
under the contract between Amtorg and Moscow Automobile Trust flatly declined this proposal. Report of the Ford Delegation to
(Avtotrest); later it became Likhachev Auto Plant (ZIL) and now Russia and the U.S.S.R., Acc. 1870, box 1, Benson Ford Research
it is AMO-ZIL. Structural  design of the forge was done by Albert Center, The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Mich. See Melnikova-Raich,
Kahn company. (See Melnikova-Raich, “The Soviet Problem,” 80, n. “The Soviet Problem,” 58 (see n. 15).
105 [see n. 15].) The forge was fully manufactured in the U.S. (by 34. Charles E. Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford (New York: W.W. Nor-

26
 The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”

ton & Co., 1956), 194. (March-April 1970):19; M.N. Svirin, Bronia krepka. Istoriia sovetskogo
35. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 726, ll. 105–106 (incl. in Khromov, Po tanka. 1919–1937 (Moscow: Yauza, 2005), 143-154.
stranitsam, 274–275 [see n. 2]). Sheinman did not stay through 48. Economic Handbook of the Soviet Union (New York: American-Russian
the negotiations; he was called back to Moscow but instead, in Chamber of Commerce, 1931), 125.
the words of Sorensen, “for reasons of his own,” on the way back 49. “American Exports to Soviet Union Show Large Increase,” Econom-
defected in Berlin. Sheinman’s “own reasons” probably had to do ic Review of the Soviet Union 5, no. 10 (15 May 1930): 208.
with the news he received from Moscow about the April 1929 Ple- 50. “Foreign Technical Aid in the U.S.S.R.,” Soviet Union Review 8, no.
nary Meeting of the Central Committee, where Stalin defeated the 5 (May 1930): 86.
moderate (or right) opposition in the Communist Party. 51. “44 American Firms Are Aiding Soviets,” The New York Times, 30
36. Saul G. Bron’s letter to A.I. Mikoyan about American business circles’ November 1930.
attitude towards the U.S.S.R., 9 February 1928, RGAE. f.5240. op.18, 52. Feinstein, Fifty Years, 62 (see n. 7).
d. 241, ll. 202-203 (incl. in Russia and USA: Trade-Economic Relations 53. J.D. Mooney, “Soviet Trade and the United States,” Economic Review
1900–1930, ed. G.N. Sevost’ianov [Moscow: Nauka, 1996], 257). of the Soviet Union 6, no. 10 (15 May 1931): 223.
37. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 726, ll. 7, 13 (incl. in Khromov, Po stran- 54. Feinstein, Fifty Years, 62 (see n. 7).
itsam, 276 [see n. 2]). 55. Katherine A.S. Siegel, Loans and Legitimacy: The Evolution of Soviet-
38. Agreement Between the Ford Motor Company, the Supreme American Relations, 1919–1930 (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of
Council of National Economy, and the Amtorg Trading Corpora- Kentucky, 1996): 103–104; Ropes, “The Shape of United States-
tion, 31 May 1929, Amtorg Records 1929–1930, Acc. 199, box 1a, Soviet Trade,” 91–92 (see n. 6).
Benson Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Mich. 56. “Amtorg Purchases in July Exceed $20,000,000,” Economic Review of
39. A.A. Dzerzhkovich, “Amerikanskaia proektirovka zheleznykh the Soviet Union 4, no. 16–17 (1 September 1929): 278.
konstruktsii. Avtosborocnaia v Moskve,” Stroitel’stvo Moskvy, no. 2 57. Interview with S.G. Bron, Ekonomicheskaia zhizn’, Moscow, 1 June 1928.
(1930): 3. Gudok Oktyabrya factory was later incorporated into the 58. Saul G. Bron’s letter to G.V. Chicherin and A.I. Mikoyan, 6 De-
Gorky Automobile Plant. KIM (Communist Youth International) cember 1927, AVP RF, f. 04, op. 3, p. 14, d. 195, ll. 124–126 (incl.
auto plant in 1939 became MZMA (Moscow Compact Car Facto- in Soviet-American Relations. Years of non-recognition. 1927–1933, ed.
ry), before changing its name in 1969 to AZLK (Lenin Commu- G.N. Sevost’ianov and J. Haslam [Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi Fond
nist Youth League Automobile Factory); after WWII, it became the “Demokratiia,” 2002], 81–82).
manufacturer of a small Moskvich passenger car. More on the KIM 59. Saul G. Bron’s letter to A.I. Mikoyan, 12 June 1929, RGAE. f. 5240,
auto plant, see Kenneth M. Straus, Factory and Community in Stalin’s op. 18, d. 243, ll. 147–148 (incl. in Russia and USA).
Russia: The Making of an Industrial Working Class (Pittsburgh, Pa: 60. Saul G. Bron, Soviet Economic Development and American Business
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998). (New York: Horace Liveright, 1930).
40. “Technological project” is a document in which the engineers de- 61. Jon Carter, “Russia Again!,” Outlook and Independent 155 (May 21,
scribe in detail all the items related to the technological process. 1930): 108.
41. State Archive of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast’, f. 2431. op. 1, d. 187, ll. 62. Bron, Soviet Economic Development, 99, 144–146 (see n. 60); “44
3–12 (incl. in Russia and USA, 367–381 [see n. 36]). American Firms,” (see n. 51); Economic Review of the Soviet Union
42. Supplemental Agreement between Avtostroi and the Austin Com- 5, no. 22–23 (1 December 1930): 471; Economic Handbook (1936),
pany with an attached letter signed by the President of Amtorg 352 (see n. 48).
Trading Corporation, Saul G. Bron. Austin Company Records, 63. “Everybody’s Red Business,” Time, 9 June 1930.
MSS 5040, Container 19, folder 22, Western Reserve Historical So- 64. Letter from Moritz Kahn to Albert Kahn, 10 October 1929, Albert
ciety, Cleveland, Ohio. E. Kahn family archive.
43. W.J. Austin, “Technical Assistance in Building the Nizhny Novgorod 65. The first official trade agreement between the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A.
Automobile Plant,” Economic Review of the Soviet Union 6, no. 9 (1 would be signed on July 14, 1935.
May 1931): 207–208; “Detroit Engineers Direct Soviet Industrial 66. Soviet Union Review 8, no. 2 (February 1930): 30–31.

Revival,” Michigan Manufacturer and Financial Record 45, no. 16 (19 67. Hubert R. Knickerbocker, Fighting the Red Trade Menace (New York:
April 1930). Wilkins, American Business, 221 (see n. 31). Dodd, Mead & Co., 1931), 150–157, 294–295.
44. On building the Gorky Auto Plant and the adjacent city, and a 68. Letter from Kaganovich to Stalin, 11 September 1931, Stalin i Ka-
detailed account of disputes between the Austin Company and ganovich. Perepiska. 1931–1936, ed. O.V. Khlevniuk et al. (Moscow:
Avtostroi, see Richard Cartwright Austin, Building Utopia: Erecting Russian Political Encyclopedia, 2001), 97, n. 12.
Russia’s First Modern City, 1930 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University 69. “Russian Trade Representation in the United Kingdom,” The
Press, 2004). More on the history of the Austin company in the Chemical News and Journal of Industrial Science 142 (1931): 186.
Soviet Union, see Martin Greif, The New Industrial Landscape: the 70. Lazar M. Kaganovich (1893–1991), one of Stalin’s main associates,
Story of the Austin Company (Clinton, N.J.: Main Street Press, 1978). was secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
45. Philip K. Davis, Engineer, the Austin Company, “The Building of from 1928 to 1939.
Molotov Where Russian Fords Will Be Produced,” Journal of Worces- 71. Maxim Gorky, History for Factories and Plants, first published in Prav-
ter Polytechnic Institute (April 1932): 83–88; “The Fifteenth Year Be- da, 4, 7 September, 1931.
gins,” Soviet Union Review 9, no. 11 (November 1931): 204. 72. Archive of Russian Academy of Science (RAN), f. 359, op. 2, d.
46. “Automobile Plant and Workers’ City ‘Avtozavod,’ Nizhni Novgorod 421, ll. 4–6 (cited in S.V. Zhuravlev, Fenomen “Istorii fabrik i zavodov”:
(Gorki) U.S.S.R.,” Austin Company Records MSS 5040, Container gor'kovskoe nachinanie v kontekste epokhi 1930-kh godov [Moscow: In-
19, folder 18, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio. tut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 1997]), 5; Russian State Archive of Socio-
47. Walter S. Dunn, Jr., Stalin’s Keys to Victory: The Rebirth of the Red Army Political History (hereafter RGASPI), f. 17, op. 162, d. 846, l. 2, and
in World War II (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books 2007), 35; d. 853, l. 12 (cited in Stalin i Kaganovich, 86 [see n. 68]).
Robert Scoon, “Those Communist Model A’s,” The Restorer 14, no. 6 73. Letter from Kaganovich to Stalin, 20 September 1931, and Letter

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 Industrial Archeology Volume 37, Numbers 1 and 2, 2011

from Stalin to Kaganovich, 21 September 1931, RGASPI, f. 558, op. 85. “The Continuation of the Purge,” Dispatch No. 856 from the
11, d. 76, l. 73 (incl. in Stalin i Kaganovich, 110, 112 [see n. 68]). U.S. Embassy in Moscow, U.S. State Department Decimal File
74. Mikhail P. Tomsky (1880-1936), member of the Politburo and Cen- 861.00/11711-11787, Political Affairs/271, NARA.
tral Committee of VKP(B), leader of the All-Russian Central Coun- 86. S aul G. Bron’s file from the Central Archive of the Federal Secu-
cil of Trade Unions. In the 1920s, Tomsky, Bukharin, and Rykov rity Service of the Russian Federation (TsA FSB RF); Reports by
represented the moderate (or right) wing of the Communist Party Commissar for Internal Affairs (NKVD) Ezhov to Stalin about the
that helped Stalin, during the power struggle that followed Len- testimonies by the accused, 30 November 1937 and 16 February
in’s death in 1924, to purge the left opposition led by Trotsky, Ka- 1938, AP RF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 404, ll. 1–35, and d. 405, ll. 33–40; and
menev, and Zinoviev. In 1929 Stalin moved against his former allies TsA FSB RF, ASD R 9869 (incl. in Khaustov, Lubyanka [see n. 84]).
and defeated them, forcing Tomsky to resign from his position in 87. Sergei Ustiantsev, Russian industrial elite: Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant
the Politburo and as leader of the Soviet trade unions. (Yekaterinburg: Nezavisimyi Institut istorii material’noi kul’tury,
75. S ir Walter Citrine, I Search for Truth in Russia (Boston: E.P. Dutton, 2008), 35–36.
1936), 133–135. 88. I.V. Stalin, “Itogi pervoi piatiletki,” in I.V. Stalin, Complete Works, 18
76. The Moscow show trials were a series of three trials held between vols. (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1951), 13:213.
1936 and 1938 as a part of Stalin’s Great Purge. The defendants, 89. Eric Johnston, Telegram, 30 June 1944, U.S. State Department
many of whom were sentenced to death and executed, included Decimal File, 033.1161, NARA.
most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks who were charged with con- 90. E.H. Carr and R.W. Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy 1926–
spiring with the western powers to assassinate Stalin and other 1929 (London: Macmillan, 1969­­), 2:451.
Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore capital- 91. David R. Shearer, Industry, State, and Society in Stalin’s Russia, 1926–
ism. The most recent and detailed account of Stalin’s Great Purge 1934 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 9.
and show trials can be found in Karl Schlögel, Moscow 1937 (Cam- 92. Helen C. Bennett, “You Can’t Build Skyscrapers with Your Head
bridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2012). in the Sky,” interview with A. Kahn, American Magazine 108 (16 De-
77. Stenographic record of the meetings at OGIZ, 10 November–27 cember 1929): 121.
December 1937, GARF, f. R4851, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 2–9, 13–17, 41–43 93. Adrian Fuller, “Detroiter’s Key to Defense Speed,” Detroit Free
(cited in Obshchestvo i vlast', 1930-e gody: povestvovanie v dokumen- Press, quoted in “Albert Kahn—Defense Builder,” Western Architect
takh, ed. A.K. Sokolov [Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1998], 178–179, 228); and Engineer 147–148 (February 1942): 25; “Art: Industry’s Archi-
“Memo by L.Z. Mekhlis to the secretaries of the Central Committee tect,” Time, 29 June 1942; “Architect of Victory,” The Detroit News,
of VKP(b) about the situation in OGIZ,” AP RF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 325, 10 December 1973.
ll. 162, 163. 94. Memo by Louis Kahn, 7 February 1944, Albert Kahn Papers, Scrap-
78. GARF, f. 4851, op. 1, d. 11, l. 128; d. 937, l. 4; f. 7952, op. 1, d. 24, book “Russian Work,” box 13, Bentley Historical Library, Univer-
ll. 44, 52, 54. (cited in S.V. Zhuravlev, Fenomen, 13, 39, 74–77 [see sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
n. 72]). 95. Anthony C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Develop-
79. Vadim Z. Rogovin, Stalin’s Terror of 1937-1938: Political Genocide in ment 1917–1930 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1972;
the USSR (Oak Park, Mich.: Mehring Books, Inc., 2009), 116. National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union (New Rochelle: Ar-
80. Roberta T. Manning, “The Soviet economic crisis of 1936–1940 and lington House, 1973).
the Great Purges,” in John Arch Getty, Roberta T. Manning, eds., 96. Economic Review of the Soviet Union 7 (1 April 1930): 131–132.
Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Uni- 97. D ieter Marcello (director), “Albert Kahn: Architekt der Moderne”
versity Press, 1993), 137–138. More on the Stalinist repressions in (Marbach: Suedwestfilm, 1996). A documentary tribute to Albert
industry, see Donald A. Filtzer, Soviet workers and Stalinist industrial- Kahn filmed on location in Detroit, Russia, Italy, and Germany.
ization: the formation of modern Soviet production relations, 1928–1941 The film includes rare 1902–1945 footage from U.S. and Soviet
(London, U.K.: Pluto Press, 1986), and Moscow 1937, 411–432 (see film archives. DVD is available at www.amazon.de and at the Art,
n. 76]. Architecture & Engineering Library, University of Michigan.
81. The official version was death from a heart attack, although there
is some evidence, if ultimately inconclusive, that Georgy (Sergo)
K. Ordzhonikidze might have been murdered at Stalin’s orders.
82. E. Podrepny, E. Titkov, Nizhegorodskie mashinostroiteli—Krasnoi Armii
(Arzamas: AGPI, 2010).
83. On the work and fate of American workers in the U.S.S.R., see
Tim Tzouliadis, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia
(New York: Penguin, 2009); Vincent E. Baker, “American Workers in
the Soviet Union Between the Two World Wars: From Dream to Disillusion-
ment,” thesis (Morgantown, W.Va.: West Virginia University Press,
1998); and John Scott and Stephen Kotkin, Behind the Urals: An
American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana
University Press, 1989).
84. V.N. Khaustov, The Lubyanka: The Soviet elite in Stalin`s Golgotha:
1937–1938. Documents (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi fond “De-
mokratiia,” 2011), Doc. No. 9.

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