5 ms·

That's what the urban legend tells. Yes, USSR splashed gold left, and right on fancy things from the West, including the Moscow metro, but it wasn't US factorie

That's what the urban legend tells. Yes, USSR splashed gold left, and right on fancy things from the West, including the Moscow metro, but it wasn't US factories which played anything in USSR's WW2 preparations, or anything. USSR wasn't any kind of industrial giant by the time WW2 started. That's a purest propaganda myth. Stalin was terrible in running the economy, probably even more than any subsequent USSR's ruler. Sputnik was possible mostly thanks to post-war short growth spurt resulting from undoing Stalin's biggest economic blunders.

nine_k 5y ago
I'm not here to glorify Stalin; he was a pretty bad guy. But read about Occidental Petroleum, Armand Hammer, and how that guy sold the Ford tractors and built Soviet tractor plants for a nice sum in gold at the time when nobody wanted to touch commerce with USSR with a ten-foot pole. These plants later produced a lot of tanks for WWII. USSR was not an industrial giant by 1940. Still, without buying Western tech, it would be even less of a giant.
- brnt 5y ago
  Stalin admitted it just once, at the end of the summit in Teheran.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > These plants later produced a lot of tanks for WWII. That's a plainest myth every moderately educated schoolchild in Russia knows.
  - tuukkah 5y ago
    Perhaps moderately brainwashed?
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Tractor_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Tractor_Plant
    - baybal2 5y ago
      I knew somebody will come, and post that there. That particular factory stood semi idle for nearly a decade, and stood well in rank to showpiece Union's engineering like Moscow metro. It's nearly certain that the original factory built Albert Kahn only managed to make a few thousand units before accidents, a fire, breakdowns, and complete inadequacy of the fitting necessitated a complete rebuild (at the time, it was said to be "random, wrong, and sometimes completely unneeded equipment") It was rebuilt, expanded, and retooled multiple times before they can manufacture even a "tin can" (as was called by Union's soldiers) T-26 tank. And yes, the story of T-34 going to frontlines right from the assembly lines is a gross exaggeration. No Americans had much of a role in USSR's alleged industrial proves on the eve, and during WW2 aside from Lend-lease, it was the fantastic, enormous resource expenditure which did. The country remained largely agricultural until mid-late seventies.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        I'm sure they sucked and suffered from the typical incentive misalignment of ever other planned economy but the GP's point that the initial soviet industry was done with the help of foriegn specialists setting up domestic production of forign goods is very true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMO-F-15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMO-F-15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-AA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-AA

nine_k 5y ago

I'm not here to glorify Stalin; he was a pretty bad guy. But read about Occidental Petroleum, Armand Hammer, and how that guy sold the Ford tractors and built Soviet tractor plants for a nice sum in gold at the time when nobody wanted to touch commerce with USSR with a ten-foot pole. These plants later produced a lot of tanks for WWII. USSR was not an industrial giant by 1940. Still, without buying Western tech, it would be even less of a giant.

brnt 5y ago
Stalin admitted it just once, at the end of the summit in Teheran.
baybal2 5y ago
> These plants later produced a lot of tanks for WWII. That's a plainest myth every moderately educated schoolchild in Russia knows.
- tuukkah 5y ago
  Perhaps moderately brainwashed?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Tractor_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Tractor_Plant
  - baybal2 5y ago
    I knew somebody will come, and post that there. That particular factory stood semi idle for nearly a decade, and stood well in rank to showpiece Union's engineering like Moscow metro. It's nearly certain that the original factory built Albert Kahn only managed to make a few thousand units before accidents, a fire, breakdowns, and complete inadequacy of the fitting necessitated a complete rebuild (at the time, it was said to be "random, wrong, and sometimes completely unneeded equipment") It was rebuilt, expanded, and retooled multiple times before they can manufacture even a "tin can" (as was called by Union's soldiers) T-26 tank. And yes, the story of T-34 going to frontlines right from the assembly lines is a gross exaggeration. No Americans had much of a role in USSR's alleged industrial proves on the eve, and during WW2 aside from Lend-lease, it was the fantastic, enormous resource expenditure which did. The country remained largely agricultural until mid-late seventies.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      I'm sure they sucked and suffered from the typical incentive misalignment of ever other planned economy but the GP's point that the initial soviet industry was done with the help of foriegn specialists setting up domestic production of forign goods is very true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMO-F-15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMO-F-15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-AA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-AA