During the cold war, many Americans viewed the Soviet Union as a monolithic industrial machine that posed a significant and real threat to the United States. But there were a select few Americans who considered that the Soviet Union offered opportunity for enterprising young Americans and American companies who were willing to work with the socialist system and reap the rewards, be they financial or philosophic. This research examines the role that Americans and American companies played in the buildup of the Soviet Union's industrial economy, with a focus on its early development.
Some Americans traveled to the Soviet Union on their own, without sponsorship from either the American government or a specific company. These individuals were drawn by the idea of contributing to an economy and a country where materialism was not the driving force behind everyday life (Scott, 1989, p. 5). Idealism, not personal greed, drove these individuals to leave the United States and emigrate to the Soviet Union.
Many of the Americans who participated in this development left the United States during the 1930s, when the Great Depression left entire families without income. At that point, the Soviet Union was not the sworn enemy of the United States, and the cold war did not exist. To an idealistic young worker, the promise of a society which did not take its material wealth for granted, which recycled out of necessity and which was working toward building a new social structure must have been appealing.
Americans who went to the Soviet Union during this time took with them experience and American know-how. In some cases, the Americans had only formal education without actual experience; in other cases, workers took with them experience in American industry, such as welders or other technicians. These individuals were able to offer some amount of expertise in how certain aspects of the Soviet industrial machine could be improved, or the...