Soviet Union's Early Industrial Development

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 h

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maintain cordial relationships with the regimes that followed, and was firmly established in the communist Soviet Union by the early 1920s. Such a development did not come about without planning on the part of Ford, or without the strong encouragement of the Soviet Union, which opened a trade mission in New York in 1919. Relations between the Soviet Union and Ford were at first clandestine, but moved gradually into the open as the world situation settled down during the 1920s (Reuther, 1976, p. 90). The Ford Motor Company was instrumental in the development of the Gorky automotive works. Not only did Henry Ford consider this a strong commercial opportunity, but he also considered it a vital factor in promoting world peace. According to Ford's reasoning, if the Soviet Union industrialized, it would be beneficial for the world as a whole. If Ford was able to help them industrialize, it would be of further benefit to Ford specifically. The Soviet Union recognized that these corporate executives were not interested in promoting the austere lifestyle that most Soviet citizens were rapidly becoming accustomed to. As a result, trade delegations were given access to private Pullman cars on private trains. The relationship that f

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