was conflicted in its dealings with Stalin; on the one hand, they wanted his business, but on the other, they feared Communism. Despite the countries’ polar opposite ideologies, however, AMTORG officials briefed the student party that the Soviet Union had become the USA’s primary export market, uniquely expanding its economy as the rest of the world contracted.
AMTORG’s role was to coordinate all commercial visits by Russian experts to the US, and vice versa. It gave each group of students a list of approved contacts in their university city, and letters of introduction.12 AMTORG maintained an extensive library of information on the major US manufacturing companies and their suppliers that the students would visit or be assigned work at during their stay. Besides his course at MIT, Shumovsky would be working for AMTORG’s aviation department, producing reports and articles on the dynamic US aircraft industry. In 1933, he was to write an article published in American Engineering and Technology – an AMTORG magazine filled with US advertising sent to 1,700 key Soviet officials – describing the features of a special plane the Americans had built to fly in the harsh conditions of Antarctica.13
AMTORG also controlled immigration to the USSR from the USA. With 25 per cent unemployment, the US was suffering a net outflow of migrants. For several years, more people left the country than arrived. In 1931 AMTORG was receiving 12,500 applications per month from Americans to migrate to the land of Lenin.14 No wonder to the Soviets capitalism appeared to be teetering on the brink.
• • •
In trading with the US, the Soviets were very careful with their money, committing only to buying the very best products on the most advantageous terms. Experts such as Shumovsky would prove to be invaluable in ensuring that those conditions included the transfer to the USSR of all technical knowledge. And, as a planned economy, they had clear goals with their purchases.
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