"The American Tractor Unit and Agricultural Reconstruction of Soviet Russia, 1921-23."
Maria Fedorova, Macalester College
Abstract:
The October Revolution inspired a wave of foreign migration to Soviet Russia. In the early 1920s, some Americans immigrated to Soviet Russia in search of an ideological refuge, better pay, and out of solidarity with its revolutionary ideals. Among this number, some answered the call of the Soviet authorities to help the newly formed state in its quest for industrial and agricultural reconstruction. Inspired by the rhetoric of the October Revolution and the new opportunities for agricultural experiments offered by the Soviet state, these Americans traveled to aid the Bolsheviks in reforming the Soviet countryside. In turn, the Soviet state, beset with a farm crisis, peasant resistance, and the Volga famine in the early 1920s, accepted this help and encouraged the influx of foreign specialists, hoping that foreigners would provide valuable expertise in modern agriculture and technological assistance. Among these ventures was that of Harold Ware, whose spring 1922 initiative sought to bring a tractor unit to Soviet Russia in order to assist agricultural reconstruction.
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