173. Milson, Russian Tanks; Cooper, “Defence Production,” 13; Tupper, “Red Army and the Defence Industry,” 13–5, 359–60; Hofman, “United States’ Contribution”; Mukhin, “Amtorg,” no. 3: 34–41, no. 4: 37–53. See also Sutton, Western Technology, 240–2. In Nov. 1931, the Kharkov Locomotive Factory was designated a “super shock” plant, granting access to raw materials, transport, and daily life necessities. Christie reasoned that tanks should be light and move quickly to penetrate enemy lines, and his suspension system, a sprung bogie instead of a rigid system, afforded tanks a low center of gravity and a low silhouette, as well as an ability to move at high speeds. His original model-1928 or M-1928 had little firepower; it was the improved M-1931 that interested the Soviets. The M-1931 weighed 12 tons, had a 338–horsepower engine, room for a crew of three and a 37mm gun as well as a machine gun, and a speed of 50 mph without tracks (which were removable for travel on paved roads). (Later, the Soviets would thicken the armor and enlarge the guns without losing the mobility.) The Soviets bought the rights to the production, sale, and use of tanks inside the borders of the Soviet Union for ten years. Pavlov et al., Tanki BT chast’ 1. The Christie contract (signed on April 28, 1930) cost $164,000. Kolomiets, Legkie tanki BT, 10. In 1931, the Poles also agreed to buy the M-1931, but then Christie reneged (the deal was illegal without U.S. government permission); he returned the Polish government’s money. Christie’s advanced tank designs never went into mass production in the United States; he would die nearly penniless in 1944. The Soviets also worked on a tank from the experimental designs of German engineer Edward Grotte, of Rheinmetal, who was employed on a technical assistance contract at the Bolshevik Factory in Leningrad. “Do not by any means allow Grotte to go back to Germany,” Stalin told Poskryobyshev to inform Kirov (Aug. 25, 1931). “Take all measures up to arrest and compel him to prepare the tank for serial mass production. Do not allow him go to Germany after the tank enters serial production, because he might give away secrets. Establish thorough surveillance on him making [Filipp] Medved responsible. Do not let him out of sight for even an hour.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 42–3. Grotte’s tank design never entered mass production, and in 1933 he was allowed to leave, but his work fed into other Soviet tank design efforts.
174. Stalin, in a letter to Voroshilov, singled out armor-plating as the most difficult aspect. Some 60 percent of armor plates that would be produced at the Red October factory in 1933 for the T-26 were unusable. Vereshchak, “Rol’ inostrannogo tekhnicheskoi pomoshchi,” 241 (citing RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 37, l. 49; RGAE, f. 7719, op. 4, d. 76, l. 228).
175. The final tank tally in 1932 would be 2,585 instead of 10,000; 800 of them had no turrets, 290 lacked treads, and even the “finished” T-26s had no turrets for mounting a 45mm gun (they carried only machine guns). By 1933 the number of tanks would leap to 4,700. Similar exponential growth would occur in military aircraft and artillery. And the BT—soon the fastest moving tank in the world—was world class. Stone, Hammer and Rifle, 192–202 (citing RGVA, f. 4, op. 14, d. 717, l. 11–2: Pavlunovsky to Voroshilov, Jan. 2, 1933; d. 896, l. 7: Yegorov, Jan. 26; d. 717, l. 9–10: Voroshilov to Molotov); Maiolo, Cry Havoc, 18–9.
176. Davies, “Soviet Military Expenditures,” 580–1, 594 (table 3); Davies, Crisis and Progress, 165. Already between Oct. and Dec. 1931, Soviet armaments production shot up by 75 percent, to claim more than one of four workers in machine building. Then, in the first weeks of 1932, the military procurement budget nearly doubled. The capacity to absorb that funding influx efficiently was another matter. Davies, Crisis and Progress, 111–8; Stone, Hammer and Rifle, 190–1 (citing RGVA, f. 4, op. 417, l l. 29, 31ff; op. 14, d. 603, l. 31). The Soviet Far Eastern Army had doubled in size between May and Feb. 1932, and would reach 152,000 by the end of that year, with more than 300 tanks, 300 armored vehicles, and 250 planes. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 207 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 39, l. 63ob.: Blyukher, Oct. 25, 1932; op. 14, d. 754, l. 26: Dec. 1932–Jan. 1933).
177. Soviet propagandists huffed that Tokyo presented itself as “the apostle of peace” and asserted that China had “insulted” Japan and threatened it with “chaos.” Conversely, an Osaka newspaper fumed (March 3, 1932), “Why is the American annexation of the Philippines justified, while the Japanese seizure of Formosa [Taiwan] is not?” Tanin and Kogan, Voenno-fashistskoe dvizhenie v Iaponii, 251–62; Paine, Wars for Asia, 24.
