Government and Foreign Entrepreneurs in the Soviet Economy of the 1920s – 1940s: Relations, Contradictions and Results

Abstract

Introduction. The article reveals motives of attracting foreign entrepreneurs to Soviet economy, difficulties with hiring local labor force in concessions, contradictions and solutions between Soviet organizations and concessioners. Relations between foreign entrepreneurs and Soviet government agencies as well as Soviet engineers and workers were regulated by the law. Methods and materials. The author uses the comparative historical method in the work, which makes it possible to compare the number of foreign and domestic labor in concession enterprises, to show the need of attracting foreign specialists to concession and state enterprises, to reveal the cooperation of foreign entrepreneurs with the Soviet state. Sources from The State Archive of the Russian Federation, The Russian State Archive of Economics and The Russian State Archive of Social and Political History were identified for the study. Regulatory acts of state significance (decrees, concession agreements) reflecting the policy of the state in relation to the economic activity of private capitalists; records management documentation (circulars, official correspondence, reporting documentation) covering the real state of affairs at concession enterprises allow to show the peculiarities of relations between Soviet state institutions and foreign entrepreneurs. Analysis. Sometimes concessioners did not meet the governmental requirements in labor force attraction, which caused mutual claims. The author also analyses hiring foreign professionals in Soviet state enterprises because of their important contribution to the Soviet economy recovery and development. Foreign professionals were involved in the production process organization and local labor force education at Kuznetskiy coalfield minery, Stalingrad tractor factory and other state enterprises. Concessions were equipped with brand-new techniques and technologies and were also involved in the local labor force education. Results. The article analyzes the reasons of early cancellation of contracts by foreign professionals and workers and their mass departure from the USSR in the 1930s – 1940s. For example, prosecution and custody for industrial accidents were among of such reasons. Despite this, new foreign engineers were forbidden to enter Sakhalin island by Soviet authorities. The article focuses on the correlation between the deterioration of the international situation from the middle 1930s and existence of Japanese concessions in the USSR until the middle 1940s.The author pays a lot of attention to investigate the issue of obeying to the Soviet labor law by concessioners using unpublished archived documents.