Electric History
Early Soviet Union History
Lenin was in the right place at the right time to sell any political change because one was really needed. His first concession after the government was formed was to keep farmers private businessmen and that meant eighty percent of the population. He made many other concessions including one to his American friend, Armand Hammer.
Armand Hammer a young American Jewish doctor, in his book, Witness to History, published by Simon and Schuster in 1988, told his story about business with the Russians that began in 1921. At a very young age he signed an agreement with Lenin and locked up Soviet foreign trade. The trade ministry was being formed and staffed at that time. Hammer had a very good American client to assist his efforts. He was the exclusive agent for Henry Ford. The new Soviet state wanted to build the famous model T and Ford tractors to replace the horse.
Part of Karl Marx's economic blueprint included a method that would allow the proposed socialist state to buy and sell to capitalist systems. All trading would be handled by a strict centralized system. This system would have accountants to calculate costs and lawyers that understood the laws of the countries with which they were they were trading. These central groups would have currency experts and transportation experts. Groups would be established for particular sectors of the economy, with Metallurgimport handling the metal industry.
The Ministry of Trade was set up to supervise all these groups. A system of Soviet law was established to match or be better than the laws of the capitalist countries. An independent review board was established, using the chambers of commerce of the various regions of the Republic. On paper this was an excellent system. In reality it was horrible, because the people that were buying were not the users of the things they were buying.
The people were in shock on January 21, 1924 when their beloved leader died. Lenin died before he was strong enough to stop Stalin from taking power. Bureaucrats, especially Jewish, that helped this new system work watched in dismay as brute force replaced the liberal socialists with a nationalist.
Stalin became the absolute dictator. He was never a communist, but used the system of state ownership to enslave the masses. His master plan was to build a strong industrial state and a strong military. He left many Jews in positions of power to carry on with the social programs to avoid a revolt of the people. Many of his key people were marrying pretty Jewish girls. Much later his daughter married a Jewish man, and Stalin did not like it.
Stalin made a frontal attack on the churches as he tried to remove the power that the Russian church had established. Christian religions were threatened, and the pulpit found a new antichrist. Christianity and Communism bloom in poverty and fade in affluence. For the impoverished, Christianity gives hope for a better life hereafter, but Communism offered full stomachs and more riches today. Organized religions mounted a campaign against the new system of government because they were afraid of losing control of impoverished people throughout the poor countries of the world. Western industrialist wanted no part of state ownership of the means of production. The press found a natural enemy and never let up in their propaganda war.
Stalin added a new dimension to the Ministry of Foreign Trade when he added a political and policing element to these buying groups. A Communist Commissar was assigned to approve every transaction, and a KGB agent was present at all meetings with foreigners. This was done to control bribes in the system. Hammer still had international business under his control because the trading houses were not yet functioning.
Stalin found a way to get around Hammer in 1925 when the Soviets formed a company, under New York law, that they called Amtorg. Torg means trade in Russian and the Am was short for American. The president of the company was a trusted Soviet trade official living in Moscow but the lesser officers and staff was communist, mainly Jewish, from the New York area. By 1972 the whole of the Soviet system was an entangled bureaucracy.