Soviets employed more than 350 foreign concessions during the 1920s. These concessions, introduced into the Soviet Union under Lenin's New Economic Policy, enabled foreign entrepreneurs to establish business operations in the Soviet Union without gaining property rights. The largest single group of concessions was in raw materials development. In the Caucasus oil fields the International Barnsdall Corporation introduced American rotary drilling techniques and pumping technology. By the end of the 1920s 80 percent of Soviet oil drilling was conducted by the American rotary technique; there had been no rotary drilling at all in Russia at the time of the Revolution.

A.E.G., General Electric. and Metropolitan-Vickers were the major operators in the machinery sectors. It was also determined that the forerunners of Soviet trading companies abroad - i.e., the joint trading firms - were largely established with the assistance of sympathetic Western businessmen. After the initial contacts were made, these joint trading firms disappeared, to be replaced by Soviet-operated units such as Amtorg in the United States and Arcos in the United Kingdom. It was concluded that for the period 1917 to 1930 Western assistance in various forms was the single most important factor first in the sheer survival of the Soviet regime and secondly in industrial progress to prerevolutionary levels.

The general design and supervision of construction, and much of the supply of equipment for the gigantic plants built between 1929 and 1933 was provided by Albert Kahn, Inc., of Detroit. No large unit of the construction program in those years was without foreign technical assistance, and because Soviet machine tool production then was limited to the most elementary types, all production equipment in these plants was foreign.

In the immediate postwar period the Soviets transferred a large proportion of German industry to the Soviet Union - at least two-thirds of the German aircraft industry, the major part of the rocket production industry, probably two-thirds of the electrical industry, several automobile plants, several hundred large ships, and specialized plants to produce instruments, military equipment, armaments, and weapons systems. The stripping of East Germany was supplemented by a U.S. program (Operation RAP) to give the Soviets dismantled plants in the U.S. Zone. By the end of 1946 about 95 percent of dismantling in the U.S. Zone was for the U.S.S.R. (including the aircraft plants of Daimler-Benz, ball bearings facilities, and several munitions plants).

In the late 1950s all this industrial capacity had been absorbed and the Soviets turned their attention to the deficient chemical, computer, shipbuilding, and consumer industries, for which German acquisitions had been relatively slight. A massive complete-plant purchasing program was begun in the late 1950s - for example, the Soviets bought at least 50 complete chemical plants between 1959 and 1963 for chemicals not previously produced in the U.S.S.R. A gigantic ship-purchasing program was then instituted, so that by 1967 about two-thirds of the Soviet merchant fleet had been built in the West.

The Western business firm has been the main vehicle for the transfer process. There is ample evidence in the files of the U.S. State Department, the German Foreign Ministry, and the British Foreign Office that Western firms have cooperated closely with their respective governments in negotiating for such sales.

Historically, sales to the Soviet Union must have been profitable, although the Russians are reputed to be hard bargainers and there have been numerous examples of bad faith and breaches of contract. Firms have accepted theft of blueprints and specifications, duplication of their equipment without permission or royalties, and similar unethical practices and still deemed it worthwhile to continue trade. This applies particularly to larger firms such as General Electric, Radio Corporation of America, Ford Motor, Union Carbide, and Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd.

Summaries of Antony C. Sutton's
National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union -

Testimony of the Author before Subcommittee VII of the Platform Committee of the Republican Party at Miami Beach, Florida, August 15, 1972:

The information that I am going to present to you this afternoon is known to the Administration. I am not a politician. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. My job is to give you facts. Whether you like or dislike what I say doesn't concern me.

I have spent ten years in research on Soviet technology. What it is ?what it can do ? and particularly where it came from. I have published three books and several articles summarizing the work. It was privately financed. But the results have been available to the Government. On the other hand I have had major difficulties with U.S. Government censorship.

In a few words: there is no such thing as Soviet technology. Almost all - perhaps 90-95 percent - came directly or indirectly from the United States and its allies. In effect the United States and the NATO countries have built the Soviet Union. Its industrial and its military capabilities. This massive construction job has taken 50 years. Since the Revolution in 1917. It has been carried out through trade and the sale of plants, equipment, and technical assistance.

The history of our construction of the Soviet Union has been blacked out - much of the key information is still classified. The United States is spending $80 billion a year on defense against an enemy built by the United States and West Europe. Even stranger, the U.S. apparently wants to make sure this enemy remains in the business of being an enemy.

Stalin said that about two-thirds of all the large industrial enterprises in the Soviet Union has been built with the United States' help or technical assistance. Two-thirds. Two out of three.

Stalin could have said that the other on-third of large industrial enterprises were built by firms from Germany, France, Britain, and Italy. Stalin could have said also that the tank plants, the aircraft plants, the explosive and ammunition plants originated in the U.S. That was June 1944. The massive technical assistance continues right down to the present day.

Now the ability of the Soviet Union to create any kind of military machine, to ship missiles to Cuba, to supply arms to North Vietnam, to supply arms for use against Israel, all this depends on its domestic industry. In the Soviet Union about three-quarters of the military budget goes on purchases from Soviet factories. This expenditure in Soviet industry makes sense. No army has a machine that churns out tanks. In other words the Soviet military gets its parts and materials from Soviet industry. There is a Soviet military-industrial complex just a there is an American military-industrial complex.

So let's take a look at the Soviet industry that provides the parts and the materials for Soviet armaments: the guns, tanks, aircraft. The Soviets have the largest iron and steel plant in the world. It was built by McKee Corporation. It is a copy of the U.S. Steel plant in Gary, Indiana. All Soviet iron and steel technology comes from the U.S. and its allies. The Soviets use American electric furnaces, American wide strip mills and so on all developed in the West and shipped in as peaceful trade.

The Soviets have the largest tube and pipe mill in Europe, one million tons a year. The equipment is Fretz-Moon, Salem, Aetna Standard, Mannesman, etc. Those are not Russian names. All Soviet tube and pipe making technology come from the U.S. and its allies. If you know anyone in the pace business ask them how many miles of tubes and pipes go into a missile.

The Soviets have the largest merchant marine in the world, about 6,000 ships. I have the specifications for each ship. About two-thirds were built outside the Soviet Union. About four-fifths of the engines for these ships were also built outside the Soviet Union. There are no ship engines of Soviet design. Those built inside the USSR are built with foreign technical assistance. The Bryansk plant makes the largest marine diesels. In 1959, the Bryansk plant made a technical assistance agreement with Burmeister & Wain of Copenhagen, Denmark, (a NATO ally), approved as peaceful trade by the State Dept. The ships that carried Soviet missiles to Cuba ten years ago used these same Burmeister and Wain engines.

All Soviet automobile, truck, and engine technology comes from the West: chiefly the United States. In my books I have listed each Soviet plant, its equipment and who supplied the equipment. The Soviet military has over 300,000 trucks - all from these U.S. built plants. Up to 1968 the largest motor vehicle plant in the USSR was at Gorki. Gorki produces the chassis for the GAZ-69 rocket launcher used against Israel. Gorki produces the Soviet jeep and half a dozen other military vehicles. And Gorki was built by the Ford Motor Company and the Austin Company - as peaceful trade. In 1968 while Gorki was building vehicles to be used in Vietnam and Israel further equipment for Gorki was ordered and shipped from the U.S.

Also in 1968 we had the so-called "FIAT deal" - to build a plant at Volgograd three times bigger than Gorki. Dean Rusk and Walt Rostow told Congress and the American public this was peaceful trade - the FIAT plant could not produce military vehicles. Don't let's kid ourselves. Any automobile manufacturing plant can produce military vehicles.

The term "FIAT deal" is misleading. FIAT in Italy doesn't make automobile manufacturing equipment - FIAT plants in Italy have U.S. equipment. FIAT did send 1,000 men to Russia for erection of the plant - but over half, perhaps well over half, of the equipment came from the United States. From Gleason, TRW of Cleveland and New Britain Machine Co. So in the middle of a war that has killed 46,000 Americans (so far) and countless Vietnamese with Soviet weapons and supplies, the Johnson Administration doubled Soviet auto output. And supplied false information to Congress and the American public.

The Soviets are receiving now - today, equipment and technology for the largest heavy truck plant in the world: known as the Kama plant. It will produce 100,000 heavy ten-ton trucks per year - that's more than ALL U.S. manufacturers put together. This will also be the largest plant in the world, period. It will occupy 36 square miles. Will the Kama truck plant have military potential? The Soviets themselves have answered this one. The Kama truck will be 50 per cent more productive that the ZIL-130 truck. Well, that's nice, because the ZIL series trucks are standard Soviet army trucks used in Vietnam and the Middle East. Who built the ZIL plant? It was built by the Arthur J. Brandt Company of Detroit, Michigan.

Who's building the Kama truck plant? That's classified "secret" by the Washington policy makers. I don't have to tell you why. The Soviet T-54 tank is in Vietnam. It was in operation at Kontum, An Loc, and Hue a few weeks ago. It is in use today in Vietnam. It has been used against Israel. According to the tank handbooks the T-54 has a Christie type suspension. Christie was an American inventor. Where did the Soviets get a Christie suspension? Did they steal it? No, sir! They bought it. They bought it from the U.S. Wheel Track Layer Corporation.

Many people - as individuals - have protested our suicidal policies. If you press for an explanation, what do they tell you? This is peaceful trade. The Soviets are powerful. They have their own technology. It's a way to build friendship. It's a way to a new world order. This is demonstrably false. The Soviet tanks in An Loc are not refugees from the Pasadena Rose Bowl Parade. The "Soviet" ships that carry arms to Haiphong are not peaceful. They have weapons on board, not flower children or Russian tourists. Second, if you don't buy that line, you are told, "The Soviets are mellowing." This is equally false. The killing in Israel and Vietnam with Soviet weapons doesn't suggest mellowing, it suggests premeditated genocide. Today - now - the Soviets are readying more arms to go to Syria. For what purpose? To put in a museum?

The only mellowing is when a Harriman and a Rockefeller get together with the bosses in the Kremlin. That's good for business but not much help if you are a G.I. at the other end of a Soviet rocket in Vietnam.