USSR: ROLE OF FOREIGN TECHNOLOGY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE INDUSTRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00176R000900010006-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 33
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 26, 2007
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: October 1, 1979
• Content Type: REPORT

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National
Foreign
Assessment
Center
USSR: Role of Foreign
Technology in the
Development of the
Motor Vehicle Industry
STAT
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National
Foreign
Assessment
Center
USSR: Role of Foreign
Technology in the
Development of the
Motor Vehicle Industry
Comments and queries on this unclassified report
are wlecome and may be directed to:
Director for Public Affairs
Central Intelligence Agency
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For information on obtaining additional copies,
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ER 79-10571
October 1979
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This study considers the contributions of domestic and foreign technology to
the development of the Soviet motor vehicle industry and assesses the
relative importance of domestic, as opposed to foreign, contributions. The
author, Robert Fraser, is a longstanding member of the American Society of
Automotive Engineers and a retired senior researcher in the Office of
Economic Research. The report contains his judgments and reflections,
which are the fruit of a professional concern with Soviet automotive
developments spanning more than three decades.
At various times in its history, the USSR has turned to the West for large
amounts of technology, for both design and production technology.
Production technology has included machinery, industrial training, and
know-how. In very recent years, Soviet imports of Western automotive
technology have been especially large and have included the most advanced
types of production machinery and processes. This has led some Western
scholars to question the ability of the Soviet automotive industry to design,
develop, and produce modern cars, trucks, and buses.
Anthony Sutton, for example, in his pioneering three-volume work on
Western technological assistance to the USSR holds that between 1917 and
1965 no significant indigenous innovations (that is, industrial application of
domestic inventions) were introduced in the Soviet automotive industry.' He
argues that the Soviets have either adopted innovations first made outside
the USSR or used those made by Western firms specifically for the Soviet
Union. Sutton appears to believe that Soviet technical dependence on the
West will continue on the grounds that a centrally planned system cannot
generate indigenous innovation. Similarly, George Holliday concludes that
the USSR has adopted a policy of selective technological imports to improve
economic performance in the automotive sector, and that this policy stems
from a fundamental inability of the USSR to stay abreast of Western
technological developments.'
This study reaches a contrary conclusion: that the Soviet automotive
industry has made powerful strides toward self-sufficiency and has the
experience, knowledge, and resources to stay abreast of world automotive
state of the art through its own efforts. If the USSR has turned to the West,
it is mainly for economic, not technological, reasons.
'Anthony C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, 1917 to 1965
(Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1970).
Z George D. Holliday, Western Technology Transfer to the Soviet Union, 1928-37 and 1966-
75: With a Case Study in the Transfer of Automotive Technology," Ph. D. dissertation,
George Washington University, 7 May 1978.
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The study begins with an examination of the history of the development of
the Soviet automotive industry in order to identify those junctures when
major changes in the technological level of the industry occurred. Next, the
peculiarities of the Soviet environment, which have controlled the course of
the industry's development, are considered in order to understand why
Soviet technology is different in some respects from Western technology.
Finally, the extent of present Soviet reliance on foreign automotive
technology is examined and explained, with particular attention given to the
examples of diesel engines and automotive production equipment.
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USSR: Role of Foreign Technology
in the Development of
the Motor Vehicle Industry
The USSR's automotive industry has developed into a powerful, self-reliant,
highly organized entity. After receiving an initial injection of foreign
(mostly US) production know-how and equipment in the First Five-Year
Plan (1928-32), Soviet motor vehicle engineers and machine tool experts
proceeded for over 30 years to expand and modernize the industry without
further assistance from abroad.
New, all-Soviet-designed models of cars and trucks introduced at different
times from 1946 through 1951 demonstrated that Soviet engineers had
assimilated the best technical features of vehicles obtained through Lend
Lease or captured from the German forces in World War II. Newly
designed automatic machining systems, similar to those introduced in the
United States in 1946, were also put into service by Soviet industry in the
same year.
By the mid-1950s the Soviet factories and research institutes had prepared
prototypes of new vehicles to replace those models that came out just after
World War II. Production was delayed, however, when the Sixth Five-Year
Plan (1956-60) was aborted in favor of the Seven-Year Plan (1959-65),
which favored basic industries. The automotive industry continued to
introduce new models but, deprived of its earlier priority in obtaining
production equipment, had to do so at a slow pace. Production schedules
were further delayed by a thorough reorganization and restructuring of
production assignments. Ultimately, reorganization resulted in increased
plant specialization and major economies of scale.
During 1959-65, rationalization of the organizational structure, introduc-
tion of a more modern product, and modernization of production processes
put the Soviet automotive industry in a strong position for continued
technological advance. The most advanced production equipment received
by the industry during this period was of domestic manufacture. To a large
extent, Soviet automotive plants had to make much of their own equipment
because the machine tool industry was not prepared to produce specialized
automotive tooling on a large scale. Hence, plants carried out retooling and
new capital formation programs rather slowly.
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Constrained by capacity shortages in the machine tool sector, the USSR
again looked abroad and relied on imports to support the huge expansion in
car and truck production during the post-1965 period. In the case of the
Volga Automobile Plant (VAZ) located in Tol'yatti, the Soviets selected an
experienced foreign car producer, FIAT of Italy, as consultant and
equipment purchasing agent to assure that the plant would be outfitted with
the most modern machinery available, and on schedule.
VAZ's success encouraged the Soviets to establish a new truck plant of
unprecedented size at Naberezhnyye Chelny on the Kama River during the
Ninth Five-Year Plan. This project was also too large and too urgent to be
equipped from indigenous resources. Initially, the Soviets proposed to buy in
the West all the production equipment for the Kama Motor Vehicle Plant
(KamAZ). But success in expanding domestic machine tool capacity and
slippage in the plant construction schedule led the USSR to divide the
project into two phases. In the first phase, most of the equipment was
imported, including substantial quantities from the United States. US
Government acquiescence in mid-1971 to the sale of US production
machinery for the Kama truck project was essential to the success of this
phase. The second phase will be based largely on domestic sources.
The history of the motor vehicle industry suggests that the Soviets do not
depend critically on foreign experience for production and design know-how.
From 1928 to 1978, the Soviet motor vehicle industry progressed from one
that could do nothing without help to one that could do everything to get a
major plant into production. Certainly for the Kama project the Soviets have
ferreted out the most advanced production processes in the world but have
managed their intergration into the world's largest truck manufacturing
facility themselves.
The USSR has sought foreign technological assistance only for projects of
extraordinary size and urgency. Imported equipment has been readily
assimilated into Soviet plants and copied by the Soviet automotive and
machine tool industries. The USSR prefers to make most of its own
production equipment and is vigorously enhancing its ability to do so. But
there will always be some foreign machinery of a special nature that the
Soviets will prefer to import rather than produce domestically, taking
advantage of the savings, offered by international specialization in
production of items used in small numbers.
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The price paid by the USSR for its efforts to become self-reliant has been
small. Soviet trucks are well designed for Soviet operating conditions, the
most significant of which are bad roads, low-octane gasoline, and careless
maintenance. Except in areas where similar conditions prevail, Soviet trucks
do not enjoy a good export market, because they are overweight for the loads
they can haul. Similarly, Soviet passenger cars are designed for domestic
conditions and can be sold abroad only at prices below those for similar
Western-made cars.
The automotive industry shares with the rest of Soviet industry an
indifference toward innovation. Innovation is more difficult in the USSR
than in Western countries because of institutional barriers-(1) the central
economic plan, which limits the short-term mobility of resources, and (2) the
perverse incentive system that puts a premium on volume of output rather
than product improvement. These obstacles do not prevent innovation-they
delay it.
Finally, the Soviet pursuit of economies of mass production through the use
of single-purpose, highly specialized machinery locks producers into long
production runs on standardized products. Thoroughgoing innovation,
which usually requires scrapping of expensive specialized machinery, is
resisted by producing enterprises. Soviet policy enshrines mass production
and economies of scale and eschews the competitive forces that bring
innovation in capitalist economies. Hence, the Soviets tend to keep
obsolescent production facilities running and to produce obsolescent vehicles
longer than do Western producers, even when they have much more modern
products in the pipeline. In sum, the lag in Soviet automotive engineering
stems from economic factors rather than inferior technological competence.
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Overview v
? Survey of the Automotive Industry's Development
World War II and Postwar Reconstruction 1938-56
3
Restructuring the Industry 1957-65
6
Rapid Growth in Output and Assortment
1966-Present
7
Factors Shaping the Development of the Soviet
Automotive Industry
9
The Question of Soviet Dependence
13
Growth of Indigenous Capabilities
15
3. USSR: Origin of Motor Vehicle Technology
for Major Capital Investment
5. USSR: Truck Production With Foreign-Based Engines, 1979 17
6. USSR: Truck Production With Soviet-Designed Engines, 1979 18
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1. USSR: Major Motor Vehicle Plants (Map)
2. USSR: Production of Trucks and Passenger Cars,
1924-78
3.
USSR: Production of Soviet Truck Engines Copied From Foreign
19
Design, 1932-79
USSR: Production of Truck Engines of Native Design,
20
4.
1932-79
5. USSR: Representative Cars and Trucks, 1932-79
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USSR: Role of Foreign Technology
in the Development of
the Motor Vehicle Industry
Survey of the Automotive Industry's Development
The significant changes in the Soviet motor vehicle
industry have reflected the major periods of the
USSR's economic development. A modern industrial
base was established between 1928 and 1937; in
1938-56 the Soviets prepared for and recovered from
World War II; the period of reorganization of industry
and modernization of its products took place in
1957-65; and the period of rapid growth of capacity
and product assortment was from 1966 to the present
(see figure 5).
Industrialization 1928-37
The First Five-Year Plan (FYP) in 1928-32 laid the
foundations for the industrialization of the USSR. The
Second FYP, 1933-37, consolidated and extended the
Soviet industrial base and made possible the impressive
defense production that followed. In the motor vehicle
industry, the First FYP saw the establishment of mass
production. The Gor'kiy Motor Vehicle Plant (GAZ)
was built with a designed capacity of about 100,000
vehicles per year, mostly Ford Model AA trucks but
including some Model A cars.' Two existing plants, the
Likhachev Motor Vehicle Plant in Moscow (ZIL) "
and the Yaroslavl' Motor Vehicle Plant (YaAZ),5 were
reconstructed and retooled (see figure 1, map). ZIL
underwent a large expansion, shifting from batch
production processes to a mass production basis, with
an annual output capacity of about 25,000 trucks of
2'h-ton cargo capacity.' At Yaroslavl', the change was
less dramatic but no less significant. The plant was
modernized for small series production of a diverse
product mix, including trucks of 5- to 12-ton capacity,
specialized vehicles, buses, and trolley buses. Annual
output of all these vehicles probably did not exceed
2,500 units. In sum, the First FYP expanded Soviet
capacity for motor vehicle production from a few
' Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, 1969, Vol. I., p. 153.
It was originally called Moscow Automobile Association (AMO),
later Moscow Motor Vehicle Plant named for Stalin (ZIS), before
receiving its present name.
' This plant since 1959 has been renamed the Yaroslavl' Diesel
Engine Plant (YaMZ).
6 Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, 1970, Vol. I., p. 509
(English version).
thousand units annually prior to 1928, to about
130,000 units by the end of 1932. More than three-
fourths of this capacity was for the production of
trucks.
The GAZ plant was provided in a turnkey package by
the Ford Motor Company, at that time the world's
leading producer of light 1'h-ton stake and platform
cargo trucks. These vehicles, more than those of any
contemporary manufacturer, were highly prized by the
USSR as best suited to Soviet transport needs and
highway conditions. The buildings at GAZ, designed
by the American industrial architect Albert Kahn,
duplicated those at Ford's River Rouge Plant. Con-
struction was supervised by the Austin Company of
Cleveland. Ford provided the know-how production
licenses, training, and startup assistance.
The GAZ venture was mutually beneficial to the
USSR and to Ford. The Soviets gained a new facility,
to this day one of the largest and most important
automotive plants in the USSR, and Ford gained an
outlet for the sale of obsolescent manufacturing
machinery and processes. (In the United States,
production of the Model AA truck was superseded in
mid-1931 by the Ford V-8.) In addition, Ford sold
72,000 trucks and cars to the USSR during the First
FYP-some in the form of parts assembled in
Kharkov, Gor'kiy, and Moscow.'
The remodeled ZIL plant was laid out by A. J. Brandt!
ZIL selected the Autocar, produced in the United
States and powered by a Hercules engine, as the model
of truck to be produced. The Soviets called their
version the AMO-2. At YaMZ, a larger verision of the
Autocar, also powered by Hercules engines, served as
the production prototype.
'Allen Nevins and Frank E. Hill, Ford: Expansion and Challenge
1915-1933 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957), p. 677.
' Arthur J. Brandt had formerly done manufacturing-engineering
work for the Austin Company, which helped to construct the GAZ
plant.
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10-79
SAUDI
ARABIA
Boundary representation is
not necessarily authoritative,
1. BAZ -Bryank Motor Vehicle Plant
?(1964)
9. ZIMA -Izhavsk Automobile Plant
(1967)
2. BaIAZ -Byelorussian Motor Vehicle Plant
(1959)
10. SAZ -Saransk Motor Vehicle Plant
(1959)
(Zhodino)
11. UAZ -UI'yanovsk Motor Vehicle Plant
(1941)
3. GAZ -Gor'kiy Motor Vehicle Plant
(1932)
12. UraIAZ-Ural Motor Vehicle Plant
(1944)
4. KamAZ-Kama Motor Vehicle Plant
(Poaberezhnyye Chelny)
(1978)
(Ural-Miass)
13. VAZ -Volga Automobile Plant
'
(1970)
5. KAZ -Kutaisi Motor Vehicle Plant
6. KrAZ -Kremenchug Motor Vehicle Plant
(1945)
(1959)
yatti)
(Yol
14. YaMZ -Yaroslavl' Diesel Engine Plant
(1959)
7. MAZ -Minsk Motor Vehicle Plant
8. AZLK -Lenin Komsomol Automobile Plant
(1944)
(1930)
15. ZAZ -Zaporozh'ye Automobile Plant
16. ZIL -Likhachev Motor Vehicle Plant
(1920
(Moscow)
(Moscow)
17. ZMZ -Zavolzh'ye Engine Plant
(1959)
*(Year Production Began)
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The Soviets rapidly assimilated the new mass produc-
tion techniques at GAZ and ZIL. ZIL began produc-
tion of its basic model in October 1931, and GAZ three
months later on 25 January 1932. Assimilation of
imported technology was facilitated by the presence of
a small number of highly skilled machinists and
experienced engineers from Czarist times who assisted
Western engineers in the training of an expanded
production work force. The process of assimilation may
also have been abetted by the forced-draft conditions
and rigid discipline under which construction, installa-
tion, and training took place. Soviet supervisors were
strictly admonished to follow the counsel of US
advisers or suffer the penalty of swift removal and
sometimes arrest.
By the end of 1932 the Soviets were mostly in control
of production activities, and by the end of 1934 were
completely on their own; all US advisers had gone
home. The departure of foreign advisers did not
noticeably slow the forward momentum of the indus-
try. During the years 1932-38, the ZIL and GAZ
plants were further expanded substantially, using
machinery from the domestic machine tool industry
and from Western Europe, where more favorable
credits and prices were available than in the United
States. Production capacity at ZIL was increased more
than three and one-half times, to 90,000 units per
year.' Capacity at GAZ was increased by 40 percent.'?
Significantly, the GAZ and ZIL plants themselves had
developed important new capabilities to produce spe-
cialized automotive production machinery. From 1932
until the mid-1960s all further investment in the Soviet
automotive industry was carried out by Soviet
engineers.
Data on production of trucks, buses, and cars from
1924 to the present are given in table 1. (See also figure
2.) These production figures illustrate the progress
made by the Soviets in assimilating US mass produc-
tion technology. In 1934, the first year of diminishing
foreign involvement, the USSR produced 72,400
vehicles. By 1938, production had tripled to 211,000.
Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, 1949, Vol. I., p. 270.
? Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 13, March 1974, p. 1. According to
the Director General of the GAZ production association, the Soviets
had planned to double production capacity at GAZ during this
period (Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, 13 June 1979, p. 4).
The conversion of the Soviet motor vehicle industry to
a mass production capability could not have been
accomplished without massive Western assistance.
Product design, production engineering (plant layout),
machinery, and production know-how were wholly
imported, mostly from the United States. Indeed,
Western assistance was needed even for the architec-
ture of plant buildings and for the supervision of their
construction. Some construction materials (structural
steel) also were imported. The Soviets contributed
mostly unskilled labor, which was trained by foreign
engineers in a variety of disciplines, including architec-
ture, building trades, manufacturing, and plant
management.
World War II and Postwar Reconstruction 1938-56
The USSR's principal goal from the time mass
production of motor vehicles was established in 1932
until the Fifteen-Year Plan (1966-80) for road trans-
port had been formulated was to build the national
vehicle park as rapidly as possible." In 1932 the USSR
had only about 100,000 vehicles, and most of those
were imported Model A automobiles and trucks. The
high priority accorded to expansion of the park
reflected both economic and military concerns. The
Third FYP (1938-42) naturally reemphasized volume.
It called for a doubling of total motor vehicle output to
400,000 units per year by 1942. Automotive products
and production processes were to be modernized and
assortment increased. Production of passenger cars
was to increase by 5.5 times. The Soviets seemed
especially anxious to produce KIM, a Soviet copy of
the German 1938 Opel Kadet. Production was actually
launched in 1940, but had to be shut down after
producing 500 cars because of the onset of war.12
The German invasion blocked most Soviet automotive
plans. Major segments of automotive production facili-
ties were dispersed to locations in the eastern regions of
European Russia and the Urals, and much of the
remaining capacity was converted to military products.
The GAZ plant, for example, converted to the
production of tanks, armored vehicles, and self-
propelled guns." As table 1 shows, production of motor
" Walter L. Carver, "AMO and Nizhni-Novgorod Plants," Auto-
motive Industries, 12 March 1932, p. 421.
'Z Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, 1969, Vol. 1, p. 153.
"Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, 13 June 1979, p.4.
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1924
10
0
10
0
1925
116
0
116
0
1926
366
0
366
0
1927
478
24
451
3
1928
841
51
740
50
1929
1,712
85
1,471
156
1930
4,226
47
4,019
160
1931
4,005
90
3,915
0
1932
23,879
97
23,748
34
1933
49,710
350
39,101
10,259
1934
72,437
755
54,572
17,110
1935
96,716
893
76,854
18,969
1936
136,488
1,263
131,546
3,679
1937
199,857
1,268
180,339
18,250
1938
211,114
1,755
182,373
26,986
1939
201,687
3,271
178,769
19,647
1940
145,390
3,921
135,958
5,511
1941
124,176
4,027
116,169
3,980
1942
34,976
1,462
30,947
2,567
1943
49,266
1,175
45,545
2,546
1944
60,549
1,700
53,467
5,382
1945
74,657
1,114
68,548
4,995
1946
102,171
1,310
94,572
6,289.
1947
132,968
2,098
121,248
9,622
1948
197,056
2,973
173,908
20,175
1949
275,992
3,477
226,854
45,661
1950
362,895
3,939
294,402
64,554
1951
288,683
5,260
229,777
53,646
1952
307,936
4,808
243,465
59,663
1953
354,175
6,128
270,667
77,380
1954
403,873
8,532
300,613
94,728
1955
445,268
9,415
328,047
107,806
1956
464,632
10,425
356,415
97,792
1957
495,408
12,316
369,504
113,588
1958
511,074
13,983
374,900
122,191
1959
494,994
19,102
351,373
124,519
1960
523,591
22,761
362,008
138,822
1961
555,330
24,799
381,617
148,914
1962
577,480
29,180
382,355
165,945
1963
587,012
31,670
382,220
173,122
1964
603,084
32,919
385,006
185,159
1965
616,312
35,507
379,630
201,175
1966
675,211
37,327,
407,633
230,251
1967
728,751
39,960
437,350
251,441
1968
800,836
42,357
478,147
280,332
1969
844,186
46,099
504,529
293,558
1970
916,118
47,363
524,507
344,248
1971
1,142,607
49,316
564,250
529,041
1972
1,378,828
51,926
596,797
730,105
1973
1,602,204
56,023
629,481
916,700
1974
1,845,945
60,233
666,290
1,119,422
1975
1,963,849
66,860
695,779
1,201,210
1976
2,025,000
70,000
716,000
1,239,000
1977
2,088,000
74,000
734,000
1,280,000
19781
2,151,000
77,000
762,000
1,312,000
Kratkiy Avtomobil'niy Spravochnik, Moscow: Transport, 1978, p. 5.
' Pravda, 31 January 1979, p. 1.
vehicles fell to a low of about 35,000 units in 1942 and
did not approach the 1938 level of output again until
1949. The cutback in passenger car production was
especially drastic, falling from about 27,000 units in
1938 to about 2,550 during 1942 and 1943. However,
the Soviets were able to offset the decline in domestic
truck production through large-scale acquisitions of
US trucks under Lend Lease. During the war years,
the United States delivered about 417,000 vehicles,
principally all-wheel drive, two-axle one-and-a-half-
ton and three-axle two-and-a-half-ton trucks.'? Despite
wartime dislocations, the motor vehicle industry pre-
pared during the war years to open new production
facilities after the war and to introduce new vehicle
models.
14 Robert Huhn Jones, The Roads to Russia (University of
Oklahoma Press, 1969), p.234.
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Production of Trucks and Passenger Cars
Semi-log scale
Thousand
Units
The period after World War II covered the Fourth and
Fifth FYPs (1946-55) and saw the reconstruction and
expansion of the industry and the introduction of new
vehicles in all truck and car lines as well as advanced
production methods. The new production technology
reflected the shift from wood-framed passenger car
bodies and truck cabs to all-steel bodies. The two new
cars introduced, called Pobeda and Moskvich, copied
the all-steel bodies of German cars of 1939 vintage-
the Opel Kapitan and the Opel Kadet. New truck
models introduced at ZIL and GAZ (the ZIS-150 and
the GAZ-51) were technologically similar to 1940-
vintage Western vehicles. Compared with early Soviet
trucks, they had more cargo capacity and engine power
and better braking systems. They were completely
American in appearance and exhibited many design
features of US trucks acquired under Lend Lease. For
example, the cabs of the ZIS- 150 and the GAZ-51
were copies of an International dump truck, and a
Studebaker three-axle, all-wheel drive two-and-one-
half-ton model, respectively. The engines in these
trucks were also copies of US designs: the engine in the
ZIS-150 was an updated Hercules; the engine in the
GAZ-51 was a six-cylinder version of a Ford four-
cylinder model used in the GAZ-AA. Although these
engines were copies, the Soviets made technical
improvements in them to increase reliability and useful
lifetimes."
An especially important advance in Soviet automotive
technology took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s
at the YaAZ plant. For the first time ever in the
USSR, this plant introduced diesel-powered trucks, in
two models of 7 tons and 12 tons. These were two- and
three-axle heavy trucks designed around major compo-
nents of Lend Lease vehicles. They were powered by
diesel engines that were copies of a General Motors
design made at YaAZ.16 The 7-ton truck was called the
15 The 1946 improvements in the GAZ-51 engine, for example,
increased the life of the engine before overhaul by two to two-and
one-half times. Technical improvements included an upper cylinder
insert of NI-resist iron, porous chrome plating on the upper
compression ring, improved lower compression ring and oil-control
ring, and a full-flow oil filter in addition to the bypass filter. See A.
D. Prosvirnina Issledovaniya Oblasti Konstruirovaniya
Avtomobiley (Investigation in the Field of Automotive Design),
Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1970, p.4.
II
0.001 ~~Y I I I I I I I I I I 16 Specifically, Yaroslavl' engines were copies of Series 71 engines
1924 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 78 produced by the Detroit Diesel Division of General Motors.
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YaAZ-200, with a GM engine model 4-71. It was first
produced in 1947 and continued in production at
Yaroslavl' until 1951." The 12-ton truck, called
YaAZ-210, with a GM engine model 6-71, proved
more difficult to develop and did not go into series
production until 1951.
The modernization of product lines in the period just
after World War II was accompanied by the modern-
ization also of production methods. Both the USSR
and major automotive industries in the West exten-
sively used specialized machine tools capable of
multiple operations (aggregati). But schemes to con-
nect these machine tools with automatic systems for
moving parts between them-automatic-transfer ma-
chine tool lines-were not introduced anywhere in the
world until 1946.'$ In that year, automatic transfer
lines designed and built by the Soviet machine tool
industry were introduced for machining engine blocks
and heads. They resembled those installed in US motor
vehicle plants in the same year, but were in no sense
copies. Soviet design activity was contemporaneous
with that of the United States." In addition, the
change in design to products with all steel bodies
required the installation of large numbers of big sheet
metal press lines. Some of these presses, and other
production equipment, were acquired through Lend
Lease and as reparations. Much of this equipment,
however, was manufactured by the Soviet motor
vehicle industry in its own tool shops.
Restructuring the Industry 1957-65
By 1957, Soviet engineers had completed designs of a
large number of new truck models and three new
families of engines. They were to be produced under a
major new program that called for large-scale recon-
struction, retooling, and modernization of the auto-
motive industry. This program, however, was stalled
by the sudden termination of the Sixth FYP and the
introduction of the Seven-Year Plan (SYP) (1959-65),
which gave priority to the development of basic
industries. Hobbled by inadequate investment, the
tempo of automotive production during the SYP fell
off drastically. Output of motor vehicles as a whole
grew at the rate of about 3 percent per year, compared
" It continued in production at Minsk until 1966 as the MAZ-200.
"Automatic-transfer lines are used to machine engine blocks, heads,
and other mass-produced parts.
19 Vestnik Mashinostroyeniya, No. 10 (October, 1948), pp. 31-39.
with a 10-percent rate during the preceding 10 years.
Truck production almost completely stagnated; aver-
age annual growth of output fell from 8 percent during
1949-58 to .2 percent. In 1959, a year of widespread
model changes, production of motor vehicles actually
declined by 3 percent from that of the previous year.
From the end of World War II until the mid-1960s, the
USSR purchased very little production equipment
from the West.20 As the West Europeans restored their
capital goods industries with Marshall Plan assistance,
they brought pressure for the relaxation of restrictions
by the Coordinating Committee (COCOM), making
some special tooling available to the Soviets. But the
USSR could not afford to import much because of
hard currency stringencies.
At the same time, the Soviet machine tool industry
could not compensate for the inability to import
automotive investment goods. The machine tool indus-
try had only a small capacity to produce special
machines and automatic lines for mass production, and
it had to supply the tractor, agricultural machinery,
railroad equipment, bearing, electrical power industry,
and other industries as well as the automotive industry.
Consequently, the major automotive enterprises were
obliged to develop a capability to manufacture many of
their own machines." For example, ZIL made many
large stamping presses for its own needs and for others.
Despite production problems, notable progress was
made in designing and producing new engines. In 1959
the Yaroslavl' Motor Vehicle Plant became a center
for the development and production of diesel engines.
All truck production ceased, and the plant was
renamed the Yaroslavl' Diesel Engine Plant (YaMZ).
In 1961 YaMZ introduced a new family of diesels of
its own design. In 1959 the Zavolzh'ye Engine Plant
(ZMZ) was established to produce new gasoline
engines designed by GAZ. These engines were in two
variants: a V-8 for use in GAZ trucks, and a four-
cylinder model for use in GAZ passenger cars and light
trucks. By 1963 ZIL also had established production of
its new V-8 gasoline engine for use in ZIL trucks .12
21 A.N. Ostrovtseva, Avtomobil' (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye,
1976).
2' P. D. Borodin, Tekhnicheskiy Progress na Zilye (Moscow:
Mashinostroyeniye, 1976), pp. 8, 152.
22 Machinery and Production Engineering, 12 April 1967, p. 792.
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These three new families of engines accommodated all
of the new Soviet trucks.
The new engine plants were equipped with Soviet
automatic-transfer machine tool lines for producing
engine blocks. In addition, part of the ZMZ plant was
outfitted with imported equipment-Italian die-
casting machines, which cast aluminum blocks for the
GAZ V-8 engine. Those blocks represented the first
very large die castings produced in the USSR. The
technology, however, was not entirely new to the
Soviets, who had previously made die-casting ma-
chines for smaller parts. In 1961 the Soviets also
attempted, unsuccessfully, to purchase in the United
States major segments of engine machining equipment
for the ZIL V-8, including an automatic transfer line.
The ZIL V-8 engine had been fully developed and
awaiting the provision of production facilities since
1958. After export licenses were denied by the US
Government, the Soviet machine tool industry
undertook to supply the equipment.23 Production of
some engines began by the end of 1962.
Rapid Growth in Output and Assortment
1966-Present
By 1966 most of the new truck models planned for
introduction in 1957 were in production. These in-
cluded: the basic models ZIL- 130, GAZ-53, and
MAZ-500. New tooling, mainly Soviet, was in place to
produce the new engines and other components.
However, most Soviet basic automotive tooling had
been in service a long time and no longer met
contemporary requirements for precision, finish, or
labor productivity. Major new injections of modern
manufacturing equipment were needed to restore
earlier growth rates and to raise product quality and
labor productivity.
Having completed the Seven-Year Plan of large-scale
investment in basic industry, the Soviets were now
prepared to shift priority to the development of
transportation in general, and to highway transporta-
tion in particular. A new 15-Year Plan for transporta-
tion (1966-80) called for a comprehensive assortment
of models and types of trucks, buses, and passenger
cars to increase transport efficiency and to offer hope
of eventual private car ownership to the population.
23 In addition to its participation in the international COCOM
embargo, the United States at that time maintained a separate
unilateral embargo on the export of strategic goods to Communist
countries.
The first phase of the new program called for wholesale
transformation of passenger car production. By the
early 1960s the Soviets were finding it difficult to live
with their low level of production of passenger cars,
which in 1965 had only reached 201,000 annually.
They had even resorted to the use of trucks for official
transportation, a practice that was criticized by
Premier A. N. Kosygin.24 The regime needed to offer
passenger car ownership to the population, both to
meet rising consumer expectations and to soak up
excess savings that otherwise might depress labor
productivity and labor force participation rates. The
extent of the shortfall in passenger car production was
perceived to be too great to be corrected by gradual
increases in output of existing plants. A major project
was launched to increase passenger car production to
1.2 million units by 1975-an increase of nearly six
times that of 1965. Meanwhile, production growth
rates in the always-favored, but recently slow-growing,
truck branch were to be accelerated.
The Tol'yatti and Moskvich Plants. The task was
enormous. Output of the Moskvich passenger car was
to be tripled, and a huge new plant at Tol'yatti with an
output of 660,000 cars per year was to be built.
Investments programed for the motor vehicle industry
in the Eighth FYP (1966-70) were as large as all the
fixed productive capital invested in the industry up to
that time. 25 The domestic machine tool industry was
not up to the task. By attending to the priority needs of
basic industry during the Seven-Year Plan, most of its
capacity had remained fixed in the production of
general purpose tools not appropriate for mass produc-
tion. In addition, the automotive industry lacked the
experience needed to produce passenger cars to con-
temporary world standards of performance and com-
fort. Hence, the Soviets were forced to turn to the West
for product design as well as to import most of the
specialized tooling needed for mass production.
M "Everything has been done to deprive even the leaders of big
enterprises of the right to use passenger cars. Is this correct? The
result has been that many leaders have been compelled to use trucks
unlawfully for their official rides." USSR: About To Enter the
Automotive Age (CIA, July 1966), p. 9.
25 "Fifty Years of Motor Vehicle Production," Avtomobil'naya
Promyshlennost, No. 10, October 1974, p. 1.
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In the Eighth FYP, more than 3 million square meters
of production space were built with massive Western
assistance-ending the long period of neglect of the
motor vehicle industry.26 Renault was selected to assist
in the modernization and expansion of the Moskvich
passenger car plant in Moscow and in the conversion to
Moskvich production of the Izhevsk Machinebuilding
Plant. FIAT was selected to assist in the establishment
of the VAZ plant. Both Renault and FIAT provided
manufacturing engineering (plant layout) and guid-
ance on the purchase of specific machinery abroad.
FIAT guaranteed the production level and efficiency
of the VAZ plant, supervised the startup and running-
in of all systems, trained the Soviet supervisors and
key workers, and provided initial parts for pilot
production and to fill gaps caused by the slowness of
some new Soviet vendors in mastering their production
assignments.
Rather than taking the kind of assistance received
from Ford in 1929-32 for the establishment of GAZ,
the Soviets themselves provided all architectural serv-
ices for the VAZ plant and carried out all building
construction and installation of utilities. Also, the
Soviets procured all production equipment.
The Kama Truck Plant. The second phase of auto-
motive expansion shifted the emphasis from passenger
cars to trucks. The Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75)
featured major retooling and expansion of existing
truck plants and a program costing more than 5 billion
rubles ($5.6 billion at the official exchange rate 21 to
build a new, complex truck manufacturing facility at
Naberezhnye Chelnye on the Kama River." The
Kama Motor Vehicle Plant (KamAZ) was designed
for annual production of 150,000 diesel trucks (and
engines) of 8-ton capacity and an additional 100,000
diesel engines for installation in trucks and buses
produced at other plants."
1b Ibid.
21 1970 dollars. Rubles were converted to dollars at the 1970 official
exchange rate of one ruble = $1.11.
Z' Georgiy Shchuken, Chairman of the Kama River Purchasing
Commission, in a speech before the Overseas Automobile Club, New
York City, on 9 January 1975.
29 The Soviets claim that when the KamAZ plant reaches full
production, the carrying capacity of its annual output will equal one-
half the carrying capacity of all trucks produced in the USSR in
1975.
The Ministry of the Motor Vehicle Industry first
looked to the West for all the equipment necessary for
the KamAZ plant. Before the end of the 1971-75 Plan,
however, foreign procurement was limited to providing
equipment for the first stage of the plant's develop-
ment, that is, for the production of 75,000 trucks and
40,000 extra engines.30 The Soviet machine tool
industry was tasked to supply the rest of the equipment
during the second stage of plant development." To
meet that task and others facing it, the machine tool
industry undertook to build six new specialized plants
in 1971-75.32
The KamAZ truck-Soviet designed, and intended for
Soviet road conditions-is a three-axle tandem-drive
vehicle with loads per axle limited to 6 tons (11 tons on
a pair of tandem axles), permitting a cargo capacity of
8 tons. Most Soviet trucks in production in the 1970s
(GAZ-53 and ZIL-130) are two-axle trucks, rated at 4
and 5 tons, respectively. A typical Western truck
designed to carry 8 tons of cargo would have only two
axles and a gross vehicle weight per axle of up to 8
metric tons. Such a truck would cost less to produce
but would not be well suited for Soviet conditions. The
extra axle of the KamAZ truck provides the necessary
extra flotation to negotiate soft unimproved Soviet
roads and light bridges.
Production of the KamAZ truck began at the end of
1976 with the commissioning of the first stage of the
plant. The process is not yet completely mastered, and
production is still far from smooth. The Soviets
claimed a production of 41,000 KamAZ trucks in 1978
and expect to reach designed capacity of 150,000
trucks in 1983. Achievement of this goal will require
the installation of equipment for the second section of
the plant by the end of 1980.
Organizational Refinements. The period 1966-76 also
witnessed the introduction of production associations.
This was a major change in the hierarchical arrange-
ment of the Ministry of the Motor Vehicle Industry
intended to smooth interplant delivery of components
and simplify the introduction of improved products.
Historically, Soviet manufacturers have had great
30 Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, 24 December 1977, p. 2.
" Stanki i Instrument, No. 9, (December 1976), pp. 1-3.
12 BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts, the USSR, issues of 23
April 1971 (p. A/ 13); 28 October, 1977 (p. A/ 19); and 17 February,
1978 (p. A/ 18). See also, Trud, 27 February, 1971, p. 2.
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difficulty controlling the quality of components pur-
chased from other plants. Under the new arrangement,
major product lines are assigned to production associ-
ations consisting of several plants manufacturing parts
under the general supervision of a head plant, which
usually assembles the end product. The managers of
the head plants report directly to the minister. (See
table 2.)
This arrangement allows the managers of head plants
to intervene in the production schedule of supplier
plants to assure that quality control is maintained and
that appropriate improvements in product design are
undertaken to support the production programs of the
associations. Because the manager of the head plant
has direct access to the minister, he can support the
managers of the subordinate plants in their requests for
financing and scarce capital from the Ministry. This
coordinating function of the head plant should lead to
increased efficiency in the distribution of resources
within the Ministry, as well as to improvements in the
overall quality of product.
Factors Shaping the Development of the
Soviet Automotive Industry
Soviet vehicles are criticized, somewhat unjustly, for
performance that would not be acceptable in the
United States. Although Soviet vehicles resemble US
products in general appearance, their design is suited
to Soviet operating conditions. Soviet roads are poor
compared with those of the United States and Western
Europe, the climate is more severe, and fuel and
lubricants are not as carefully manufactured, trans-
ported, stored, and dispensed.
Roads
Less than 20 percent of the Soviet road system is
paved, and much of the paved system is in poor
condition, especially in winter because of potholes.
About one-half of the road system has a dirt surface
with little or no foundation under it and is muddy,
rutty, and impassable to conventional vehicles in wet
weather. These conditions have affected Soviet auto-
motive design. For example, the USSR has relatively
greater need for all-wheel-drive trucks and passenger
cars, and conventional passenger tars are made with
more road clearance under the axles than is customary
in Western countries. Also, because roads are treach-
Date Number Number of
Established of Plants Employees
AvtoZAZ
1976
4
30,000 2
NA
Trucks
57
645,000
NA
Light and Medium
37
555,000
257,000
AvtoGAZ 1971
9
200,000 2
80,000
AvtoZIL
1971
17
200,000 2
65,000
AvtoKamAZ
1976
4
100,000
80,000
AvtoUAZ
1976
4
30,000 2
17,000
AvtoUralAZ
1976
3
25,000 2
15,000
Heavy
20
90,000
NA
AvtoKrAZ
1976
6
25,000 2
18,000
BelavtoMAZ
1976
12
60,000 2
NA
AvtoBAZ
1977
2
5,000 2
NA
Engines
7
60,000
NA
Diesel
5
40,000
NA
AvtoDizel
1971
5
40,000 2
NA
Gasoline
2
20,000
NA
AvtoZMZ
1971
2
20,000 2
NA
' Based on data derived by the Foreign Demographic Analysis
Division, Department of Commerce, using 1972 input-output
estimates. Employment in the Soviet automotive industry in 1972
totaled more than 722,000 man-years. Since 1972, the KamAZ
plant added at least 100,000 workers. Employment expanded also at
Likhachev Motor Vehicle Plant, Moscow (ZIL), Gor'kiy Motor
Vehicle Plant (GAZ), and in other automotive facilities.
2 Estimated.
erous, trucks and passenger cars cannot be driven very
fast and consequently have lower top speeds than their
Western analogs. They are geared lower, thus demand-
ing less power from their engines.
The best Soviet roads, which have good foundations
and are surfaced with concrete or gravel, are classified
by the Soviets as Category I and II roads. These roads
can accept 10 tons per axle, and 18 tons on a pair of
tandem axles. Trucks built to these specifications are
designated Class A trucks. Less than 10 percent of
Soviet truck production consists of Class A trucks.
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The quality of most of the road system limits loaded
truck weight to 6 tons per axle and, l l tons on a pair of
tandem rear axles. Trucks built to these specifications
are designated Class B trucks. They account for over
80 percent of medium-duty trucks in the Soviet
inventory. They do not overload light bridges and are
practical in agricultural areas and in interurban
transport on secondary roads.
The need to keep axle weight low accounts for the
design of the KamAZ truck. The gross vehicle weight
(GVW) of the KamAZ is 33,500 pounds, distributed
over three axles. West European or US trucks with
similar GVWs usually have only two axles. The Soviets
also make two-axle trucks (the MAZ-500A) in this
weight class, but in relatively small numbers for the
small, improved part of the highway system.
Under the unique constraints of Soviet driving condi-
tions, the USSR has developed two unique families of
four-axled all-wheel-drive trucks capable of carrying
up to 16 tons of cargo as straight trucks and up
to 55 tons when combined with semi-trailers-the
MAZ-535, -537, and -543 models. These vehicles
demonstrate the ability of Soviet engineers to apply
well-known engineering principles in an intelligent way
to produce rather large numbers of trucks that are
especially useful in moving heavy payloads where there
are no roads. The trucks have been valuable in such
civilian applications as line-pipe transport and moving
oversized industrial loads, while also serving as prime
movers for military loads.
Although the four-axled heavy trucks are cleverly
designed, they are very expensive. Their high cost
represents a price paid for avoiding the expense of
highway construction for conventional trucks. The
other, more nearly conventional, all-wheel-drive Soviet
trucks also cost more per unit of load capacity than
ordinary highway trucks.
Industrial Support
If the designs of Soviet trucks and cars are appropriate
for Soviet operating conditions, what about their
quality-service life, maintenance cost, fuel economy,
ease of operation? All of these characteristics are
influenced by the peculiarities of Soviet supporting
industry-metallurgy, chemicals, oil refining, and the
like.
Soviet trucks are sturdily made and easy to operate and
service. By comparison with US trucks, Soviet trucks
also are underpowered, slow, and have low payload
ratings. In Soviet conditions, US trucks, however,
frequently would operate slowly, not require their full
installed power, and be unable to use full load capacity.
Soviet designers know that the empty weight of their
trucks is too great and that compression ratios of
engines should be raised. To do these things they need
an assured supply of higher strength rolled steel and
higher octane gasoline.
The Soviet automotive industry is in fact preoccupied
with extracting longer service life from its products.
Difficulty in achieving Western standards of vehicle
life are the result of conditions not under the direct
control of the manufacturers. Besides bad road condi-
tions, these include neglect of preventive maintenance,
low-grade lubricants, prevalence of dusty atmospheres,
and extremely cold weather operations. The Soviets
have attempted to design around these problems by
providing extra on-vehicle filtering of oil, heavy-duty
air cleaners, sealed-for-life universal joints, engine
preheaters, and so on. But the role that good lubricants
and strict maintenance discipline play in obtaining
long life in wearing parts is paramount. Soviet vehicles
will not deliver the service life of Western vehicles
without them.
Service life, maintenance costs, and fuel economy also
depend in part on achieving closer tolerances in
manufacture. The USSR has probably improved
considerably in this respect in the last 10 years because
of the enormous investment in the motor vehicle
industry since the mid-1960s. Much of the capital
stock that is critical to precision manufacture
(machines for cutting axle gears, grinding crankshafts,
and machining engine blocks) is of recent design.
Although imports have provided much of the most
precise machinery in the last 10 years, ever larger
amounts of it are coming from domestic machine tool
facilities.
As for ease of operation, all Soviet trucks that have
rated load capacities above 1 ton already have power-
assisted brakes, and those rated at over 4 tons have
power steering. Such features are sold as optional extra
cost items on many US trucks.
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Impediments to Innovation
Sluggish introduction of new products and production
processes into the Soviet motor vehicle industry
(compared with advanced Western industry) also
reflects conditions peculiar to the Soviet economy.
Standardization. Soviet industry is notable for stress-
ing mass production of vehicles of rigidly standardized
design. Long periods between model changes extract
the last iota of advantage from advances along the
learning curve. Although such a production strategy
tends to minimize the resource cost of a given output, it
clearly curbs innovation."
For example, the limited assortment of components
available for vehicle assembly has reduced severely the
diversity and versatility of the end product mix. Thus,
the ZIL production association (AvtoZIL) manufac-
tures only one engine, one transmission, and one rear
axle for the ZIL- 130 line of trucks. Only three frame
sizes are available, providing only three wheel bases.
No other conventional Soviet trucks are made in the
ZIL- 130 performance range.
In contrast,.General Motors, to cite one Western
example, produces trucks in the ZIL- 130 range that
can be tailored by specifying alternative components to
provide a wide variety of performance characteristics.
In the GM Series C-6500 family-nearest equivalent
to the ZIL-130-the customer can select from eight
gross vehicle weights, ranging from 21,000 pounds to
31,500 pounds; nine wheel bases, ranging from 125 to
218 inches; three engines, ranging from 190 to 230
horsepower; 15 manual transmissions and two auto-
matic transmissions; seven rear axles; two front axles;
and several sizes of such assorted accessories as gas
tanks, generators, and batteries.
Intensive standardization leads to other problems. The
special nature of single-purpose high-volume produc-
tion equipment locks manufactures into the unique
products for which the machinery was designed. Only
minor changes in product design can be tolerated;
" Under competitive conditions, long-term production of standard-
ized products at minimum cost greatly eroded the market shares of
two major Western firms-the Ford Motor Company (Model T,
1908-27) and Volkswagen AG (VW "Bug," 1946-73). They
recovered only with great difficulty.
major product changes require much of the production
machinery to be scrapped. Manufacturers unwilling or
unable financially to scrap special machinery have to
continue to produce obsolete products. This is part of
the cost of high productivity.
The economic attraction of getting long service out of
expensive, highly specialized, automated production
equipment is common to both the USSR and the
industrialized West. The USSR, however, has shown a
much greater propensity to keep such equipment in
service long after its unique products have become
obsolete." The overlong production runs are possible
because Soviet plants have an assured market for
products that could not be sold in the West.
Control Over the Market. The ability to market
obsolete products in the USSR retards retirement of
obsolete production equipment, allows the production
technology to stagnate, and deprives the machine-
building industry of opportunities to develop new
processing equipment and to expand production capac-
ity in anticipation of future orders. These conditions
were responsible in large measure for the inability of
the Soviet machine tool industry to supply the major
tooling orders generated by the Tol'yatti and Kama
projects.
In recent years the USSR has tried to identify the
characteristics required of motor vehicles in the future
and to incorporate features in new production equip-
ment that will accommodate the expected improve-
ments in product design. Soviet selection of the most
advanced forms of Western production equipment
reflects this shift in planning policy.
Plan Rigidity. Another obstacle to innovation peculiar
to planned economies is the centralized nature of the
plan itself. Plant managers find it difficult to order new
kinds of production equipment or to redesign parts
supplied by venders. Most important of all, producers
are insensitive to legitimate complaints of customers
about vehicle performance and the need for design
change because they do not have to worry about
competition. The success criteria for Soviet enterprises
remain heavily weighted toward meeting production
"A prime example is the equipment for producing the valve-in-block
engines for the GAZ-51 and ZIL-157K trucks. These engines were
introduced in 1939 and 1946, respectively, and may be the only
valve-in-block truck engines still in production anywhere in the
world.
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goals, and penalties for failure to meet them cannot
possibly be offset by premiums for introducing innova-
tions. Production managers therefore lack incentives to
adopt new methods or abandon old product lines.
The inertia in the automotive industry is reinforced by
the reluctance of its suppliers to discontinue estab-
lished products and to risk failure to meet their plan
goals. If the plan provides for the delivery of body sheet
of a certain thickness for hoods and fenders, the
automotive plant cannot easily get a different thick-
ness of metal in order to lighten the parts; nor can it
easily arrange for metal of a special specification such
as a higher carbon content.
Supply deficiencies also tend to pull down the quality
of Soviet automobile products. Plants not in the
Ministry of the Motor Vehicle Industry, and thus
beyond the disciplinary reach of the Ministry, supply
such items as cloth, paint, rubber seals, hoses and belts,
and preformed gaskets. The performance yardstick for
these plants is volume of output-not quality, or even
the right assortment. Many of the quality problems in
Soviet automotive production therefore stem from the
pervasive lack of buyer-oriented incentives in a tautly
run planned economy rather than from inadequate
design.
If an automotive plant devises a better way to produce
a part and needs a special piece of equipment to do so,
it will probably have to make its own equipment or wait
to include it in the next major national plan. Fre-
quently the plant produces its own equipment because
acquiring capital equipment through the planning
mechanism can take years. Considering the chronic
undercapacity of the machine-building industries with
respect to manufacturing specialized production equip-
ment, the automotive industry would never expect to
receive some kinds of equipment from other ministries.
Recognizing that the automotive industry must
produce much of its own production equipment, the
provisions of the 10th FYP called for increasing the in-
house capacity of the Ministry of Motor Vehicle
Industry to manufacture production equipment. Its
capacity is to rise from 15 million rubles in 1975 to
185 million rubles in 1980.35 This production aug-
ments, but does not supplant the large amount of
35 Avtomobil'naya Promyshlennost', No. 10 (October 1976), p. 4.
machinery to be supplied to the Ministry of Motor
Vehicle Industry by other ministries, principally the
Ministry of the Machine Tool Industry. In-house
manufacture of automotive production equipment
enables the industry to curtail hard currency expendi-
tures for imported equipment.
To overcome the obstacles to improvement of product
design and production processes in the USSR, the
planners must become convinced that change is
necessary. Periodically, Soviet planners have perceived
the necessity for greater efficiency in highway trans-
portation and have set longrun goals for the motor
vehicle industry. The tautness of resource supply in the
five-year plans, however, have frequently delayed the
commissioning of new capacity. Projects with high
priority have often been kept on more or less realistic
schedules in recent years only by including in the
import plan items that would take too long to procure
from domestic production.
Professional Isolation. Another important factor re-
tarding the introduction of new technology in the
Soviet machinery sector is the isolation of Soviet
engineers from their fellows in other advanced indus-
trialized countries. In the West, ideas and technologi-
cal initiatives flow freely and continuously through the
movement of engineers among firms, domestically and
internationally, on orientation visits and work assign-
ments. Western automotive engineers actively partici-
pate in the international meetings of the major
societies (principally the Society of Automotive Engi-
neers) that promote advances of the state of the art in
vehicle design and production. Much of the participa-
tion takes the form of collaboration by engineers of
different firms and countries in study of technical
problems troubling the industry as a whole.
In the past 10 years the visits to production facilities in
Western Europe, the United States, and Japan re-
quired by the equipment purchasing programs for
Tol'yatti and Kama allowed hundreds of Soviet
engineers to study the latest Western production
methods. In the period before detente these opportuni-
ties were not sought by the Soviet Union and not
allowed by the United States. Nonetheless, the visits
that have taken place were essentially one-time affairs
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USSR: Origin of Motor Vehicle Technology for
Major Capital Investment
I II
(1928-31) (1944-48)
Establishing Reconstruction
New Capacity After World War II
Type of Technology
Overall plan F D
Building design F D
Manufacturing engineering F D
(plant layout)
Selection of
specific equipment
Product design F D
Parts for initial assembly F D
Supply of production equipment F D
D=Domestic.
F= Foreign.
that centered on particular equipment problems and
were not part of a continuous program. of technological
exchange. Thus, the Soviet motor vehicle industry
remains isolated (although less so than before detente)
from the international development of technological
ideas.
The USSR, however, does procure and exploit the
world's technical literature. Russian translations of
Western technical articles circulate widely within
Soviet industry, including the automotive industry. In
this way, Soviet engineers are kept up to date on the
accomplishments of foreign developers which point the
way to practical technological development. But learn-
ing new ideas after they have been described in the
literature is a less effective mechanism for acquiring
technolgy than face-to-face discussions of mutual
problems with other engineers.
The Question of Soviet Dependence
Contrary to some views, over the last 50 years an
impressive Soviet automotive technology has evolved
during four distinct periods of major growth and
III
(1957-65)
Retooling for
New Product
Establishing Establishing
New Capacity New Capacity
D F D
D D D
D F F
D F, D F, D
D D D
D F, D D
D F D
D F, D F, D
technological advance. The technological advance is
reflected in the construction of new plants, reconstruc-
tion and refurbishing of old plants, and in the adoption
of new product designs. The domestic versus foreign
origin of the different levels of technology introduced
in each period are indicated in summary fashion in
table 3.
Stages of Dependence
The first period, coinciding with the First Five-Year
Plan, was marked by the introduction of mass produc-
tion technology from abroad and by the beginning of
high-volume output. The Soviet Union was never again
so completely dependent on a foreign supplier.
The second period, especially following World War II,
was notable for reconstruction and expansion of the
industry, for redesign of automotive products to nearly
modern criteria, and for an expanded product assort-
ment. This work was accomplished without foreign
technological assistance, aside from equipment
obtained through Lend Lease and from dismantled
German plants. The most advanced machine tools
installed during this period were of Soviet origin.
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During the third period, 1957-65, the product lines
were extensively modernized and the industry was
reorganized to provide more intensive specialization.
The low priority of the automotive industry's claims on
investment resources during the Seven-Year Plan
(1959-65), however, stifled expansion of capacity and
greatly prolonged the changeover to new designs.
Improved models of most cars and trucks were placed
in production by 1965, although the desired volume
had not been achieved.
The present period, which began in 1966, has wit-
nessed the restoration of priority to the motor vehicle
industry. The 15-Year Plan (1966-80) for improving
Soviet transportation, specified unprecedented in-
creases in passenger car production as well as the
creation of a large capacity for production of 8-ton
trucks capable of operating on the unimproved portion
of the Soviet highway system. These goals are being
satisfied by the Tol'yatti and Kama projects. Tol'yatti
was relatively more dependent than Kama on foreign
assistance because the USSR had relatively less
experience in producing passenger cars than trucks.
When the Soviets again turned to intensive use of
foreign sources of technology for the VAZ and
Moskvich plants, the reasons for seeking foreign
assistance had changed. The deciding factor was the
urgency attached to a sharp increase in passenger car
production. The Soviets wanted to shorten the time
normally required to plan a major new plant and
launch a new product. The Soviet machine tool
industry, having serviced few orders for special auto-
motive production machinery over the years, was not
prepared to equip promptly facilities to increase
passenger car output by six times.
The Soviets could have planned and carried out the
VAZ and Moskvich projects without foreign help. But
the use of FIAT and Renault as consultants, both
experienced in organizing mass production of modern
cars, saved a great deal of time. Moreover, the
technical assistance contracts allowed the Soviets to
tap the specialized Western machine tool companies
for early delivery of production equipment, paid for
with foreign credits.
Although the Soviets leaned heavily on foreign experts
to get these passenger car plants into production as fast
as possible, the projects were far from being turnkey
projects. In the case of the Moskvich plants, the
product was mostly a Soviet design.16 As for VAZ, the
product, designed by FIAT for its own market, was
substantially redesigned for the Soviet market, and the
Soviets participated fully in the redesign process. The
Soviets designed all the buildings and supplied signifi-
cant amounts of production equipment for all the
projects. Soviet need for a large amount of Western
production tooling reflected only a lack of capacity in
the Soviet machine tool sector for producing special-
ized machines for passenger car production, not a lack
of technological understanding.
The 10th Five-Year Plan (1976-80) probably marks
the end, at least for the foreseeable future, of mass
imports of motor vehicle production equipment for
accelerated projects of the Tol'yatti and Kama type.
The increased capability of the Soviet machine tool
industry to produce automated production machinery
and the more refined long-term planning for the
automotive industry suggest that domestic demand
and supply of automotive equipment will be in better
balance in the future. Of course, it would not be
economical for the USSR to try to become completely
self-sufficient in automotive production equipment.
The Soviets subscribe to international specialization
when domestic demand is not great enough to justify
establishing a domestic supply capability.
The growing capabilities of Soviet industry to inde-
pendently design and produce modern vehicles is
reflected in the Niva, a new, small, all-wheel-drive
passenger car that has been added to the product line
at VAZ. This vehicle, which satisfies the Soviet need
for comfortable personal transportation in rural areas,
has great potential for export sales. It appears to have
been developed without foreign assistance and to be
assembled on equipment that is mostly of domestic
origin.
36 The engine, however, is a close replica of a BMW engine.
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The next major objective of the Soviet automotive
industry is to convert truck production to diesel power.
This program, dictated by the need to produce more
energy-efficient vehicles, coincides with a similar
effort in the United States to produce diesel-powered
trucks in the medium range (US Class VI and VII
trucks with gross vehicle weights in the range of 19,501
to 33,000 pounds). The Soviet program, as far as is
known, will be carried out without major foreign
assistance for design or production technology.
ZIL trucks will be dieselized first, followed by GAZ
vehicles. The gasoline-powered ZIL- 130 is to be
replaced by a diesel-powered ZIL-169. The ZIL diesel
is still under development-the third set of prototype
engines currently is under test-and production is
doubtful before 1985. By that date, a major new
facility of Avto ZIL for the production of truck diesel
engines, the Smolensk Diesel Engine Plant, should be
completed. Even assuming a priority allocation of
investment funds in the 12th FYP (1986-90), the
dieselization of GAZ trucks is unlikely before 1990.
In the area of passenger cars, the USSR is planning to
produce a minisized car with front-wheel drive at the
Moskvich plants. Western assistance in design and
production has already been sought and almost cer-
tainly will be required. Dependence on the West in this
instance is not surprising. Indeed, in the United States,
General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have all sought
assistance from their foreign affiliates for the design of
such small, fuel-efficient cars.
Growth of Indigenous Capabilities
The Case of Engines. The Soviet Union produces diesel
engines in a wide variety of sizes and types for
automotive, industrial, marine, and military uses. This
sector of industry has proven to be progressive and
innovative-especially on the military side-and is
now wholly independent of the need to copy Western
design technology.
In the beginning, the diesel engine industry was
developed with foreign assistance and its engines were
based on foreign design. The Soviets directly copied
some foreign models, and in a few cases, chiefly marine
diesels, produced Western models under license to
foreign firms." Copied engines for automotive uses
include the 1946 Caterpillar D-7 used in medium-
powered tractors produced at the Chelyabinsk Tractor
Plant, six-cylinder derivatives of the D-7 for use in
tractors produced at Bryansk, and the General Motors
Series 71 diesels for use in trucks produced at YaMZ.38
Soviet development of automotive diesel engines began
in the early 1930s under military auspices. Using a
Western (Hispano-Suiza) gasoline-fueled aircraft en-
gine as a prototype, the Soviets designed a large diesel
called the V-2 for use in Soviet tanks. This develop-
ment demonstrated exceptional engineering skills in
adapting and transforming Western design to Soviet
military requirements. It demonstrated also, unusual
foresight, since large automotive diesels over 350
horsepower were not installed in tanks in the West
until the end of World War 11.11
This V-form engine had 12 cylinders with a displace-
ment of 38.8 liters. It developed 600 horsepower
(maximum) at 1800 rpm as configured for the heavy
JS-3 tank, and 500 horsepower at 1800 rpm as
modified for the T-34 tank.
After World War II the Soviets deferred spending
scarce capital on the development of new diesel
engines, preferring instead to modify the V-2 for
industrial applications. This approach was eminently
rational since surplus production capacity for V-2s was
available from the very large capacity that had been
" For example, the Russkii Dizel' plant in Leningrad built marine
diesels under license from Sulzer of Switzerland. The Bryansk
Locomotive Plant builds large marine diesels under license from
Burmeister and Wain of Denmark.
18 Diesel engines were also copied for marine and locomotive use. The
Kolomna Locomotive Plant copied the German MAN diesels for
submarines; and the Kharkov Locomotive Plant copied ALCO and
Fairbanks-Morse engines for Soviet locomotives.
39 During World War II, the United States used dual 200-hp,
GM 6-71 diesel engines in medium and heavy tanks, or in some
cases, five 100-hp Chrysler gasoline engines in a cluster arrange-
ment. Diesel engines over 500 horsepower were not installed in US
tanks until the latter part of the 1950s, more than 20 years after the
pioneering Soviet accomplishment.
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U d
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built up during the war. For industrial applications 4?
the V-2 was derated to 300 horsepower at 1500 rpm
and redesignated Model D-12 (see table 3). In
addition, the Soviets produced a six-cylinder variant
designated the D-6, rated at 150 horsepower at 1500
rpm. The V-2 tank engine and its derivatives were not
suitable for wide use in trucks, although the attempt
was made. Experience with the D-12 in Soviet 25-ton
off-highway dump trucks (MAZ-525) demonstrated
that it was too expensive, required too much mainte-
nance, and had too short a life for that service. The
mean time between overhauls was on the order of 2,000
hours.41
The first Soviet diesel specifically made for trucks was
the YaAZ-204, an exact copy of the GM Detroit
Diesel 4-71 engine, a prototype of which was produced
at YaAZ in 1946. By 1951 the plant also had the
YaAZ-206 engine in production, a copy of the
GM 6-71. By 1966 the YaMZ-204 and -206 were
mostly replaced for truck use by the YaMZ-236,
and -238, rated at 180 and 240 horsepower, respec-
tively.42 In many ways, the new engines were strikingly
similar to the Mack Thermodyne.43 Fundamentally,
however, the design was a Soviet one that reflected a
knowledge of world developments.
By 1967, YaMZ was able to supply a new engine, the
V-form 12-cylinder YaMZ-240, as a replacement for
the old D- 12 tank engine in 27- and 40-ton BeIAZ
dump trucks. Shortly thereafter, in the early 1970s,
YaMZ unveiled a new family of engines, the eight- and
10-cylinder YaMZ-740 series, for the KamAZ
trucks.44
' Industrial applications included construction equipment, generator
sets, marine applications, oilfield equipment, switching locomotives,
tractors, and, in short, any application requiring large horsepower in
a mobile package.
" Among other reasons, engine life was shortened by wear in the
bevel gears of the valve train which eventually allows valve timing to
lag unacceptably behind crankshaft position.
" They continue to be used in industrial applications.
" The strongest similarities are in the position of the injector, the
piston shape, the connecting rods, and the 90-degree angle between
the cylinder banks.
"The USSR introduced an industrial diesel in 1979, the
TMZ-1050A, which generates 1,050 horsepower, for use in the
latest and largest model dump truck, the 80-ton, BeIAZ-549.
However, it is not known if the engine is in serial production or
whether it is based on a foreign design.
USSR: Truck Production
With Foreign-Based Engines, 1979
Gor'kiy
Minsk
Saransk
Plant '
Plant 2
Plant '
(GAZ)
(MAZ)
(SAZ)
GAZ-5204
MAZ-535
SAZ-3503
GAZ-5206
MAZ-537
SAZ-3504
MAZ-543
MAZ-7310
Uses the GAZ-51 engine.
2 Uses the D-12 engine.
Uses the ZIS- 120 engine.
Moscow
Likhachev Plant
(ZIL)
ZIL-157K
ZIL-157KV
At present, all diesel engines in use in trucks and buses
in the USSR, with one exception, are Soviet designed.
The exception is the D- 12, derived from the Hispano-
Suiza aircraft engine, which continues in use in several
models of a heavy-duty truck produced by MAZ. The
production lifespan of Soviet truck engines, gasoline
and diesel, is shown in figures 3 and 4. Tables 5 and 6
identify the major models of trucks and buses currently
using each model of engine. Two models of gasoline
engines that were based on foreign design continue to
be used in a few truck models. Clearly, however, the
Soviets no longer depend upon the West for engine
design technology.
The Soviets will continue to incorporate design fea-
tures that have been proven in other countries. For
example, the Soviets are interested in the technology of
multifuel engines with high specific output and vari-
able compression ratios, which have been developed in
the West. These engines will be developed as strategic
and economic factors dictate. Incorporation of such
Western innovations into future Soviet design would be
consistent with automotive practices worldwide, would
not imply "reverse engineering," and would not signal
new technological dependence upon the West.
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USSR: Truck Production With Soviet-Designed Engines, 1979
Ul'yanovsk Plant Ural Plant Moscow Likhachev
Plant ]
UAZ-451DM Ural-375N ZIL-130
UAZ-451-M Ural-375SN ZIL-130
UAZ-452 Ural-377N ZIL-131
UAZ-452D Ural-377SN ZIL-131V
ZIL-133G1
Byelorussian Plant'
Kama Plant'
Kremenchug Plant 6
Minsk Plant 67
Ural Plant'
BeIAZ-540A
KamAZ-5320
KrAZ-255B
MAZ-500A
Ural-4320
BeIAZ-548A
KamAZ-5410
KrAZ-255L
MAZ-503A
KamAZ-5511
KrAZ-255V
MAZ-504A
KrAZ-256B1
MAZ-5335
KrAZ-258B1
MAZ-5549
MAZ-504B
' Uses the GAZ-53 engine.
z Uses the ZIL- 130 engine.
' Uses the M-21 engine.
`Uses the YaMZ-240 engine.
' Uses the KamAZ-740 engine.
6 Uses the YaMZ-238 engine.
'Uses the YaMZ-236 engine.
' Uses the ZIL-375 engine.
The Case of Production Machinery. That Soviet
industry can and does produce equipment similar to
that of the West is evident in the record of the
rebuilding of the automotive industry after World War
II and in the modernization program undertaken in
1957-65. All of the most modern and specialized
tooling used in these programs was designed and
produced in the USSR, including automatic transfer
lines for machining engine blocks and heads and
assembling and welding truck cabs.
Some of the domestic machinery came from plants of
the machine tool industry, but large amounts were
made by the motor vehicle plants themselves. ZIL,
which had 3,500 employees in its tool manufacturing
departments in 1957, produced large amounts of
production tooling, including large stamping presses,
both for its own programs and for other motor vehicle
plants. GAZ has also become a major producer of
production equipment, including a widely respected
system for automated production of precision castings
and a system for hot rolling of transmission and final
drive gears.
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USSR: Production. of Truck Engines Copied From Foreign Design
Foreign
Model
Hercules
Ford AA
Hercules
Hercules
Ford
Hispano--
Suiza
Soviet
Copy
AMO-3
G AZ-AA
ZIS- 5
ZIS-1 20
GAZ-51
L-L
1932 35
Installed in Soviet Tanks 1
1
40
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USSR: Production of Soviet Truck Engines of Native Design
55
Soviet Model
M-21
ZIL-130
G AZ-53
YaMZ-236
YaMZ- 238
YaMZ-240
KamAZ-740
I 1 1
1932 35 40
L
45
L-
50
580566 10-79
Truck production has long been the forte of the Soviet
motor vehicle industry. Soviet management of the
Kama project in the 1970s reflects great experience
and readiness in truck manufacture. The 8-ton
KamAZ truck is entirely of Soviet design. The USSR
prepared the overall plan for the project and designed
and built the shops. Only specialized production
machinery and layout plans for its employment were
obtained abroad. The fact that the layouts for install-
ing the foreign production equipment were made by
the suppliers is perfectly logical. Most mass production
equipment comes in large sets, and its arrangement is
largely determined by the design process. This is
especially true of automatic transfer machinery.
The experience of the KamAZ foundry provided an
insight into Soviet ability to manage the design of a
major production shop. The KamAZ foundry is a
complex of four separate foundries. The Soviets
L
60
L
65
1
75 79
engaged Pullman-Swindell (then Swindell-Dressler) to
design three of the four-cast iron, steel, and nonfer-
rous metals. The Soviets designed and built the fourth,
the precision casting foundry, themselves. The Soviets
selected Pullman-Swindell because it had been respon-
sible for the general layout of the Flat Rock Castings
Plant (foundry) of the Ford Motor Company-a
facility that greatly impressed Soviet automotive
engineers. Pullman-Swindell had also supplied the
furnaces and design for the melting department of the
Flat Rock facility.
Pullman-Swindell was not given a free hand. A
rotating team of 70 Soviet engineers was assigned to
the United States to oversee the engineering and
design work. The first year of work was spent
developing a basic design that provided enough capac-
ity in melting, molding, pouring, cooling, shakeout,
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and sand preparation to produce the required tonnage
of castings. About 500 drawings were required to lay
out the basic concept of the foundry. The work was
complicated by the requirement to fit the equipment
into a two-story building already under construction
(foundries are usually built into one-story buildings)
and by inability to change established positions of walls
and columns. Moreover, the Russian engineers fre-
quently asked for several alternate layouts to be sure
they were getting the best possible arrangement. The
basic design specified equipment in generic terms only,
and Pullman-Swindell supplied the Soviets with names
of manufacturers capable of satisfying the technical
specifications.
Over a period of two years, following completion of the
basic layout, the Soviet purchasing team made exhaus-
tive studies of equipment and suppliers and placed
orders for the latest and best equipment available,
choosing from that which had been proved in service.
Pullman-Swindell made complete new layout draw-
ings, showing details of the particular machinery
ordered by the Soviets: placement of the equipment,
foundations for equipment, and location of services
such as water, air, gas, electricity, and ventilation.
The Soviet purchasing team, located near Pullman-
Swindell in Pittsburg, consisted of nearly 100 people,
mostly engineers. They insisted on training programs
on every piece of equipment-classroom work, plant
visits to see the equipment in operation, and video tape
recordings of training lectures.
The Soviets maintained control of the installation and
startup phases of the KamAZ foundry just as they did
with the other shops. Manufacturers' representatives
were usually required to be present at KamAZ as
sources of specialized information on the equipment,
but the Soviets set it up and put it into operation.
Reports of Western engineers present at the launching
of the Western-supplied manufacturing systems tend
to deprecate the competence of Soviet workmen.45 It is
`5 See, for example, Neil Ulman, "Russia Finds Building of Biggest
Truck Plant Can Be a Big Headache," The New York Times,
23 June 1976, and David K. Shipler, "Mammoth Truck Plant Slowly
Comes to Life in Desolation of Soviet Union," The New York Times,
20 December 1976.
well to keep a few points in mind, so as not to
underestimate their skill and ingenuity. In the first
place, KamAZ is a new plant, staffed with inexperi-
enced personnel-not an old plant introducing a new
model. Launching a wholly new plant is always
accompanied by more problems than is a mere model
change.
In addition, KamAZ, like all new Soviet plants, is
under pressure from the economic authorities to
achieve planned production goals on schedule without
sufficient regard to the problems of debugging new and
innovative production systems, some of which are
technically more advanced than those that experienced
Western firms would be willing to introduce in a new
facility with inexperienced workmen.
Finally, experience indicates that the Soviets have
always mastered their equipment in the end through
adaptation and repair, and there is no reason to doubt
that the KamAZ plant will ultimately produce at
designed capacity. It is one of the consequences of the
inflexibility of the centrally planned economy that
wasteful activities should accompany the launch of a
new facility.
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