In the 1960s, the USSR oversaw the largest import of Western technologies since the first Five-Year Plan. Its objective was to reshape the state’s position within the global economy and thus ensure the perennity of the Soviet project. As is well known, it was unsuccessful on both counts. The USSR was vanquished in its ‘peaceful competition’ with the West and saw significant ideological decline. While these themes are well established within the historiography, the precise mechanisms of ideological decline are yet to be elucidated. This thesis argues that technologies, and the social relations embedded within them, played an important role. The USSR’s embrace of capitalist technologies proved to be a Faustian pact.
Taking the case of the automobile industry, this study examines the impact of the USSR’s interaction with Western capital. It argues that three socio-technological imaginaries shaped the Soviet approach to mass motorization. The first, ‘revolutionary-imitation’, was the impetus for Western modernization. This study shows that in overseeing Westernization, imitationalists such as Alexei Kosygin overcame ‘revolutionary-autarkic’ belief in Soviet industry’s indigenous potential. However, with the waning of Kosygin’s influence, the Soviet automobile industry was abandoned to an impossible competition with the West. This study shows that the ideological commitment of Soviet engineers and administrators declined as they experienced the subjective shocks of global competition. Meanwhile, Soviet workers were subject to mass production without mass consumption. With the crisis of imitation, a ‘revolutionary-utopian’ imaginary surged to the surface, but was consumed in the chaos of perestroika, after which capitalist content and form aligned.
In documenting these trajectories, this study focuses on three factories: AZLK, IAZ, and VAZ. It contributes to the histories of Soviet trade, technology, and industry, but also migration, imperialism, and gender. It examines a variety of primary sources, many of which have not previously been discussed