A Ruble in the Hand

It is not so many years since "Bolshevik" was a popular synonym for a low, ruffianly fellow and "ruble" was a popular synonym for the ultimate in worthless money. But though the U. S. Department of State remains unaware of the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, U. S. industry is now inclined to believe that Russians habitually pay their bills and that a ruble in the hand is as good as 51 1/2-c- in the bank. Thus last week Amtorg, Russian trading corporation at No. 261 Fifth Ave., Manhattan, announced the following contracts entered into by U. S. corporations with Soviet Russia:

Hugh L. Cooper & Co., Manhattan consulting engineers (they built famed Muscle Shoals plants), a 100 million dollar hydro-electric power plant in the Ukraine. When completed, this power plant will be the world's largest.

Radio Corp. of America, for exchange of patents and technical information.

Freyn Engineering Co., Manhattan consulting engineers, for design of steel mills.

Stuart, James & Cooke, Manhattan consulting engineers, for rebuilding old and building new coal mines and for installing modern coal mine equipment.

E. I. du Pont de Nemours, for technical assistance in building ammonia fertilizer factories.

Nitrogen Engineering Corp., Manhattan, for technical assistance in construction of nitrogen fertilizer factory.

Longacre Engineering and Construction Co., Inc., Manhattan, for technical assistance and supervision in building Moscow apartment houses.

McCormick Co., Inc., Manhattan, for designing a baking plant in Moscow.

Albert Kahn, Inc., Detroit architect, for deigning tractor factory (production 40,000 tractors a year) at Stalingrad (TIME, May 20).

Arthur P. Davis, Oakland, Calif., consulting engineer (he built famed Roosevelt Dam) for irrigation projects in Soviet Central Asia.

Amtorg, Am-Derutra. Full name of Amtorg is American Trading Organization. Ask curly-haired Saul George Bron, Am-torg Board Chairman, if Amtorg is a Russian governmental agent and he will become voluble in explaining that it is a U. S. corporation, organized in 1924, and no Soviet arm. Nevertheless, Amtorg, like Amkino, Am-Derutra, and many another Russian trading corporation, acts with the approval and the co-operation of the Soviet government, or specifically, with the Soviet Supreme Economic Council.

Understanding of Russian industry is dependent upon realization that Russian industry is thoroughly nationalized. The Supreme Economic Council appoints for each branch of industry a Commissariat, who receives a subsidy for the promotion of the business over which he rules. Both buying and selling is done not by individuals but by cooperatives. Co-operatives in Russia do not mean organizations of all members of the same trade. They are organizations of all trades in the same community. Thus a producer's cooperative in a given community would include steel men, grain men, textile men; would handle all the production of its district. In the same way, a consumer's cooperative would do all the buying for its locality. This communal trading system obviously lends itself to the growth of legalized monopolies.

Amtorg and the rest of the Am family have to do with exports and imports. When a consumer's co-operative wants 1,000 U. S. typewriters it goes to Amtorg. Amtorg goes to a typewriter company and buys the typewriters. Then Am-Derutra, which is exclusively a transport company, ships the typewriters to Russia.

Bron. Information on Board Chairman Bron's pre-Soviet period is extremely vague, inasmuch as very few of the individuals now prominent in Russia were famed members of Tsaristic society. He was born in the Ukraine, studied at Zurich and Kiev (he is a Doctor of Philosophy), taught school. He emerged from Revolutionary chaos as Minister of Foreign Trade for the Ukraine (1917-22). He has served on the Supreme Economic Council and has been Amtorg's chairman since 1927. Trader Bron is married, has two children, lives in Manhattan.