Turkstroi: Soviet-Turkish Industrial Cooperation and the Dialectics of Divergence and Convergence in Interwar Statism, 1931–1941

Abstract

Turkstroi was a Soviet trust that, in partnership with Turkey’s state-owned Sümerbank, constructed several industrial enterprises in the Turkish Republic in the 1930s. By situating the trust in the context of Soviet, Turkish, and multilateral economic development, this article argues that the trust was an expression of patterns of both convergence and divergence in Soviet and Turkish interwar statism. As one of the few transnational industrial enterprises to materialize during the first two Soviet Five-Year Plans, Turkstroi was an impressive feat. But the volume of industrial plant and expertise that the trust was able to send to Turkey was largely predetermined by the dynamics of Soviet hard-currency restraints, and the trust’s managerial staff was later annihilated during the Stalinist Purges. Still, Turkstroi necessitated the formulation of a transnational wing to the Soviet planned economy and showcased Soviet technical expertise outside the union. In comparison with their respective trading links with Western industrial powers, Soviet-Turkish industrial collaboration was of limited in scope. Nonetheless, to a degree disproportionate with its actual economic contribution, Turkstroi generated intellectual debate within Turkey about the character of Turkish development, Soviet boasts about the international dimensions of its industrial prowess, and a host of new Turkish state-owned and bilateral (Ankara-Moscow) institutions to ensure the running of the trust’s subsidiary operations.