On a May day in 1937, Moscow was seeing off a special train departing on a long journey.
The train was to cross almost all of Europe and deliver the exhibits of the Soviet Union to Paris for the international exhibition. News about this unusual train went ahead of it. When the train passed through Poland, crowds of people gathered at every station to meet it. The Rostselmash combine harvester “Stalinets-1,” placed on an open platform, drew the greatest attention from the peasants. It was more convincing than any words in demonstrating the achievements of Soviet agriculture. The gendarmes of bourgeois Poland could not tolerate this “red propaganda” and ordered the exhibit to be covered.
On June 6, the train arrived in Paris, and two days later, the combine took its place at the demonstration site. The jury awarded the “Stalinets-1” the highest prize of the exhibition — the “Grand Prix.” There was nothing surprising about this decision: the fame of Soviet combines for their high quality had already spread throughout the world — they were being exported to Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece, Afghanistan, Persia, Turkey, Sweden, and other countries. What amazed foreign specialists and visitors to the exhibition far more was how the Soviet Union, having begun mass production of combines only in 1930, managed in just seven years to become the world leader in their manufacture.
By handing the land to those who worked it, the Soviet government fulfilled the long-cherished dream of the peasants, successfully solving the age-old problem of landlessness.
However, already in May 1928, the government decided to organize large state farms in areas free from peasant allotments, with sowing areas of 10 and even 30 thousand hectares.
Despite the shortage of machinery, the experiment with state farms proved successful, and in 1929, under the auspices of the Grain Trust, new specialized giant grain-producing state farms were established, each with an area of 100 thousand hectares or more. To provide them with harvesting machinery, the Collegium of the Main Machinery Construction Department included in the program of the agricultural machinery plant being built in Rostov the production of one thousand combines modeled after the American “Advance Rumely.”
The problem of creating combines was of primary concern to the leaders of the Grain Trust, who rightly believed that at that stage it was necessary to produce the best of the American models. To this end, they invited specialists from the Department of Machine Science of the State Institute of Experimental Agronomy, and in July 1929, comparative tests of the “Advance Rumely,” “Massey Harris,” “Oliver,” “Holt,” and “McCormick Deering” combines were conducted at the “Experimental” state farm in the North Caucasus. The best results were shown by the “Holt-34,” with a 15-foot (4.6 m) cutting width, and the “Holt-36,” with a 20-foot (6.1 m) cutting width. Both were trailed combines that required a tractor to move across the field.
The test report was reviewed by the Central Standardization Commission for Agricultural Engineering, the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture, and the State Planning Committee of the USSR. They decided to increase annual combine production at Rostselmash to 6,000 units, replacing the “Holt-36,” and to launch production of a machine based on the “Holt-34” at the Kommunar plant. However, a detailed review in Rostov revealed that this would require a complete redesign of the workshops intended for seeders, plows, mowers, and other machinery. From both agricultural and economic points of view, it seemed preferable to build a separate combine factory in Rostov. When the design phase began, it turned out to be more practical to locate it adjacent to Rostselmash.
Soon, designers in Zaporizhzhia and Rostov received the necessary samples to prepare technical documentation. They had to disassemble the machines, draft detailed blueprints, convert all measurements from the U.S. inch system to the metric system, and select appropriate metal grades and profiles according to Soviet standards, close to the American ones.
During the October holidays of 1929, the workers of Zaporizhzhia ceremoniously burned the mockup of an old reaper-binder, pledging to replace it with a more advanced machine. They kept their promise — the first “Kommunar” combine was presented as a gift to the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Although the new workshops were still under construction and the prototype batch was produced on old, unsuitable equipment, the factory workers managed to produce 347 combines in 1930. A group of Rostov designers led by Ivan Ivanovich Fomin prepared the technical documentation long before the plant was completed. A prototype combine based on their designs was manufactured at the “Krasny Aksay” plant.
Since American specialists participated in the design of Rostselmash, Fomin’s group went to the United States, where they completed the combine design and specified the technological equipment necessary for its production.
In the summer of 1931, two “Stalinets” combines were assembled in the Rostselmash experimental workshops according to the finalized blueprints. One of them was tested in the presence of Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin at the fields of Experimental Grain State Farm No. 2, alongside the latest American models — “Oliver,” “Holt,” and “Caterpillar” — and proved to be a fully operational machine. Soon Rostselmash began serial production, releasing 2,441 combines in 1932.
Alongside the adaptation of foreign models, Soviet engineers worked on original designs. An interesting idea was proposed by engineer I. Borodin, who believed that equipping a combine — which operates only 20–25 days a year — with its own engine was wasteful. Borodin created an engine-less combine whose mechanisms were powered by a tractor’s power take-off shaft. However, his machine failed the tests held at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.
A real parade of domestic designs took place in 1932 at the Kalachyov Grain State Farm in the Central Black Earth Region, where 21 different combines participated in the All-Union trials. These machines were developed in research institutes, at factories, and by independent inventors. Although many of them still lacked refinement, they embodied numerous innovative ideas. For instance, the combines designed by Chudakov and Molchanov threshed grain directly from the standing crops, while Drozdovsky’s combine used an air stream for threshing. Although none of these prototypes entered production, many of their creative innovations became the foundation for improving the “Stalinets” and “Kommunar” models. These advancements eventually led the “Stalinets” to win the highest award at the international exhibition in Paris.
LEONID YEVSEYEV, Engineer