On the eve of the first five years: one of the discussion on the development plans of the Soviet automobile industry in the late 1920s

The article examines the role of V. V. Obolensky, who is better known under the pseudonym N. Osinsky. In motorization of the USSR during the first five years of planning N. Osinsky, analyzing the automotive industry condition in capitalist countries, came to the conclusion that Soviet producers were «unacceptably behind», and put forward a number of proposals, which, he believed, could significantly optimize the situation with the Soviet automobile industry. He offered a concession in the USSR company for the assembly of U. S. cars and «immediately begin designing and then building the first factory for the mass construction of cheap cars». This company has been producing at least 100 thousand cars per year, as Ford or Chevrolet, but it is dominated trucks, which need more than the Soviet cooperatives, collective farms and state farms, enterprises and institutions (and hence the further suggestion Osinsky - to actively construction of powerful trucks in the amount of 10 - 20 thousand per year). At the same time a network of good roads should be developed. Finally, Osinsky proposed to create Voluntary Society for the Promotion massive automobile and as a consequence, in 15 year time every working peasant family would be provided with their own car. The discussion in the newspaper «Pravda» («Truth») was followed by the publication of Osinsky's article «American car or a Russian cart» where he drew an important link in the chain of factors and events that have stimulated the modernization process in the automotive industry in the Soviet Union. The article presents the arguments of Osinsky's opponents - workers of the USSR State Planning Committee and the Supreme Economic Council, it also reviews the opinions of the workers and peasants - readers of «Pravda». The author summarized the events after the debate that led to the decision of the Soviet government to build a «house of a powerful car factory with a production of 100 thousand cars per year in two shifts», in Nizhny Novgorod.