Soviet arctic navigation of 1937: the unacknowledged record of the steamship “Mossovet”

Based on previously unknown archival documents and memoir literature, the article examines the difficulties, achievements and failures in the exploration of the Northern Sea Route by the Soviet Union during the first five-year plans. Using the case-study method, the author focuses on the participation of the steamship “Mossovet” in the navigation of 1937. During the 1937 navigation period the steamship “Mossovet” was to carry out a task of national priority, i.e., for the first time in the Arctic maritime history to make a double through commercial sea trip along the entire Northern Sea Route, sailing from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and backward, finishing in one of European ports. The problems which the crew of the steamship “Mossovet” were faced with while implementing its task, largely indicated the entire range of problems relating to the exploration of the Northern Sea Route in the 1930s. The article analyzes the sophisticated complex of natural, technical, administrative and personal factors which did not allow the steamship “Mossovet” to successfully finish the two-way passage. The author arrives at the conclusion that the Soviet exploration of the Northern Sea Route in the 1930s had all the signs typical of big national projects during the industrialization period, namely, unreasonably boosted plans and increased obligations in combination with limited resources, employing political campaigns and a threat of repressions against “sabotage” instead of economic incentives and efficient management methods. Despite the courage and commitment of the ship crews, the striving of the party and state leadership for breaking demonstrative records caused the most serious disruption of work in the Arctic in the period prior to the World War II.