In January 1933, J.V. Stalin officially announced the creation of a full-fledged automotive industry in the USSR. He primarily referred to the newly built automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky at the time of construction) and the major reconstruction of Moscow's 1st State Automobile Plant, renamed ZiS two years earlier. Now it remained to be seen what the new Soviet cars were capable of, as they were destined to face severe trials. How could this be done? Of course, by organizing an endurance rally. For that time, it was simply unimaginable in scale.
Before the early 1930s, the USSR's automotive industry was comparable to that of some banana republic. After the Civil War, the Soviet vehicle fleet consisted of a laughable 14,000 cars, and it was a real mixed bag that was maintained in relatively working order with great difficulty. The few existing automobile plants were engaged in assembling either custom-made cars (L-1) or small-series vehicles (NAMI-1). The most mass-produced model of the early 1930s was the morally obsolete AMO-F-15 truck, of which fewer than seven thousand units had been produced by 1931. To understand the deplorable state of the Soviet auto industry, it is enough to look at the number of vehicles produced: 478 cars in 1927, 841 in 1928, and only in 1929 was the thousand mark surpassed – 1,712 units. At the same time, millions of cars were being produced annually in the USA and Europe, so until the launch of the automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod, it can be said that the USSR truly had no auto industry.
The country's road network looked equally deplorable. "We will strike the roadlessness with an endurance rally," Ostap Bender, the son of a Turkish subject, was remembered saying. If anyone has forgotten, the main part of the novel "The Golden Calf" was written in 1930, meaning Ilf and Petrov, who put this phrase into their hero's mouth, described the state of roads in the USSR in the early 1930s with one word – roadlessness.
Fortunately, the opinion of the Great Combinator was fully shared by the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Za Rulem" (Behind the Wheel), Valerian Obolensky, better known by his party pseudonym Nikolai Osinsky. It was Obolensky-Osinsky, who was not only a journalist but also the deputy chairman of the all-union society "Avtodor" (not to be confused with the Russian company of the same name), who strongly recommended "striking the roadlessness with an endurance rally" using all new Soviet cars, in order to identify their weak points and, if necessary, improve the design. Along the way, the tests were to include new "super-balloon" tires developed by the Research Institute of the Rubber Industry for the GAZ-A car. Another goal of the rally was to popularize motor transport and accelerate the construction of modern roads. It is worth noting that, not least due to the efforts of "Avtodor," during the first five-year plan, the USSR managed to build and modernize 90,000 kilometers of roads.
On July 6, 1933, 23 cars and nearly a hundred participants started from the gates of the ZiS plant: drivers, testers, designers, engineers, mechanics, as well as scientists and journalists. Among them were many people who would become famous in the future – for example, the author of the lyrics of the USSR anthem, journalist El-Registan (Gabriel Ureklyants), Boris Semevsky, who later became a professor and vice-president of the Geographical Society of the USSR. David Echt was appointed head of the technical department of the rally; during the Great Patriotic War, he rose to the rank of Major General of Tank Forces. The oldest journalist of the newspaper "Pravda," Lev Ognev, and the legendary cameraman and director Roman Karmen, a future laureate of three Stalin Prizes, set off on the rally. The commander, or as it was customary to say then, the commodore of the rally, was appointed chairman of the Moscow Automobile Club, Alexander Miretsky, who on November 14, 1933, "for outstanding organizational skills during the Kara-Kum automobile rally" would be awarded the Order of Lenin. As were two other participants, including the aforementioned David Echt.
The rally was to pass through the territories of the RSFSR, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, and finish in Moscow. It turned out to be a kind of "loop" with a length of 9,375 kilometers, featuring quintessential Russian roadlessness, Kazakh steppes, the Kara-Kum desert, "crossing" the Caspian Sea, and Caucasian mountain passes. The southern section was considered the most dangerous, and this applied not only to the Karakum sands – Basmachi detachments were still active in the Central Asian region, which were not finally dealt with until the early 1940s. So it was decided to take weapons and ammunition on the rally.
American-Soviet Hardware
Despite the fact that the cars sent on the rally were of Soviet production, they were all exclusively of American design. Six GAZ-A passenger cars, seven GAZ-AA two-axle trucks, two pre-series GAZ-AAA three-axle trucks, four AMO-3 trucks, one experimental NATI-GAZ, and four three-axle purebred American Ford-Timkens with a 6×4 wheel arrangement. The latter did not gain popularity in the USA, and only thanks to the Soviet order were just over a thousand vehicle kits manufactured, which had been assembled in Nizhny Novgorod since 1931 exclusively for the needs of the Red Army. That is, essentially, vehicles developed by Ford and Autocar were being tested, which, in the process of naturalization in the USSR, were supposed to differ from their American counterparts. To call a spade a spade, the "Russified Americans" were supposed to be simpler and cheaper to manufacture, more unpretentious, and able to withstand greater loads.
Unsurprisingly, the rally generated colossal interest, as everyone wanted to know how the new Soviet cars would perform on highways and off-road. Looking ahead, it is worth saying that the cars had to cover 5,584 kilometers off-road, and only 2,271 km on highways.
From Moscow to Kazan, the rally proceeded without problems, but the average speed was low. This was explained by the fact that along the way, numerous rallies had to be organized to acquaint citizens with the new Soviet cars, which required modern roads. Some citizens, especially after the rally participants passed Orenburg, saw a car for the first time in their lives.
That the rally would not be an easy stroll was clear long before it began. Therefore, some cars went into the rally loaded with everything necessary: food, water, medicine, oil, and fuel, but most importantly – spare parts. Despite the fact that all cars demonstrated good cross-country ability off-road, tires and oil constantly needed changing, and when the expedition found itself in the Karakum sands, filters and radiators had to be replaced on some cars. In Central Asia, dust and monstrous heat were added to all the troubles: the air temperature reached +50 degrees Celsius, and in the cabs, it rose to +75 degrees. Not only people suffered from the heat, but to a much greater extent – the engine cooling systems. Aviation often came to the aid of the rally participants, delivering food, fuel, spare parts, and most importantly – water. Rally participants recalled that it was the constant shortage of water that bothered them most while crossing the Karakum sands. However, the ubiquitous sand and dust, which disabled filters, were also remembered with less than kind words.
And only after the cars, loaded onto ships in the port of Krasnovodsk (present-day Turkmenbashi), crossed the Caspian Sea and landed in Baku, could one catch a breath, because the most difficult, heavy, and dangerous part of the rally was behind them. True, the expedition was still awaited by the Caucasian passes ahead, and that was also a difficult test, but at least in the mountains there were no problems with water.
Further, the rally proceeded quite calmly: Tbilisi, Armavir, Rostov, Kharkov, Voronezh, Tula, and the finish on September 30 in Moscow. It took 86 days to cover the distance of 9,375 kilometers, thus the average speed was just over a hundred kilometers per day. Of course, this does not reflect the true speed of the cars, because over a significant part of the route, dozens of rallies had to be held, explaining to citizens all the advantages of the country's motorization and the importance of creating modern roads.
Immediately after the rally participants reached Moscow, the "debriefing" began. Detailed reports were presented by designers and engineers from GAZ and ZiS, not forgetting to mention the products of 47 supplier enterprises. Some things were praised – for example, the "super-balloon" tires, which performed well in the desert, while others were criticized (air filters, suspension, electrical systems, cooling systems). Almost all the comments were taken into account, and changes were made to the vehicle designs. But most importantly, it was proven and shown to the whole world (thanks to Roman Karmen's documentary film) that the Soviet Union was producing cars that were in no way inferior to foreign ones. And even though the cars participating in the rally were entirely of American origin, they were already "our Americans." By the way, the only purebred "American," the three-axle Ford-Timken truck, performed well but had no future with us: the Soviet side refused further purchases of vehicle kits, betting on the three-axle GAZ-AAA. Over 37,000 units of these were produced from 1934 to 1943.
The most interesting thing is that the Karakum rally was not a one-time PR campaign. Similar rallies were held several more times, and the Gorky Automobile Plant made it a rule to run in each new car under conditions as close to combat as possible, that is, testing it in different regions of the Soviet Union. And it is understandable: GAZ cars were to be operated in all republics of the USSR and be equally suitable for the European part of Russia and Central Asia. However, the same could be said for other Soviet automobile plants.
Nevertheless, the 1933 Moscow-Karakum-Moscow rally became the largest and, perhaps, the most memorable of the rallies held in the pre-war USSR. Just eight years later, in the summer of 1941, many of the cars that participated in the Karakum rally would have to pass a very different exam for professional suitability. And they would pass it largely thanks to the changes made to their design as a result of the 1933 rally.
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