The Left Chapter: The Minsk Tractor Plant USSR 1970s Part II - Technology, International Ties and Lives of the Workers

The book we are looking at today is a fascinating promotional hardcover that was published in the USSR in the 1970s to advertise the tractors of the Minsk Tractor Plant. It celebrates the achievements, technology, workers and internationalism of the plant that was the largest of its type in the Soviet Union (it produced 20% of all Soviet tractors) and one of the largest in the world.

They were justly proud of its tractors as well as the fact that it had produced 100,000 of them by 1958 and 1,000,000 of them by 1972.

The tractors were sold or sent as aid around the world and there were many different models. The plant complex was gigantic and a community unto itself with housing, educational, recreational and medical facilities for its workers and their children.

The first of our two parts looked at the plant history, tractor models and technology. This second part continues with the technology of the plant, looks at its international ties (there is a picture of the Soviet tractors at Toronto's CNE!) and then culminates with a section centred on the "Hero-City" of Minsk and the lives, recreation, healthcare and education of the plant workers.

(Click on images to enlarge)