About the Amish (and some other conservative--funny, because when they started, they were religious radicals--Anabaptists) I should have said they use horses and mules. In PA, the Amish I knew used quarter horses a lot, but mules are used more widely for farm duties. Interestingly because the typical combat arms infantry soldier or marine in Afghanistan has to hump so much gear, and given the terrain and lack of roads, they have taken to using mule trains.
At any rate, it is interesting to compare US and USSR experiences in tractors and military contracting (although when the term 'tractor' is used it could mean something with military, combat engineering or heavy construction use). In the case of the Soviet Union, in the Battle of Stalingrad, workers literally had to defend their 'tractor factory' in the battle, and some actually drove T-34s out of the factory and became combat crews. Unlike the US, the USSR experienced so much destruction of its industrial capacity in WW II. http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/machines_01.html All of the agricultural machine companies in the U.S. became heavily involved in war production. * The U.S. division of Massey-Harris built the M24 and M5 tanks, aircraft wings and truck bodies. The Canadian division produced wings for Mosquito bombers, Stuart tanks and naval gun mounts. * John Deere built transmissions for the M3 medium tank. They also manufactured aircraft parts, ammunition and mobile laundry units. * Case produced wings for B-26 bombers, aftercoolers for Rolls-Royce aircraft engines and hundreds of thousands of artillery shells. * Allis-Chalmers produced steam turbines and propeller shafts for ships. Later they built the casings that housed the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. But war production didn't stop innovation in agricultural machinery. In fact, it may have spurred new technologies. New challenges created innovation. During this decade, tractors got smaller and more powerful, self-propelled combines were introduced, hydraulic systems made it possible to control larger implements, the Vise Grip pliers were invented and tractors replaced horses on farms forever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordson_tractor Production A 1923 Soviet stamp featured the Fordson. Ford established a policy in 1919 to loan Fordson tractors to educational institutions with vocational training programmes. Agricultural colleges could use a Fordson for six months and then exchange it for a new one. Under this arrangement, forty-two tractors were loaned to such universities as Cornell, Idaho, Michigan, Maryland and Prairie View State Normal in Texas. Others went to the orphanage at Nacoochee Institute in Georgia, the Berry School at Rome, Georgia and Camp Dix at Hutchinson, Kansas.[6] Ford signed a contract for a large consignment of Fordson tractors to the Soviet Union in 1919, which soon became the largest customer of the company. From 1921 until 1927, the Soviet Union purchased over 25,000 Fordsons.[14] In 1924, the Leningrad plant "Red Putilovite" (Красный Путиловец) started the production of Fordson-Putilovets tractors (Фордзон-путиловец). These inexpensive and robust tractors (both American and Soviet models) became the major enticement for Soviet peasants towards collectivisation and were often seen on Soviet posters and paintings during the era. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malyshev_Factory The Malyshev Factory (Ukrainian: Zavod imeni V.O. Malysheva, Завод імені В.О. Малишева), formerly the Kharkiv Locomotive Factory (KhPZ), is a state-owned manufacturer of heavy equipment in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It was named after the Soviet politician Vyacheslav Malyshev. It produces diesel engines, farm machinery, coal mining, sugar refining, and wind farm equipment, but is best known for its production of Soviet tanks, including the BT tank series of fast tanks, the famous T-34 of the Second World War, the Cold War T-64 and T-80, and their modern Ukrainian successor, the T-84. The factory is closely associated with the Morozov Design Bureau (KMDB), designer of military armoured fighting vehicles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Tractor_Factory The factory produces tractors and military equipment. During World War II, the factory was known as the Stalingrad Tractor factory (STZ) and retooled to produce equipment for the Red Army, most notably the T-34 tank. It became world-famous during the Battle of Stalingrad for the fierce combats fought there. In December 2002 the factory was divided into four separate companies within the Group: * Tractor Company VgTZ (Traktornaya kompaniya VgTZ) * Russian Machine Building Components (Rossiyskiye mashinostroitel’nyye komponenty) * Territory of Commercial Development (Territoriya promyshlennogo raszvitiya) * Volgograd Tractor Factory (Volgogradskiy traktornyy zavod) http://www.stalingrad-info.com/327.JPG http://www.stalingrad-info.com/329.JPG _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
