Synthetic Dream: Durable Materials, Corrosion Control, and the Chemicalization of the National Economy in the Postwar Soviet Union, 1958-1965

• In Event: Pathologies of Materials: Environmental Histories of Material Decay and Its Management

Abstract

In 1958, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev launched an ambitious economic initiative under the banner of the “chemicalization” of the national economy. By promoting mass-production of synthetic materials such as plastics, synthetic fibers, and various chemicals, he hoped to restructure the Soviet Union’s industrial and social infrastructures from the ground. To political leaders and industrial experts in the Soviet Union, synthetics seemed promising substitutes for lumber, glass, metals, and other natural materials traditionally used in industries. In particular, synthetic materials’ high durability and corrosion-resistance were deemed inevitable to modernize the Soviet Union’s material world. In this new land, structures and buildings made from synthetic materials would replace aging factories, collapsing houses, and corroding pipelines.

This paper explores the Soviet economic reform following the Second World War through an environmental lens. It brings center and front the significance of material durability in the economic history of the Soviet Union. It shows that a key factor in the postwar Soviet economy that was characterized by massive investments in infrastructure was the production of durable materials. Durable materials were especially important in the petroleum and petrochemical sectors, where pipelines and refineries—the industrial backbones of the postwar Soviet Union—needed protection from corrosion. Uncovering a Soviet vision for a synthetically engineered world, this paper examines the ways the interplay of corrosion and durability not only came to define modern infrastructure but also conditioned our vision of economic growth.

Author

• Ji Soo Hong, Brown University