Back in the USSR
It’s August 23, 1939 and a 51-year-old, moustachioed Joseph Stalin is shaking hands with Germany’s foreign minister, Joachim Von Ribbentrop.
This moment is important – not only because it kickstarted the onset of the Second World War but also because it shaped the future of the Soviet Union’s motorcycle industry.
Stalin had just witnessed his Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, co-sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Ribbentrop. It was a pact that ensured – if only in writing – a 10 year commitment to non-aggression, along with a vital exchange of money, resources and technology.
The agreement stipulated that the Soviet Union was to supply Germany with lumber, cotton, feed grain, phosphate, platinum, furs and petroleum in exchange for industrial machining, technology and war materials.
It is widely believed that among the technology offered by Germany to the Soviet Union were the plans for the BMW R71, along with its machining tools.
And it’s here where Turbett’s deeply interesting book Motorcycles and Motorcyling in the USSR kicks off.
“[The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the
