Joseph Stalin’s Flying Circus: the Maxim Gorky Aircraft, 1934

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 871

 

The Maxim Gorky (Gorkii, ANT-20) was the largest plane of its time, a craft intended to show the world of the vast technical prowess of the Soviet Union.  There is now doubt that the plane was huge--112’ long, 22’ high, with a wingspan of 206’ (and 5,200 sq ft surface area), and weighed in at 59 tons—and was indeed the largest plane in the world. 

 

The reality of the craft was closer to its rear wheel, which was manufactured of metal and filled with cement.

 

The plane was built by TsAGI was big—it was also ponderous, pretentious, terrifically slow (cursing speed of 141 mph and top speed of 171), and just a beast.  It was built very quickly, and it showed; it offered nothing new so far as design is concerned, being a cobbled montage of existing blueprints.  It did set world records for lifting stuff, but beyond that, it was a half-dead behemoth..

Construction on the Gorky began in the midst of the Great Famine, a murderous Stalinist rampage which the result of planning and control on the collectives that killed 7-8 million Russians and Ukranians¹ and which also destroyed the Ukrainian resistance, and which was also one of the most disgusting of the 20^th century genocides…but there are so many to choose from.  (See Robert Conquest, the Harvest of Sorrow²).

The Gorky was a magnificent nothing.  It was dedicated, finally, to a serve as a propaganda tool for the inglorious voice of Joseph Stalin, fitted into service with a movie/film, theater, print shop, photo lab, press room, radio station, and other creature comforts.   The Gorky, the “Victory Over the Air”, met its end 18 May 1935 in a crash with two other Soviet planes during maneuvers, crashing near Sokol Station, killing everyone on board and another 35 on the ground.

I’ve included photos of the interior of the plane which illustrated and article in the 19 January 1935 issue of The Illustrated London News. I could find no other pictures of the inside of the plane online.

{Photos in the CONTINUED READING section.)

Notes:

See:

http://www.dictatorshipoftheair.com/wp-content/themes/content/excerpt2.pdf

http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2007/01/04/the-ant-20-maxim-gorky-in-flight/

The Great Terror

1.The Holodomor (the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

2.Robert Conquest The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties (1968) , The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (1970)   Lenin (1972) , Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps (1978) , Inside Stalin's Secret Police: NKVD Politics, 1936-1939 (1985) ,The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (1986) , Tyrants and Typewriters: Communiques in the Struggle for Truth (1989) , Stalin and the Kirov Murder (1989) ,The Great Terror: A Reassessment (1990).

 

Comments

[Dave Dubé]

Well, at least the Spruce Goose didn't leave a trail of human wreckage behind it.

[John Ptak]

As you probably know, Dave, this is minor league vs. major league. THe Gorky was just an awful plane, carrying--what was it?--75 people overall at low altitude and slowly, with cumbersome control. Compared to the Gorky the Hughes plane was magnificent--built about 10 years later, it was designed with great superiority, made to carry 750 armed troops and a few tanks over great distances, and criusied 80% faster with a far higher ceiling. And so on.

[John Ptak]

But someone else with real experience in aviation history (help!) could really sum up the differences between the two.