“Put the Screws to the Firm and Inquire persistently”. Vickers Armstrong Ltd. and the Red Army’s conversion to tank warfare in the 1930s

Abstract

The article is an attempt to analyze an interaction of the military and political leadership of the USSR and the Red Army command with the British company Vickers Armstrong in the 1930s. Based on documents from Russian archives, published materials and the works of Russian and foreign researchers, the author tries to focus on a comprehensive study of that process. The tasks are to determine reasons for the Soviets attempts to acquire samples of the latest tank armaments produced by a British firm, and to reveal the dynamics of that process, its nature and results. The tank armament purchase from Vickers Armstrong is analyzed in the broad context of the Soviet armed forces modernization, which began in the late 1920s. The author draws attention to the fact that the impetus for the Red Army’s conversion to tank warfare was the threat of war with England in 1927, from which later numerous samples of the newest weapons were aсquired. The explanation of this paradox, according to the author, is in the leading position of British firms in the production of tank weapons as well as in the situation of the economic crisis that forced the British government to reduce military expenditures, and private companies to enter the world arms market. The article focuses on the change in the dynamics and nature of purchases of British weapons by the Red Army in process of its modernization. Soon after the first tanks were bought, the priority was given to the acquisition of technology and the borrowing of design practice.