Abstract

Putilov's Revisited

The moment the author arrived at the Astoria in Leningrad, Soviet Union, he telephoned to Paul Otz, the director of the big Putilov plant where the author had spent a week in the summer of 1932. Otz immediately sent a car for him. The author talked with the chauffeur. "I used to work in the tractor foundry," chauffeur said, "but my lungs are bad and they gave me this job." The factory is much cleaner than it was two years ago. Roads have been asphalted. Gardens have been planted and more are being planted. Young trees line the pathways. On his previous visit the open spaces between Putilov's many shops were dirty and chaotic. Today raw materials are neatly piled and sorted in the yards, and order reigns through out the nine square miles which Putilov's covers. This has cost Otz a great deal of effort. But the improved aspect of the works is his reward. Otz is only forty-two. He has many more gray hairs than he had in 1932. It is no easy task to run one of the largest and most important metallurgical plants in the Soviet Union.