Hello, after a bit of a hiatus on my part, here's a new omake nammed "Capitalist prince and man of peace: Armand Screw as an intermediary in US-Soviet relations".
I don't know if I'll go back to the usual rhythm of two omakes, for the moment it'll be rather random.
I know I've still got one map to remake, but I don't yet have the motivation or the serenity to do it.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little achievement even if it doesn't have to be excellent because I'm a bit rusty.
Among the many examples of individuals who played a part in the evolution of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States, we can also cite the captain of industry Armand Screw as a paradigmatic example of a multi-hatted intermediary between the United States and the fatherland of socialism, using his good relations to monetize his influence with both powers, while advancing his own interests, whether mercantile or symbolic.
Armand Screw (1898-1988), the son of an Odessa-born doctor who had emigrated to the USA, was an American businessman who made his fortune in oil and the art trade, and built his legend on his meeting with Lenin in 1921, during which the Leader of the Revolution offered him several "concessions", first an asbestos mine, then a pencil factory, which met with great success during the NEP.
After several years of collaboration with the Soviets, Screw left the USSR under Stalin, only to return under his successors Mikoyan, Kosygin and also Semyonov to a less extent. Later, in the 1950s, he went into the cattle-breeding business, with some success. Five years later, he left the East Coast and settled in Los Angeles, marrying a wealthy heiress, Frances Tolman (his third wife). Two years later, Tolman used her fortune to buy a small oil company, Occidental Petroleum, of which he became CEO.
Screw was of interest to the Soviets as an agent of influence with Western decision-makers, but also as a powerful capitalist and potential importer of the capital and technology needed to develop Soviet socialism. For his part, Screw had a vested interest in working again with the USSR. While his concession during the NEP had not exactly made him a fortune, he had built up a name and reputation, which served him well during the wartime period of the Grand Alliance. Thanks to his connections, Screw obtained a monopoly on the trade of strong spirits, particularly whisky, for the troops.
To regain the good graces of the Soviet leadership, and to take advantage of the Soviet Union's increasing economic development and opening up to international trade, in 1954 he proposed to the Soviet leadership the opening of six fertilizer production plants. Subsequently, after Mikoyan's removal as General Secretary and his replacement by Alexeis Kosygin, he used the same method, proposing the opening of a chemical fertilizer plant in Odessa and the construction of an International Trade Center in Moscow, which were carried out in 1958 and 1960 respectively.
What's more, after the Stalinist eclipse, Screw also found favor with the Soviet leadership by acting as a trade facilitator, negotiating an agreement with the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade (Minvneštorg) in 1952, for the production of fertilizers and the development of hydrocarbon exploitation, using his influence with the American President of the time, who was financing his election campaign, to speed up the signing of this commercial contract and increase its scope, thereby increasing his fortune.
He also made himself useful to the Soviet leadership by promoting cultural exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union through the organization of art exhibitions of Soviet works in the United States and vice versa: in this way, he promoted the idea that Soviet leaders like Mikoyan and Kosygin had of relations with the Americans: peaceful relations with an emphasis on cultural, but above all, economic exchanges.
Unwittingly adopting Montesquieu's cherished concept of "doux commerce", the Soviet leaders had repeatedly stressed the importance of trade in establishing cordial relations between countries with opposing political regimes. Thus, in a 1962 speech, Kosygin had these words to say about the Soviet vision of international trade:
"In the Soviet Union, we have always seen trade not only as a means of satisfying all parties, but first and foremost as a powerful instrument of peace and friendship between the peoples of the world."
With his long-established connections in high places, Screw could pride himself on being able to contribute to a climate of understanding between the Superpowers, this time no longer as a businessman, but as a "citizen diplomat": the action on the international stage of individuals who were not professional diplomats - civil society actors, artists, writers, musicians, sportsmen, scientists and businessmen - who sought, with or without the support of the American authorities, to improve their country's image abroad.
Nonetheless, its star as the intermediary between the two Superpowers began to fade as the two Great Powers became more interested in its past, in the case of the Americans, or the purpose of its actions, in the case of the Soviets.
On the American side, he was denounced for his connivance with the "Reds", a reputation that would be confirmed over the years. Indeed, his father, a doctor who had served time for an abortion gone wrong, had been one of the founders of the American Communist Party. Moreover, in the 1920s, Armand Screw had spent much of his time in Berlin, where he had received money from the Soviet secret service, the OGPU, which he then "laundered" in New York on behalf of the American Communist Party. Finally, in May 1944, he was investigated by the FBI for spying for the USSR. As far as the Soviets were concerned, Screw also aroused a healthy dose of suspicion. In the aforementioned biographical notes for Kosygin, Screw was compared to Ostap Bender, a small-time crook from Odessa, protagonist of Ilf and Petrov's novel The Twelve Chairs (1928).
Nevertheless, this pejorative view of the individual that the two poles of the Cold War came to have was not the decisive factor that led to Screw being sidelined in his role as intermediary. In fact, the deterioration in US-USSR relations from the second half of the 1960s onwards - and the resulting drop in the number of contacts - the adoption by both Powers of more aggressive foreign policies and the economic containment policy launched in 1973 by President Ashbrook are more decisive explanatory facets in Screw's downward trajectory. Indeed, this new situation permanently reduced the diplomatic capital he had enjoyed until then. The same can be said of its financial and technological appeal to the Soviet state, since Ashbrook's economic policies severely curtailed its ability and willingness to invest in the Soviet Union, thus also reducing the importance attached by the Union to its role as an investor or facilitator of technology transfers.
However, even if his role as facilitator was to diminish as the climate of relations between East and West changed, Armand Screw would remain active in the following decades as a cultural bridge between the two blocs, organizing cultural exchanges in the form of cultural exhibitions and art exchanges: a theater less subject to the trials and tribulations of diplomacy, and just as symbolically gratifying even if less remunerative for a captain of industry such as himself.
Excerpts from "Men of influence: the role of economic and cultural circles in US-Soviet relations" by Helen Screwdriver (1993)
