Tuesday 21 October 2014

T-40 Cost

Many times have I read the opinion "the USSR was a totalitarian state, Comrade Stalin could wave his hand and make anything cost as little as he wanted!" Those people may have learned their history from this comic book, but for the rest of us, here is a fragment of reality:

"Record of disagreement between GABTU and factory #37 on the topic of supplying T-40 tanks in 1941

Customer version:
  1. T-40 tank: regular, with individual parts and instruments kit and armament, 81,000 roubles.
  2. T-40 with radio: 71-TK-3 with a battery or 10-R with parts and instruments kit and armament: 86,000 roubles.
February 26th, 1941

Supplier version:
  1. T-40 tank: regular, with individual parts and instruments kit and armament, 135,000 roubles.
  2. T-40 with radio: 71-TK-3 with a battery or 10-R with parts and instruments kit and armament: 135,000 roubles:
    1. Cost of a 71-TK-3 radio station: 2850 roubles
    2. Production, installation, and testing of the radio station: 2000 roubles
      The cost of installing, testing, or producing a radio is not included in the 135,000 roubles.
March 3rd, 1941"

7 comments:

  1. Is there any way to determine the modern day cost of such a tank ?
    My google-fu only leads me to the collector value of soviet roubles of that era to collectors or currency converters for modern roubles to other modern currency's.

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  2. Roubles were a Mickey Mouse money worth less than Japanese Occupation pesos. For the Russian worker there was nothing to buy with them that workers wanted except vodka. So you would have to convert them to liters of vodka to find their value.

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    1. So they had all those lend-lease equipment from their allies out of liters of vodka? :D
      Also it was when post-ww1 german economy was destroyed and their money value collapsed that the extremist anti-capitalistic party won much consense

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    3. It seems antisoviet propaganda is still camping someones mind.
      You are wrong anonymous 22 October 2014, in the Soviet union there was not any money, they used stones as money. There was neither any worker nor slaves, slaves don't have to pay to work, soviets had to pay stones to work like a slave. "Irony mode out."
      Read history a bit, not propaganda, you will see how occidental minds were at least as modded by propaganda as you think soviet minds were.

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  3. Anonymous Nazi who wrote that trash on 22 October 2014 09:33
    Go shove Action Hitler up your swastika-tattooed anus.

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  4. Soviet Union Lend-lease was paid for in gold, platinum and industrial diamonds not roubles. During the war allied or axis citizens could not trade their own currencies for gold or silver. But some could at least buy goods and services with them even if they were rationed. Values in currency alone is not a valid way to compare costs as it doesn’t say anything about the resources and labor available.

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