The travels of an Italian engineer in search of prosperity in the cruel waters of classist economies

Vo age da s les États auto itai es et totalitai es de l Eu ope de l e t e-deux-guerres Colloquium Université de Paris IV Sorbonne Jeudi 20 et vendredi 21 avril 2017 The travels of an Italian engineer in search of prosperity in the cruel waters of classist economies Monika Poettinger The construction site of the new plant of ball bearings in Moscow (1930-1932) (photograph by Gaetano Ciocca, Archive Gaetano Ciocca, MART Rovereto) Monika Poettinger Abstract The early rise of fascism in Italy was accompanied by the spread of a new economic theory: corporatism, an attempt toward a third way in economics that sparked curiosity and obtained a certain measure of success in Europe and even further. Historiography, though, starting with some attentive foreign commentators, considers corporatism in fascist Italy an empty shell, devoid of any practical implementation. Nonetheless corporatism was enthusiastically embraced, in theory, by many economists, philosophers, jurists and even architects. Gaetano Ciocca (1882-1966), engineer and architect, heartily believed in corporatism as the synthesis emerging from the dialectical opposition of liberalism and communism. His judgement was not based on theoretical reasoning only, but on first-hand experience of the economic reality in the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1930, FIAT had appointed Ciocca to manage the construction of the first plant for the mass production of ball bearings in Moscow. In consequence, Ciocca lived two years in the Soviet Union experiencing all contradictions of the implementation of the first five-year plan. Communism, in his opinion, was just the ideological masque of a gigantic American style corporation. He summarised the experience in some newspaper articles and a volume published by the cosmopolitan editor Valentino Bo pia i i the se ies Pa o a a of ou ti es . The ook, titled Judge e t o Bolshe is stu i g su ess a d as fa ou a l e ie ed Mussoli i hi self o the e spape , egiste ed a Il Popolo d Italia . In 1934 Ciocca travelled to the United States to study the failings of the liberal market economy. He came a k ith a e olu e fo the Bo pia i se ies, titled Mass E o o . The faili gs of li e alis , Cio a argued, were similar to those of communism: the continuous state of war caused by economic competition had created wealth but not welfare. The paper will analyse the representations of differing economic systems made by Ciocca on the base of his travels and the influence they had on the general opinion through the diffusion of his writings and the debates they sparked on newspapers and journals. Further attention will be dedicated to the documents, related to his voyages, preserved in personal archive of Gaetano Ciocca at the MART in Rovereto. 2 The travels of an Italian engineer The engineering of fascism: Gaetano Ciocca’s life endeavour In Italy, at the beginning of the 20th century, an elitist cultural movement emerged that was fascinated by the perspective of mechanization, the velocity of new transport means and the possibilities of mass production and consumption. Futurism was the artistic side of this movement, but the same also involved a variety of architects, technicians and entrepreneurs bent on the modernization of their backward country1. Being elitist, this movement mainly neglected the democratic and liberal side of modernisation. Changes needed planning and a strong state, even to benefit the masses. Politically, the call for a revolution in economy and society united the whole opposition to the liberal and bourgeois constitution, from the extreme left to the extreme right (Gramsci, 1924). Gramsci, commenting the assertion of Lunaciarsky at the second Communist International that Tommaso Marinetti was a e olutio a i telle tual, stated: [Futurists] had a clear understanding that our time, the time of big business, of great industrial cities and of intense and turbulent life, needed new forms of art, philosophy, uses a d la guage. The possessed this e olutio a even think about such questio s … G a s i, o eptio , a solutel Ma ist, he so ialists did t . Futurists, though, had also a clear political idea of what a revolution entailed (Gentile 2009). In 1918, the Manifesto for the Futurist Political Party required progressive taxation, taxation of war profits, the redistribution of land to soldiers, schooling, the secularization of the State and universal suffrage, but also a government of technicians aiming at the modernization of the country in form of increased viability, mass production, defence of consumers etc. (Marinetti, 1918). Gramsci so admitted that many workmen - before WWI - had defended futurists against the attacks of intellectuals and artists, feeling the proximity of their ideals (Gramsci, 1921). Many engineers and technicians too shared with Marinetti the ideal of a new technocratic society, while at the same time having part in socialist preoccupations. Fascism, as known, would rapidly absorb the Futurist party and many a technocratic enthusiasm too, whereas communism and socialism - contrary to the case of the Soviet Union - would be incapable of intercepting this cultural movement. Gaetano Ciocca (1882-1966)2, talented engineer born in Garlasco in the rich countryside South of Milan, perfectly represents the modernist and technocratic soul of fascism (Schnapp 2004, p.2). His lifelo g ai ould e to t a sfo the social mechanism so that the power of the human intellect and of experimentation could diffuse the ate ial a d spi itual e efits of i ilisatio a o g the la gest possi le u e of e 3 . In practice, his state technology meant the introduction of cost-saving practices into production processes, architecture 1 Incidentally Alexander Gerschenkron would later underline both the similarities of the Italian and the Russian case, in their relative economic backwardness, and the necessity of state intervention in igniting economic growth (Gerchenkron, 1974). 2 For a biographical sketch see: Schnapp 2004, pp. 167-238 3 Letter of Gaetano Ciocca to Pietro Maria Bardi, 11th November 1934, in: Schnapp 2010, p.94. 3 Monika Poettinger and husbandry so that goods, houses and even culture could be affordable for the whole population. This the aim of his projects: prefabricated house components, rational rural houses, a mass theatre, a rationalist pig farm and various forms of monorail. To e efit the asses was, for Ciocca, the only task of the bourgeoisie, instead of living out of rent and sleeping in the comfort of tradition4. State technology , though, as every state action, had to be totalitarian, to confront the problem as a whole and not in pieces. Ciocca was not alone in his endeavour of total rationalisation in the service of masses5. In all developed countries the engineer, the architect, the artist and the scientist were called upon to dream and engineer a new world through the extensive use of mathematical methods, by simplifying questions in diagrams, numbers and a new graphic or pictorial universal language. Pietro Maria Bardi, renowned Italian architect and art gallerist6, ould defi e e gi ee s like Cio a the ai ause of the p og ess of hu a it . With their discoveries - wrote Bardi further - and the patient refining of their discoveries, they relentlessly improve, never appeased by the results obtained, all that man has created for her/his living through her/his i tellige e Ba di a u eau ati a effi ie .M 7 ole, ote Cio a hi self i No e hai , o to sit i an anti- u eau ati a e to Ba di, is ot to sit do i hai , ut athe to ta kle ith high the positi e pa t of Ital s e e al 8. In Italy, though, the empirical and enlightened ideal of scientific progress collided with the renaissance of idealism that constituted the philosophical backbone of fascism. In consequence, the relationship of fascism and of fascist Italy with modernisation was ambiguous. As for futurists, science was considered more the result of individual and heroical effort than planning (Schnapp 2004, 3-5). Corporatism, then, implied a tutorial role of the state in mediating between class interests and not the total planning of communism. Even lesser attempts at planning like the town plan of Pavia, to the development of which Ciocca himself participated, or the egio al pla of the Val D Aosta de ised in the same 1930s by Cio a s friends Adriano Olivetti and the architects Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini and BBPR studio, found many resistances and even open opposition. In architecture, the rationalist movement, represented by Pietro Maria Bardi and his journal Quadrante, even if encouraged by Mussolini himself, lost the race to become the architecture of the Fascist regime (De Seta 2008, XL-XLII). Concrete, simplicity of lines and the absence of ornamentation were disregarded in favour of marble, symbolic ornamentation and costliness. Many of Cio a s ideas suffe ed the sa e fate. First, his beloved monorail, dialectic synthesis of motorway and railroad, devised to reduce transportation costs and human labour whenever medium distances had to be 4 Ibid., p.95. Ciocca derived his vision from the Italian tradition, best represented by Galileo Galilei, and his studies, particularly his teacher Giuseppe Peano (Schnapp 2004, p.13-16). 6 Pietro Maria Bardi, lifelong journalist, has also been director of the Galleria d'A te di ‘o a i the sa d founder, director and later president of the Sao Paulo Museum of Art (Tentori, 2002). 7 Also quoted in: Schnapp 2000, 21. 8 Letter of Gaetano Ciocca to Pietro Maria Bardi, 11th November 1934, in: Schnapp 2010, p.94. 5 4 The travels of an Italian engineer crossed swiftly in low density areas (Ciocca 1939; Schnapp 2000, 67-70). Despite the interest of Soviet and Italian military establishments, the monorail was implemented in minimal routes and only for display. Cio a s ass theatre, technological solution to a problem posed by Mussolini himself (Ciocca, 1933c) was never realised, while his rural houses were built only as a model and never in wide projects of rural development. Even his ventures in prefabrication, to produce in grand scale standardised components for the building industry, never had the success Ciocca hoped for. His greatest achievement, the Kaga o ič ball-bearings factory in Moscow, built between 1931 and 1933, bore many disappointment and frustration to the Italian engineer, in the end laid off by the contractor FIAT. The dream of realising this rational modernity via the fascist regime came to naught. Rationalism was, in the end, only in the minority in the fascist movement and modernisation not a particularly sought off change. Mussolini, surely, had flirted with futurism, had loved airplanes, automobiles and motorcycles and admired rationalist projects, but, in the end, he preferred tractors, holy crosses, propagandistic parades, scenographic architectures and autarchy over economic efficiency, mass production and rationalism. Corporatism too, dubbed the ideal solution of the dialectic opposition of capitalism and communism, proved to be an efficacious propagandistic message while implementation was episodic and flimsy. Masses never really profited from fascism as Ciocca had wished. Notwithstanding the absence of recognition and success, in 1963 Ciocca still wrote to Gio Ponti, a long-time f ie d a d ad i e : The ti e has o e to resurrect all that in 19 still as p e atu e. O sta les a e o falli g o e afte a othe … . Will e su eed? I hope so as ou do 9. The recipe, after two world wars and many a disillusion was the same for Cio a. The o ldl task of te h ologi al p og ess as to i p o e the material condition of man on earth, lengthening her/his life-spa , gi i g he /hi ea s a d st e gth, f eei g he /hi fo utish e e tio 10 . According to this ideal Ciocca planned and projected for his whole life, becoming a reference, from WWI to the 1950s, for younger architects, engineers and intellectuals, among them Giò Ponti, Pier Luigi Nervi, Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti and Ernesto Nathan Rogers. 9 Letter of Gaetano Ciocca to Gio Ponti, 5th July 1963, in: Schnapp 2010, p.105. Letter of Gaetano Ciocca to Father Andretta, 1st April 1954, in Schnapp 2010, p.103. 10 5 Monika Poettinger Engineering and architecture in service of industrial modernisation While the political reception of rationalising instances, in urban planning and social planning, was indecisive11, the rationalisation of production, driven by the enlarging of markets and the benefits of economies of scale was less questioned. Surely on the political level, fascism, again, condemned the excess of mechanisation as a form of American degeneration. The exaltation of the artisan under fascist regime is to be read in this sense. Entrepreneurs, though, could freely follow the drive of markets toward efficiency. Exemplary the foundation, in 1926, of Enios (Italian National Organisation for the Scientific Organisation of Wo k follo ed the pe iodi al L o ga izzazio e s ie tifi a del la o o di e ted Francesco Mauro and Gino Olivetti (Pedrocco 1980, 55-56). Some industrialists even embraced scientific management up to its more aesthetical consequences. In 1931, Pietro Maria Bardi, commenting the Exhibition of Rationalist Architecture held in Rome, stated: Where the opportunity of ratio alis ea i g ill of Adolfo dell A ua i Lo a ot e uestio ed a o e is i i dust ial pla ts. […] The a d , the e F ua offi e uildi g desig ed Baldessa i, Figi i and Pollini12, the industrial buildings of other young architects prove their pe fe t useful ess (Bardi 1931). Engineering, architecture and social planning, in effect, had met, fruitfully, in the newly built mass production factories since the beginning of the 20th century. At the time, the rising star of engineering obscured the dwindling light of architecture. While engineers begun to diffuse massively, in the United States as in Europe (Guillén, 2002), architects struggled to maintain their hold on the construction industry where new materials, as concrete, required extensive technical and mathematical knowledge. This was particularly true in Italy (Ciucci 2000, 12-13) where architectural studies were a branch of the Politecnici in Milan and Turin. Only in 1919 a superior school of architecture in Rome started to t ai the i teg al a hite t , with technical capabilities and artistic sensibility, canonized by Gustavo Giovannoni (Giovannoni 1907). The first faculty of architecture would be founded in Milan only in 1932. Up to then, trained engineers more than architects translated the exigencies of the scientific organisation of production and management into new industrial buildings. The most striking example is Giacomo Matté Trucco, who obtained a degree in mechanical engineering at the Politecnico, in Turin, in 1893. Matté Trucco worked as director of the mechanical and smelting department of the mechanical factory FIAT Ansaldo while designing many new production sites for the same company. He planned the RIV ball-bearings factory built in Villar Perosa between 1906 and 1908 (Img. 11 An exception to be mentioned are the widespread rural planning projects that encompassed not only the reclamation of the Agro Pontino but the whole Italian territory (Pagano, 2008). 12 Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini are also widely known for the project of the Olivetti plant, built in Ivrea between 1934 and 1935 (Savi 1990). 6 The travels of an Italian engineer 1) and its later expansion in a new impressive production site in Turin (via Nizza) where once the automobile factory Rapid was located (Img.2). Img 1. ‘IV fa to i Villa Pe osa 9 s. Source: http://www.alpcub.com/ Img 2. The RIV factory in via Nizza, Turin, in the 1920s. Source: http://www.alpcub.com/ 7 Monika Poettinger Matté Trucco also designed the atio alist a d futu ist Li gotto pla t uilt i the s (Img. 3). The Lingotto plant occupied an area of 150.000 square meters, the RIV factory in Villar Perosa 20.000 square meters (Ball-Bearing 1907), the RIV in Turin more than 50.000 square meters (Istituto piemontese 2003). After its final expansion in 1938, the ball bearings production in via Nizza employed 5.634 labourers and had a maximum capacity of 50.000 pieces a day. This kind of production dimension called for the rationalisation not only of buildings, but also of working procedures and accounting systems. Giovanni Agnelli, founder of FIAT and proprietor of RIV was, in fact, also president of the Italian branch of the Bedaux society (Steven 1992) and introduced the Bedaux work measurement system in RIV as early as in September 1927 (Soc. Anonima Officine di Villar Perosa, 1927) and in Lingotto in May 1928 (Bigazzi 2000, 57-59). How much these two aspects of rationalisation, managerial and architectural, were intertwined can be shown on the example of the ball bearings factory that Gaetano Ciocca designed to be built in Moscow by RIV in 1930-1932 (Img. 4). According to plan, this plant should have occupied an area 140.000 square meters and should have reached a maximum capacity of 75.000 pieces a day13. Img 1. The FIAT industrial plant of Lingotto in Turin in 1928. Source: wikimedia 13 Anonymous journalistic report 29 March 1932, MART Historical Archives (hence MART) Cio VI 2. 2. 6. 8 The travels of an Italian engineer Img 4. Ball-bearings factory Moscow, project (attributed Gaetano Ciocca). Source Schnapp 2004, 27. As the engineer Matté Trucco, Ciocca graduated at the Politecnico in Turin in 1904. Passionate athe ati ia , Cio a s ut ost desi e as to appl his te h i al k o ledge to p a ti al p o le s. His capabilities were appreciated during WWI, when he quickly built and dismantled bridges and barracks, using local low cost resources, and organised efficient transportation for supply lines. In the aftermath of war, Ciocca dedicated his efforts to solve the housing problem in Milan and patented first inventions (Schnapp 2004, 18-20). How he came to be appreciated by Giovanni Agnelli so much as to receive the delicate responsibility of supervising the construction of the Moscow plant remains obscure. Apart from some letters of appreciation for his work by Agnelli, the personal archives of Gaetano Ciocca give no clue regarding when and how their paths crossed (Schnapp 2004, 21). Certain is only a familiarity with the CEO of Villar Perosa, Giuseppe De Benedetti (Schnapp 200, 155). Archival sou es o fi , though, that the i itial p oje t of the Mos o fa to as d a in 48 hou s Ciocca himself14. The plan would be later developed by the whole team of Villar Perosa, but on the paternity of the project there is no doubt (Img.5). The whole venture, though, would be clouded by the diffidence of Ciocca towards FIAT and RIV, justified, perhaps, by the controversial relationship of Giovanni Agnelli with technicians as the mechanic Roberto Incerti, founder of RIV (Allio 2003)15. 14 15 Letter of Gaetano Ciocca to Giovanni Agnelli, 15th May 1932 (MART, Cio V. 108.40). See also: Berta, 1998, 40-42. 9 Monika Poettinger Img 5. Gaetano Ciocca examines the project for the RIV factory. Source: Schnapp 2000, 93 The interest of Agnelli in the Moscow project was clear. At that point, FIAT had pursued for some years an internationalisation strategy that had paid off until the setting of the great crisis, when the Soviet Union became a particularly promising market. I FIAT o e ed little less tha % of the “o iet U io s imports of vehicles while the United States held a market share of 47,7% (Castronovo 2003, 349). A buoying market untouched by the worldwide crisis and famished for western technology and products: 60% of the exports of RIV were destined to the Soviet Union. Surely ball-bearings production was considered strategic by the Italian government and the export of its technology to a potential enemy would have been impeded if not for the economic difficulties generated by the crisis. In 1929, times were mature for a commercial agreement, blessed by the Italian government, that allowed the selling of technology to the Soviet Union, through various forms of financing, in exchange for the import of much needed natural resources (Schnapp 2000, 27). The specific contract for the construction of the ball-bearings plant was signed the 15th May 1930. On the other hand, Russians intended to use the agreement with FIAT to finally get hold on the technology to produce ball bearings. The long-time collaboration with the Swedish SKF, in fact, had not generated any technological spilling over. The factory built by the Swedish firm in the Soviet Union was operated directly by Swedish personnel and was, in any case, too small to produce the amount of ball bearings necessary to 10 The travels of an Italian engineer an industrialised Soviet Union. The agreement with RIV, contrary to that with SKF, implied the training of local engineers and the direct management by a Soviet director. The agreement with FIAT was considered a success and was highly praised by the Soviet press.16 Expectations were high and Ciocca had to rapidly develop his innovative plan. The project, though was not te h ologi all efi ed a d Cio a as a a e of it. The o k o pleted i the o ths of Ju e a d Jul 1930 - wrote Ciocca in a report preserved in the archives of MART - was only indicative. The project developed in just a few days at the end of July, while Russian delegates displayed their pessimism in front of our uncertainty, so p o ed to e a su essful su p ise MA‘T Cio.VI 2. 1. 1). Soviets might have been surprised but were not stupid. I o i ed - wrote Ciocca further - that our call to Moscow at the beginning of August 1930, for the early discussion of our generic project did not follow from the exigency to start immediately the construction of the plant. The opposition that the filo-Americans in Moscow displayed against the agreement with RIV did not follow from economic reasons (American projects are much costlier than the RIV one), but from doubts regarding the quality of our technological aid. We were called to Moscow to be examined on our capacity to supply technical knowledge (Ibid.) In the August discussions with the exigent party representatives and the Russian technicians, the Italian delegation underlined the three main poi ts o hi h the o elt of Cio a s plan and the efficiency of the future plant rested: 1. all activities concentrated in only one building 2. parallel production lines 3. flo s of materials strictly separated from flows of auxiliary services I id.) By concentrating the whole production in only one giant structure, Ciocca avoided the dispersion of labourers among several buildings, as in American factories17. The parallel production lines, then, granted enormous advantages in terms of installation and management. The planned factory, as a result, had the form of a giant box and opponents of the Italian project underlined its goofy appearance, but it also ensured minimum volume and maximum flexibility in respect to future changes in technology or 16 Gheorghij Zagorskij wrote clearly, in an educational publication, about the reasons for the trading agreement with Gio a i Ag elli: Fo a lo g ti e the “ edish fa to “KF supplied ith all ea i gs the hole o ld: hite a d shiny metallic spheres that had success wherever there was movement. Having so much success, the Swedish capitalist entrepreneurs earned huge amounts of money. We are poor and know it. We must build everything by ourselves. We must mechanise all, from kitchens to factories and that is the reason why we need ball bearings, but we cannot pay for them in gold that is needed for more important purposes. Swedes proposed to produce ball bearings directly in Moscow but in a licensed plant and did not reveal the secret of production. The plant produced one million of all ea i gs: just a d op i the o ea e ause the U““‘ eeded at least illio all ea i gs MA‘T Cio VI . 3. 1). 17 The tendency to plan factories with different buildings corresponding to different functions (production-officesmechanical workshop etc.) was observed also by FIAT technicians in their 1919 travel to America. See the technical report reprinted in Bassignana 1998, 165-212. 11 Monika Poettinger production volume. Americans, on the contrary, supplied the Soviet Union with ready to go plants, already out-of-date when installed, with no possibility of adjournment. The ball-bearings factory designed by Ciocca, instead, incorporated the necessity of continuous adjustment to changing demand and technological advancement. The third point of the plan resulted from the obsession of Ciocca himself with flows of people, materials, energy and work. Not per chan e i his o k o he pleaded fo a e ha i al e o o i s that studied e o o i Mass E o o (Ciocca 1936) otions (Ciocca 1936, 42-53). His factory, therefore, was designed with three stories, each dedicated to a different flow. The underground concealed the pipelines, plumbing and cables. The ground floor hosted the parallel production lines according to the schema reproduced in img. 6. Production was designed as to occupy less space than possible and the motions of workers and the handling of materials were reduced to the minimum. Img 6. Diagram of the ball bearings production in the first Russian plant. Source: MART Cio VI 2. 3. 1. 12 The travels of an Italian engineer The lean organisation of production devised by Ciocca was not limited to the production process. He also engineered the movements of workers from the factory entrance to their working stations. Flows of workers were so directed at first to the first floor where changing rooms and baths were located. A series of stairways, then, leading to every location of a production process, allowed workers to descend into the factory nearest to their working stations. The first floor also hosted the management offices and all recreational spaces as the library, the canteen and the gym. The plan of Ciocca gained the sought-after success. The th ee poi ts of ou p oje t- summarised Ciocca in his report - obtained full approval in Moscow. They constituted a clear anti-American standing on our part that greatly i p o ed ou p estige MA‘T Cio.VI 2. 1. 1). With the sanction of the Soviet authorities, the project returned to Italy where, in September and October 1930, it was perfectioned by the whole RIV team. In November, the project was discussed by the VATO commission for the definite approval. By then, Ciocca himself had travelled to Moscow to lead the negotiations. He again insisted that discussing technological details was premature and futile, given the superiority of Americans on the issue, while he underscored the general points of the plan. He also offered to Soviets to supervise the project and construction of accessory buildings with no extra costs, gaining immediately the sympathy of examiners. What really convinced Russians, though, were the cost-saving measures that characterised the whole Italian plan in respect to the expensive American ones. Meeting after meeting, the decision of the VATO came, in the end, unexpected and sudden. The VATO does t de ide a thi g - wrote Ciocca - without the approval of the Technical-Scientific Counsel that in turn is subject to the directives of the Superior Council of the National Economy that in turn must obey to the orders of the central government. All this mechanism must be concealed from foreigners and the public discussions become farces. In the end, the president, with the final decision already in his pocket, reopens the debate and all positions are voiced again, even those previously disregarded, with no minor surprise of attendants. At one point, usually at bedtime, with no reference to the previous discussion the de isio e plodes I id. . With his reports, exposing the whole public decision making mechanism as pure comedy, Ciocca soberly described the primacy of politics in every economic decision and the extreme centralization of power. In the case of the RIV plant the decision was positive and the project was sent to the State Office of Projects, Gosprojektstroi, for implementation. Even if that office appeared to Ciocca of American derivation and subject to American influence, given the differences in construction procedures between Russia and Italy, RIV was better off leaving to it the building of the plant. Ciocca, instead, returned to Italy to finalise the technological project of the RIV factory. The plan aimed at engineering all working procedures of men and machines, setting up, at the same time, a reporting system that could be used to evaluate the efficiency of production and to take strategic decisions. His methodology in conceiving and implementing 13 Monika Poettinger the plan was more detailed than the Bedaux system, implemented by RIV at the time, and more like the Taylorist one. A direct knowledge of the writing of Taylor, published in Italy in 1920 (Taylor, 1920), cannot be proved since Ciocca did not possess the volume nor made any reference to it18. On the contrary, the terminology used by Ciocca to describe his plan supports the hypothesis that he was unaware of current American literature on the scientific organisation of work and personally developed his own version of the same. To set up his technological plan, Ciocca documented all stages of production, listing, for every component of ball-bearings, all successive processing operations from the raw materials to the refined end product. For all operations, each characterised by its own symbol, Ciocca needed to know the ua tit of ate ial needed, the waste, the weight per unit, the weight per hour - of the good and the waste - the weight and the quantity of the shavings, the machine, the title, the design of the piece with its tolerance, the typology of testing, the inventory or the deposit time, the mean of collection, the transport mean and the t a spo ted eight I id. . The processing stages in the ball bearings plant were 417, totalling 18.000 operations and 6.000 ope atio s phases. To des i e the Cio a eeded . ele e ta d a i gs19 and the calculation of 50.000 data through more than 100.000 mathematical operations. He foresaw 10.000 working hours or 1.200 working days to complete the task. Considering a team of 16 people, still 75 days of work were needed so that the technological plan could be completed at the end of February. Having collected all the data, Ciocca intended to compile: -a tag, comprising 15 figures, for every one of the 175 machines that would work in the factory -a test tag for every testing operation, indicating all operations for every component -an assembling tag for every type of ball-bearings, totalling 110 tags and 1100 assembling operations -tags for the collecting and transport means of the ball bearings after every operation (1800 movements) -diagrams of the distribution of operations on the single machines, given a periodical cycle of work of 10 days (4500 machine diagrams) -warehouse and deposit tags, calculating the inventory on a 10-day base -executive projects for all equipment, calibres, tools of all ball bearings types and their requirements -the same for the tool room and all its machines, equipment etc. 18 The library of Ciocca only preserves two volumes on the organisation of work, both dated after his work in Russia (De Stefani, 1939; Todisco, 1942). 19 On the use to design a complete set of drawings of the products and its parts in American factories, see: Bassignana 1998, 180. This function characterised the Technical Office and Direction (Ibid., 181). 14 The travels of an Italian engineer The gigantic analytical effort described by Ciocca, on the completion of which there is no information, se ed to e e ise hat Cio a alled the su “u a isi g apa it . a isi g - he explained - means organising, commanding, managing. Summarising is identifying, among many different forms the substance, selecting among infinite aims the scope, among infinite methods the method. Summarising is the interaction of synthesis with analysis, of the general with the specific, of evaluation and risk, of instinct and intellect, of logic and paradox, of theory and practice. Summarising is, in sum, the capacity to look in two different directions at the same time (Ibid.). Dialectic flourishing aside, Ciocca was convinced that the technological plan enabled planning and control inside an industrial plant but also strategical vision. This was vital in the Russian case, since the Soviet Union abounded in commanding personalities and in unqualified working force but lacked those intermediate technicians that absol ed p e isel this fu tio . Lo al pe so el are not educated enough. American personnel, in which Russians confided, have proved inadequate. American engineers are extremely expensive i the pla t i hi h I o ki g the e a e fou A e i a e gi ee s paid dolla s a da a d excessively specialised. They just transplant their methods without considering local conditions. Russians have now understood that this uprooting is impossible . The detail of Cio a s te h ologi al pla , i fa t, 20 followed from the necessity to supply, along with the equipment, the necessary information to use it and to evaluate the results of their use to a scarcely qualified workforce. The te h ologi al aid - wrote Ciocca further - that Russia has asked first to Germans, then to Americans and now to us is the consequence of the intrinsic failing of the Soviet organism: the absence of summarising capacity. As such it is something more o pli ated tha the e e desig of a p oje t o the i stal e t of a a hi e. […] ‘ussia s a e e sensitive to practical advice and consulting and to the teachings on how to do things in order to acquire that o ga isi g apa it the a e la ki g MA‘T Cio.VI 2. 1. 1). Naively, Ciocca attributed the absence of qualified technicians in Russia to the mentality of the local population, the aptitude to copy and to blindly obey. Ciocca himself would later admit he had been wrong with this first impression of Russian people21. What he could not testimony, in his reports and letters subjected to censure, was the systematic purge of engineers begun in the Soviet Union in April 1928. The prosecution had de i ated the p ofessio , lea i g the ou t sa oteu s in Stalin terms but also ithout su ithout ou geois pillage s or a isi g se se i Cio a s epo t22. Ciocca never expressed doubts about the capacity of planning, through accurate information gathering as his technological plan, to accurately direct the production side of an economy. Although knowledgeable, in 20 Letter of Gaetano Ciocca to Giuseppe Gorla (Province Secretary of the Fascist Union of Engineers, Milan), 5th November 1931, MART Cio VI 2. 4. 21 Ciocca affirmed that Russians were inventive people who loved novelties (MART, Cio VI 2. 2. 21). 22 O “tali s pu ge of engineers see: Schnapp 2000, 28; Graham 1993. 15 Monika Poettinger late ea s, of Luigi Ei audi s sta e to a d e o o i pla i g a d E i o Ba o e s de astati g critique23, as an engineer he truly believed in the role of technology and technique in introducing efficiency in the p odu tio p o ess a d ette i g e s li i g o ditio s. His e thusias i ‘ussia as a o se ue e of this entrenched belief. O de - he wrote in later years - cannot spontaneously emerge from chaos, but calls fo the i te e tio of a ill (Cio a , . I the sa e a : pe fe t o ga isatio s are not created by spontaneous generation but are the result of hard meditation. The engineer that wants to build a plant for a specific production programme, has a myriad of options available inside the limits of a minimum and a maximum of mechanisation. For every degree of mechanisation, then, there are numerous ways to arrange the machines and organise the flows of labour. The point of maximum profitability must be searched among these two realms of possibilities: a challenge as difficult as looking fo a eedle i a ha sta k I id., 45). To achieve this difficult goal the engineer needed both a patient work of analysis and an intuitive apa it of s thesis. I sti ti el , the , the p odu tio outes get alig ed a d oo di ated, forming a fabulous warping on which machines are perfectly ordered and the production flows in absolute parallelism. Every machine and every worker needs support so that the weft of services disposes itself, in parallel flows, perpendicularly to that of machines: electricity lines, plumbing, transport lines and all that allows machines to function. Every crossing point of the service warp and the machine lines creates a distribution knot and the entire plant assu es the appea a e of a gia t a as I id., 45-46). The use that Soviets made of the power of planning, though, was erro eous i Cio a s eyes. Not for the discarding of the market and of the information embedded in prices, as claimed by the economists Luigi Einaudi and Enrico Barone, but for the absence of engineers and technicians in the planning process24. Instead of acting on technological plans, like the one he himself had devised to guide the construction and a age e t of the ‘IV pla t, ‘ussia s elied o diag a s , di e t de ivation of the excess of discretionary power and of supervising persons over tech i al iddle e . Diag a s - Ciocca lamented - do not have in Russia the same function they have elsewhere: to show the variation of things in the past and, with p ude e, i the futu e. Diag a s ha e, i ‘ussia, the fu tio of o a d, fetishes to e ado ed I id. . On other failings of the first five-year plan, of which the RIV ball-bearings plant would constitute one of the main successes, Ciocca would write more extensively after returning to Italy at the end of 1932 (Ciocca 1933a). During his stay, though, he immediately observed and commented the absence of the main agent of rationalisation and efficiency of developed economies in the s: the e gi ee . Technology in itself could impossibly constitute an agent of development. It is e essa to i sist o the o ditio al haracter of the machine - wrote Ciocca in his later analysis of economics - to which many attribute the sole Ciocca possessed i his li a the olu e Luigi Ei audi Nuo i saggi a d u de li ed a d o e ted i it the essa o T i ee e o o i he e o po ati is o Ei audi in which Barone is extensively quoted. 24 On this see also the Report by Gaetano Ciocca of the 11th November 1931 (MART, Cio VI 2. 1. 25.). 23 16 The travels of an Italian engineer responsibility of economic malaises. The utility or damage of machinery is subordinate to the use that is made of it, responsibility of the man that uses it Cio a , 22). Ciocca, idealist as he was as much as being an empiricist, believed in man not in the machine. The engineer, in service of the entrepreneur, the architect or the state was so the real driving force of modernity. “ ie e - Ciocca affirmed - is a human i st u e t, the highest, the o e that e o les the utilita ia ha a te of e o o i s. […] The a ti it of the scientist so becomes part of production and of the economy, even if often it is not paid with money but, as in Galileo s ase, ith pe se utio I id., pp. -24). Italy, for sure, did not persecute or exterminate scientists, engineers and technicians as “tali s “o iet Union did, but the experience of Ciocca with RIV and FIAT was exemplary of the instrumental use that big corporations did of technical personnel and the scarce recognition paid to them. While American engineers were paid 60 dollars a day, the most specialised Italian engineers working at the RIV project were paid, by the Russians, an indemnity of 20 roubles a day (10,3 US dollars) while second class technicians just 15 roubles (7,7 dollars)25. The home company held its reins tight and the Ciocca archive contains the painstakingly detailed note of expenses that Ciocca wrote down for RIV on behalf of the whole cohort of Italian technicians working at the plant construction in Moscow26. The fund was meagre and most of the time overdrawn just for paying for transports and postal expenses. As Ciocca asked to buy a FIAT car, to be paid in roubles pro-quota by all Italian workers, to substitute the wrecked and costly local automobile, the answer was indignant and the payment in roubles considered unacceptable27. Graver than the dispute over the automobile, was the question raised by Ciocca himself regarding his official position at the plant in relation to RIV and FIAT. The question was debated at length in letters between Ciocca, De Benedetti and Agnelli (Schnapp 200, 29-30)28. At stake was the role of future Italian director of the plant that Russians had required to assist the local one, Menscikoff, in jump-starting the phase of production. Ciocca was keen to obtain the position, as promised by Agnelli himself in his trip to Russia in June 1931. The same, though, would be assigned to Ugo Gobbato, former director of the Lingotto plant. Gobbato had been vacated from his post at Lingotto in favour of Alessandro Genero (Amatori 2008, 248) and sent around Europe without a structured position. Gobbato would not relent on the Russian post, but, in the end, he happily left Ciocca to finish the construction phase of the plant, up to March 1832, retiring, in the meantime, to Berlin with alleged health issues. After experiencing local working conditions, Gobbato even praised the inestimable work that Ciocca had done in Moscow29. 25 Report by Gaetano Ciocca of the 18th July 1931 (MART, Cio VI 2. 1. 15). For comparison: Local white collar workers received a monthly pay of 72 to 600 roubles, blue collar workers of 70 to 300 roubles (MART, Cio VI 2. 1. 30). 26 Note of expenses, signed by Gaetano Ciocca (MART, Cio VI 2. 1. 28). 27 Letter of Giuseppe de Benedetti to Gaetano Ciocca 24th September 1931; Letter of Gaetano Ciocca to Giuseppe de Bendetti 9th October 1931 (MART, Cio VI 2. 4). 28 The letters in photocopy are to be found in MART, Cio VI 2. 4. 29 Letter of Giuseppe de Benedetti to Gaetano Ciocca 18th December 1831 (MART, Cio VI 2. 4). 17 Monika Poettinger The RIV factory, honoured with the name Laza ' Moisee ič Kaga o ič, would so be inaugurated the 29th of March 1932 at the presence of many politicians and personalities from Italy and Russia. P aise to Cio a s work, though, would not come from the Italian employer. Historiography, also, persisted a long time in the oblivion of his decisive role in the setting up of the Kaga o ič plant and in the reinforcing of the market penetration of FIAT in the Soviet Union. The Russians, i stead, ould p aise Cio a s deeds in a letter sent the 8th April 1932 by the new director to Giovanni Agnelli in Turin30. Co fi i g the e d of Cio a s e gage e t i the pla t, a o di g to the di e t o de of Ag elli hi self, Menscikoff thanked for the excellent work accomplished by Ciocca in Moscow, underlining the high esteem in which he deservedly was held by all workers and technicians of the new plant. His name, underlined the Russian director, would always be connected to the construction of the wondrous ball-bearings Kaga o ič plant. After his dismissal, Ciocca engaged in direct negotiations with the Russian military to build his monorail and even worked to obtain some patents on prefabricated houses for workers. Notwithstanding the interest of the Soviet military, in the end the project of the monorail was not pursued and Ciocca finally came back to Italy in autumn 1932. Judgement on Bolshevism. How the five-year plan ended In Italy, Gaetano Ciocca came to know Pietro Maria Bardi by positively commenting, on the newspaper LA osia o , Ba di s own account of his Russian travel (Ciocca 1932a). Bardi had visited the Soviet Union in 1931 as part of the delegation led by the Italian engineer Angelo Omodeo (Saba, 2005). Omodeo was much admired by Ciocca for his capability to set up an independent studio, dedicated to hydroelectrical power plants and dams, not only in Italy but in Russia too. Omodeo had succeeded in emancipating the technician from tool for the realisation of the ideas of others to independent designer. By writing to the Milanese section of the Fascist Association of engineers, Ciocca had wished for many more initiatives like that of Omodeo31. Ba di app e iated Cio a s a ti le a d suggested to hi to ite his o sto , ased upo his fi st-hand experience of the functioning of Bolshevism. Such a report would stand out among the many articles, essays and books that Italian journalists and intellectuals had written on their visits to the Soviet Union (Bassignana 2000; Petracchi 2014; Burdett 2007, 215-225). The result was, indeed, a stunning success. Judge e t o Bolshe is , prefaced by Bardi himself and published in 1933 by Ba di s f ie d Valentino 30 The letter is to be found in the MART Archives but without classification number. Italia e gi ee s - wrote Ciocca to the Association - should absolutely avoid coming to Russia signing individual contracts with the Russian trade delegation. Through governmental coordination and propaganda among the associated engineers, entire teams of technicians should come to Russia under the name of a great professional (like O odeo o a g eat i dust (MART, Cio VI 2. 2. 21). 31 18 The travels of an Italian engineer Bompiani, was reprinted seven times (Schnapp 2004, 250) and was even reviewed by the Duce himself on the newspaper Il Popolo d Italia (Mussolini, 1933)32. In 1945, the volume was translated to Spanish, while Ciocca also published several articles on his experience in Russia (Ciocca 1932a, 1932b, 1933b, 1934, 1941)33. In his preface to the volume of Ciocca, Bardi lamented that the apid pu lishi g of fo eig ooks o ‘ussia and the scarcity of Italian studies favoured a populistic and lithographic representation of Bolshevism that as ste eot ped a d i eed of e isio (Bardi 1933c, 17). The accusation was not completely justified. Diplomatic relationships between Moscow and Rome had resumed in 1924 and the reciprocal interest in fruitful trading relationships had generated a continuous interchange of wares, people and information, more stable than between the Soviet Union and other Western countries. Stating that this openness led to the production of an Italian literature on the Soviet Union that was more objective than any other might be open to question34. The period of the NEP was generally perceived in Italy as a proof of the failure of the October Revolution, justifying varied statements of the superiority of the Fascist regime (Petracchi 2014, 37). Serious academic studies were lacking, though, an exception being the a al sis of ‘ussia s ag i ultu e prior and after the Revolution by Jenny Griziotti Kretschmann (1926), and translations from the more attentive German literature were scarce. Italians, as readers, preferred reports on the participation of Italian pilots and Italian cars in the fantastic races taking place between Moscow and Petrograd, Moscow and Tiflis and Moscow and Leningrad, to accurate analyses of the economic, social and institutional changes following the revolution. At the same time, Italians visiting Russia, visitors, journalists and literates, mostly sought out signs of the past, applying to the present the categories of the bourgeois worldview (Petracchi 2014, 38-44). A noteworthy exception was Curzio Malaparte who briefly travelled in the Soviet Union as the e l appoi ted di e to of La “ta pa i May 1929 (Petracchi 2014, 45-46). He interpreted the NEP not as a traditionalist restoration but as a step on the way to the full expression of the Russian spirit in a complete anti-bourgeois upturning that would in time wipe out every remnant of the past society. Fascism and Bolshevism were, in this, two of a kind (Malaparte, 1930). Completely different was the assessment of the Soviet experience in the reportages and articles published on the newspaper he directed (Bassignana 2000, 49o . La “ta pa as a p operty of FIAT, since 1926, and followed an editorial line of alizatio of the “o iet e olutio . The five-year plan, started in 1928 to fulfil the communist revolution and launch the Soviet Union in the realm of planned industrialisation, was read and recounted as the mere continuation of the modernising efforts of Peter the Great. The press campaign35 served to justify, internally and internationally, the commercial agreements of Fiat with Russia, part of which was the The se o d editio of Cio a s olu e a d the follo i g o es all i luded as p efa e Mussoli i s e ie . For a i liog aph of Gaeta o Cio a s iti gs, see: “ h app , pp.249-260. 34 Pier Luigi Bassignana states that the Italian literature on the Soviet Union might ha e ee o e o je ti e tha others (Bassignana 2000, 11). More dubious the judgement of Giorgio Petracchi (2014, 57). 35 See particularly: Olivetti 1931; Signoretti 1931. 32 33 19 Monika Poettinger construction of the RIV plant. That the Association of Italian industrials, through the voice of its first president, Gino Olivetti, that Franco Marinotti36, soul of the Compagnia Italiana Commercio Estero, and that the various industrialists interested in commercial treaties with the Soviet Union, as Giovanni Agnelli th ough the e spape La “ta pa , advocated a line of compromise and cultural understanding toward the Soviet Union of the five-year plan is understandable. Particularly in the aftermath of 1929 the Russian market, acquiring voraciously Western technology, was too important to discard for mere ideological reasons. Even the Italian government recognised the profitability of such treaties and financed the growing trading interchange up to 1932 (Falchero 2013). Beside industrialists, however, there was another component inside the fascist movement that, like Malaparte, defended its filo-bolshevism not through mere economic convenience but by a sentiment of affinity toward fellow anti-bourgeois revolutionaries (Parlato, 2008). The corporatist school in Pisa, set up and presided by Giuseppe Bottai, fascist leader and friend of Gaetano Ciocca, did not look with sympathy at the Soviet Union because it represented the enemy of the common American enemy, but for more profound reasons (Romani, 1984; Amore Bianco 2012, pp.157-264). Until the s, orporatism was identified with the introduction of competence as the base for representation inside political institutions and with the mediatory role of the state in levelling up class struggle. Since the crisis of 1929, though, corporatists increasingly promoted a more incisive planning effort of the state. According to this shift in attention, the school of Pisa attentively analysed Russia as a case-study of planned economy (Amore Bianco 184-186). The first publications of the school were so invariably dedicated to the Soviet Union and the alternative it presented to American capitalism37. Noteworthy the participation of international authors in collective volumes dedicated to the crisis of capitalism (Durbin et al. 1933), to p og a i g economics (Brocard et al. 1933) and to new economic experiences (von Beckerath et al. 1935). The school even pu lished, i its Do u e ts se ies, a olle tio of essa s “tali , Molotov, Kuybyshev and Grinko on the rationale of the five-year plan (Stalin et al. 1935). The volume was confiscated by censure and retired from the market for some time before being allowed to circulate again. Giuseppe Bottai, pursuing this politically perilous path, expressed the belief that the increasing planning in all world economies, started during WWI, had not been a temporary aspect of the war economy, but was more an historical necessity, as shown by the disparate cases of the United States and the Soviet Union. Italy, in the confusion of economic theorising and the variety of applied economic policies, assumed the role of guiding light with its corporatism. A corporatism, though, that should, as seen, become programming corporatism (Amore Bianco 187-188; 203-279). The school of Pisa came increasingly in “ee fo e a ple his a ti le o the Nuo a A tologia Ma i otti 1930). On the life and ventures of Marinotti himself, see: Castronovo, Falchero 2008. 37 The school published three collections with Sansoni Editore: Pubblicazioni a cura della scuola di scienze corporative dell u i e sità di Pisa; Bi liote a dell A hi io di “tudi Co po ati i ; Classi i del li e alis o e del so ialismo. 36 20 The travels of an Italian engineer suspect of heresy by the fascist regime for these excessive leftist tendencies and Soviet sympathies. Fascism, from 1933 onwards, was closing ranks and sharpening its nationalism, in culture as in economic theorising. Much of its most enterprising, innovative and revolutionary spirit got lost in this castling effort. In these same years Bardi lost its battle to make rationalism the official architecture of fascism and Bottai and Spirito likely lost theirs to make a programming corporatism the vehicle of change of Italian society and economy38. After the end of the first five-year plan, Italy also lost interest in the Soviet Union as a trading partner and the official position of fascism towards Russia became harsher, more deprecating and condemning. The five-year plan had been, in this view, a complete failure, particularly because it had not maintained its p o ise to g a t ette li i g sta da ds. He e the e thusias of Mussoli i i e ie i g Cio a s volume. The e gi ee Cio a - wrote Mussolini - did not write a polemist volume. He represented Bolshevist reality as it is. The conclusions are negative, objectively negative: the Bolshevist state acting as a farmer, an industrialist, a merchant has not reached its aim: the welfare of the population is out of reach as ever, the ealit is that of a ge e al state ise Mussoli i , . The offi ial positio of fas is o the experiment of the Soviet Union is here perfectly summarised. Russia enacted a state apitalis eithe so ialis o o u is , a fo ula that o espo ded to a state ise that as est ep ese ted the queues of famished people to get some food, by the miserable lodgings and the inefficiency of the recent built gigantic factories. Only fascist corporatism, as expressed in the Chart of Work, could reconcile individual interest with the collective represented by the State. In the fascist conception, the state is no farmer, no industrialist, no merchant, if not exceptionally, but disciplines farmers, industrialists and e ha ts I id., . The idea of a p op ieta o po atio o of a p og a i g o po atis as so do e away as every sympathy towards the Soviet Union s e pe i e t. Mussolini was closely followed, in his verdict, by the propagandistic apparatus, reigning in the journals Ge a hia , E o o ia Fas ista , Politi a so iale , Lo “tato a d A tieu opa ‘o a i , , but also by that catholic majority of the Italian population that since the signing of the Patti Lateranensi in February 1929 had grown even closer to fascism, while judging the Soviet Union and its rejection of religion as an expression of the devil (Bassignana 2000, 13). Many Italian isito s of ‘ussia i the s, in fact, assumed a moralistic attitude or at least deprecated the negative consequences of the wiping out of religion and familyism in terms of extensive abortion practices and easy divorces (Scarfoglio, 1941). The final blow to the aspiration of corporatists to i ple e t p ofou d ha ges i Ital s e o o i o stitutio came from the speech held by Ugo Spirito at the congress of Ferrara of 1932, in which he advocated the proprietary corporation as the final stage of corporatism. By affirming that the ideal unity of the individual and the state should manifest itself in the transfer of all property to the state itself, Spirito sealed his breach with fascism and the end of his academic career as an economist. Later shifts toward a more moderate corporatism at firm level could not change the disfavour of the regime (Amore Bianco 2012, 206-218). 38 21 Monika Poettinger Lastly, contrary to the high-level debate sparked by the school of Pisa in the s, liberal economists generally ignored the question of the Soviet Union (Romani 1984, 28), with the notable exception of Luigi Einaudi, always attentive to economic reality as an object of study, in contrast to pure and abstract economic analysis. Einaudi discussed the question of the implementation of the five-year plan in 1933, when the debate over corporatism, bolshevism and Americanism raged (Einaudi [1933] 1937). By addressing the main problem of economic planning, that of price, Einaudi e te si el uoted Cio a s volume, praising it with almost the same words of Mussolini. We all ha e ead - wrote Einaudi - the descriptions of the gigantic productive apparatus created by Russian communists. We all have spoken with some technician who had seen the Russian plants, the most grand and spectacular of the whole world. Sceptics like me have now a demonstration that they had reason to doubt excessive enthusiasms. For example, reading the recent book by Ciocca, an Italian engineer that has written many a chapter on things see Ei audi [ ] 1937, 41). Like Benito Mussolini, Einaudi praised Cioc a s narrative for its objectiveness - the things seen - but also fo des i i g the state misery that afflicts ‘ussia s Ei audi [ ] 1937, 42). Extensive quotations from Ciocca occupy further pages of Ei audi s article as a proof of the superiority, in terms of generated welfare, of the market economy over the Soviet experiment (Einaudi [1933] 1937, 43-44). In contrast to the dictatorship of the proletarian and to the dictatorship of fascism, Einaudi applauded the dictatorship of price - the king-price - commanding all economic activity to the outmost efficiency (Einaudi [1933] 1937, 17). As much as Gaetano Ciocca must have been flattered by the liberal use that representatives of almost all a ati es of the “o iet U io s fi e-year plan made of his volume39, he had his own position on the issue, however objective his storytelling was. In fact, Judge e t o Bolshe is e a e his fi st step in the elaboration of his unique economic theory, derived from mechanics, that would be published in the volume Mass Economy (Ciocca 19933a, 212). To introduce his description of the functioning and failings of the five-year plan, Ciocca derived many concepts from contemporary debates. He particularly stressed the similarities between the American and the Soviet economies, almost a commonplace in literature (Bassignana 2000, 14-20). U de the ask of the communist doctrines, -he wrote - the Soviet Republic is a gigantic stock company with the workers as stockholders and the State as manager. That Stalin is a politician practicing finance and the great American bankers are financiers practicing politics is just a question of denominations. In Russia too, the aim of society is the industrial hegemony; the means to this end are the progressive oligarchy, the disdain of se ti e ts, the a se e of s uples Cio a 39 a, . To the preceding ones might also be added that of Amintore Fanfani (1937). 22 The travels of an Italian engineer Russia and America, in the eyes of Ciocca, were both representatives of class capitalism, characterised by economic warfare in the form of competition and class struggle. As such, both systems were destined to failure. E o o i li e alism based on an unchecked competition for money, driven till destitution, is definitively condemned. The example of America, a country that, notwithstanding its wealth in resources, suffers most from economic anarchy, a nation where the destruction of goods and the ceasing of activity are graver than anywhere else, clearly proves the negative consequences of considering work and technique simple weapons of a financial war, i stead of sou es of p ospe it Cio a a, . The Soviet experience, even if shrouded as the end of class struggle by the victory of the proletarians, repeated the errors of capitalism, allowing a minority to decide over the prosperity of millions. Nonetheless the time for class struggle and oligarchic despotism had come to an end. Today the problem is different: proprietors and workers share the same interest in becoming diligent agents of the improvement of p odu ti it Cio a a, . Technological improvement, implemented through accurate planning could free everyone from brutish labour and unite the goals of labourers, managers and proprietors (Taylor, 1920). Obviously Ciocca, as a fascist, could not fail to underline that Rome was showing the way ahead to the est of the o ld. The ai p o le , that of the distribution of competences between the i di idual a d the state had only o e solutio : the su stitutio of a fas ist economy, in the more generic sense, to classist economies, be they capitalist or communist (Ciocca 1933a, 34). He o luded: The maximum performance of the productive energies and the most equal distribution of the produce, according to public welfare, can be reached only through the collaboration, inside the orbit of the state, of all individual and collective forces of society Cio a Gi e this p e ise, Cio a s olu e ould easil a, . e lassified a o g the o e p opaga disti a d less interesting Italian works on the Soviet five-year plan and all contemporary praises might be considered as unjustified. The worth of the volume, though, comes with the following unadorned des iptio of Cio a s experience of Russia, and his brief notations on the social consequences of the complete change in the economic structuring of the country. The starting point is always the same: the consciousness that production and demand do not grow in parallel and their equilibrium, if ever happens, is random. Planning is a atio al solutio to this p o le . To o ga ise a o di g to the k o idea Cio a a, eeds of the populatio is a sa e , its i ple entation by the Soviet regime, nonetheless, erroneous. Russia transformed mechanisation in an idol, believing in an abstract formula of happiness. Technique and rationalisation, though, ould t live out of materialism only. Machines and mechanisation were not the o i g fo e of the e o o i u i e se. The hu a st uggle agai st a hi es e ad i e so u h a e just a episode of the ate ialit . Thousa d othe fa to s ha e olla o ated Cio a a, . A flash of light in the mind of a scientist closed into her/his laboratory, or the fortuitous discovery of an accidental relation between the properties of matter is sufficient to disrupt entire technologies, condemn 23 Monika Poettinger theo ies to o li io a d a hi es to dest u tio , o st ai i g e to egi the o k all o e agai I id., 131). In his later work on economics, Ciocca would underline how science and incentives - the realm of ideas and ideals - were essential productive factors, without which an economy could and would not grow. The e o o - he wrote - is the expression of the human will that prevails over natural obstacles and constrains nature through the effe ti e ess of its o k Cio a Cio a elie ed i the pote tial of te h olog , . ut also ad itted that the esulti g was extremely fragile. The five-year plan had ignored this fragility, e ha i al i ilisatio elie i g i the possi ility of an ordered and conceptualised industrialised economy, secure from every difficult a d o fli t (Ciocca 1933a, 130). The problems of the Soviet industry, nonetheless, proved that the i a ulous o eptio of a u eau ati economy and a sedentary society was a utopia I id. . The atte pt to up oot A e i a is o “o iet soil had inevitably failed. As in the case of the Swedish factory of ball-bearings, useless to Russians without the presence of Swedish personnel, the enormous mechanisation of the Soviet economy had become a golem without the soul of Soviet people. Russia, before the Revolution had been a land of exceptional artisans, people incapable of a functional relationship with mass-production (Ibid., 59-62). Workers were poorly educated to their new industrial role and had been inserted in the production line, still unskilled, by necessity. La ou e s do t p odu e; the pla a ou d the a hi es o i f o t of s elte s, at the o k bench or at the forge. The newest machinery that the state has acquired abroad, paying with the corn and the oil taken from local consumption at the price of indigence, remains inactive, often still, sometimes broken as a cast away plaything I id., . Other problems arose from the organisational structure of the giant factories, mostly star shaped or M shaped. This last organisation form, although being more effective, e e attai ed, i Cio a s e es, u h success in Russia. The centralised one, even if diffused, had its problems. The sta shaped hie a h judged Ciocca - is tole a le i si ple o ga is s, it s the ha di aft of o ga isatio , ut as adopted i the Soviet factories out of necessity for the impossibility to fill in intermediate positions. Directors of the new economic structure came out of the experience of war; middlemen came from abroad, the working force through mobilisation, but nobody possessed the seniority indispensable for career advancements from the lo e g ades to i te ediate positio s I id., . More complications came from the centripetal force of collectivist associations, originally devised to galvanise labourers as a replacement of individualism. Mural newspapers, factory journals, productivity prizes and the practice of cross-charging were all activities that worked against the power of plant managers and against political centralisation, immobilising the decision process (Ibid., 142-143). The management of the new Russian plants was also made more difficult by the extreme mechanisation that facilitated accounting and control for the single worker, but complicated in extreme measure the o ga isatio of the hole. “o iet i dust ies la k a ade uate a ou ti g st u tu e (Ibid., 137) observed 24 The travels of an Italian engineer Ciocca and control, also, was absent. Feeling to be proprietor of the factory, the Soviet worker rejected every attempt at controlling his performance (Ibid., 145). Nobody verified who was at work and who was missing. Entire working teams could be seen lying idle somewhere and nobody asked h . Ti e is lost preparing plans that are not executed, - reported Ciocca - statistics that nobody validates, orders that nobody respects, organizational schemes that are futile. Uncertainty, imprecision and disorder reign e e he e I id., .E t e e e ha isatio ea t, also, high i te o e tio a o g all i dust ies, so that the management problems in one plant could disrupt the entire national production (Ibid. 146). Considering all these difficulties, Ciocca argued, a slower industrialisation process based on simpler and smaller productive units and considerate of existing competences and the pre-existing social structure would have been more appropriate. How much the novelty of the plan could be disruptive of delicate social equilibria, Ciocca demonstrated also on the consumption side of the equation. The first example he made was that of the canteens and of the attached mass production kitchens, a reality strange and disturbing for many Italian visitors and tourists (Bassignana 2000, 28-29). The production of food in these collective canteens was inefficient in respect to older practices and consumer satisfaction had been diminished by their spread. The ase of the kit he factories is typical and demonstrates that the five-year plan extends industrialisation where it is less e pe ted a d pe haps less e essa Cio a a, commented Ciocca. Another example was that of automobiles. The five-year plan persecuted the American ideal to put an automobile in front of every house door, presuming to solve the problem of human happiness by imposing absolute equality in consumption. The question was not so easy, though. Most of the Russian population, living on the land, had no use or necessity for automobiles. To possess o e ould t e ha e thei happi ess at all. Ciocca had so to admit that even if planning in production increased efficiency and allowed mass consumption, through technological innovation and scientific management, rationalising the problem of distribution implied, instead, i e t i a le diffi ulties. The o e the ho izo of p odu tio e pa ds, the more the horizon of consumers becomes limited and problems of apparently easy solution, as supplying every citizen with soap and shoes, causes unending struggles and unexhausted competition, deceits and tricks, waste and so e hie ias I id., . In Russia, the dream of welfare had so ended in a generalised state misery (Ibid., 153-174). The abrupt industrialisation caused enormous migrations in the cities and new buildings were never enough to satisfy the demand. Housing conditions were limited and limiting: six square meters per person. Older lodgings were assigned to many families together, creating unconceivable living environments. Ciocca witnessed the desolation personally. There is always a multitude of people without a roof wanderi g i the st eets I id., he remembered in his volume. The se se of p e a it , - he continued - and the ight a e of ei g left ithout the ea s to su i e plague the “o iet itize I id., 159). In Russia, the division in classes so resurfaced in consumption, dividing those who had a secure income and access to lodgings, as party functionaries, intellectuals, students, military personnel and police 25 Monika Poettinger officers, and those who had not. Public services also were scarce and state stores badly supplied. Private traders and farmers improvised markets and sales reaping exceptional profits. In sum: inequality remained an unelidable tract of the Soviet society (Ibid., 190- . It o es to i d - summarised Ciocca - that beneath the Soviet conception lies a tremendous error. The Soviet population just asked to be free in poverty and was inflicted, with the mirage of future welfare, a o el e sla e e t I id., . In the distribution of work and in the equality of qualifications also the five-year plan yielded insufficient results. By abolishing the little proprietorship in agriculture and by dispersing artisans the Soviet dictatorship had pursued the equalization of classes. The extreme mechanization of production processes, though, had recreated a profound division between bureaucrats and plant directors and unqualified workers. Even the laudable professional schools tended to propose again the problem of class divisions. The ou gste s ho atte d them - recalled Ciocca - usually more females than males, are privileged. They receive a minimum salary and, hat s o e, food and clothes. They rapidly assume the attitudes of the privileged and in the corridors of the school you see the h salids of a futu e iddle lass I id., . These schools had the aim of putting all workers on the same level, giving a theoretical and practical formation to all, but this same education was worthless in the new giants of the five-year plan he e the army of workers is neatly divided in two counterposed troops: those who manage and those who monotonously carry out the i posed tasks I id., . Another facet of the problem was the promotion of innovation. The problem of the lack of initiative in a planned economy was solved, by the Soviets, through dedicated offices in every major production site. Such offices were veritable doors open to a future of ealth: a hi k of i di idualit i the olle ti ist armour. They were also another, legal, source of social differentiation (Ibid., 85). Ciocca so testified that in Russia a new bourgeoisie was in the making, when the older one had not yet completely vanished. Lawyers and intellectuals, he exemplified, all maintained privileged positions characterised by conspicuous consumption: a major failure of the planning effort of the Soviet state. Ciocca s general evaluation of the five-year plan, after its conclusion in 1932, was mixed. Ciocca himself had experienced the difficulties of setting up one of the new gigantic Russian factories, but in the end the Kaga o ič plant had been built and successfully inaugurated. More difficulties resided in the management of the newly built factories. Even those, though, could have been overcome with time and the training of technicians and managers. The uttermost failure of the five-year plan was, for Ciocca, the incapacity to make the dream of social welfare and happiness come true that was promised through the forced industrialisation of the Soviet Union. Happiness was not producible in mass in some giant mechanised factory (Ibid., 150). Welfare also had remained an end impossible to achieve. Social stratifications had persisted and novel inequalities had arisen. Soviet people still lived in a general poverty and uncertainty of their present and their future, their ideals broken by the materialism imposed by the state. 26 The travels of an Italian engineer What the Soviet experiment ultimately had shown, for Gaetano Ciocca, was the negative consequences of a state invading the realm of the individual. Private property had to be maintained, even if its use should have been limited as not to become an abuse (Ibid., 272). Where the state, instead, could and should intervene was in promoting science and research and the education of the youth. The coordination of the state was necessary to unite the efforts of all citizens toward this path of rationalisation and progress (Ibid., 273). The model to be followed, as seen, was that of the corporatist state. Through corporations all workers gravitated around the state, capable, as planets, of their individualistic revolutions, but following the trajectories dictated by the gravitation force exercised by the sun. A complex interplay of forces allowed the economic universe described by Gaetano Ciocca to maintain its ordered motion, a complexity that could not be reproduced in the Soviet Union by state decrees nor by the immovable adoration of mechanisation. Conclusions Gaetano Ciocca experienced first-hand the implementation of the Soviet Union s first five-year plan by supervising, from 1930 to 1932, the construction of the Kaga o ič ball-bearings plant in the outskirts of Moscow. For these two years Ciocca lived and worked with the improvised Russian industrialists and workers, assisting them in an astonishing economic and social change. His belief in the capacity of engineering and planning to meliorate the living conditions of the people was not been shaken by his experience. Nonetheless he had seen and documented the drawbacks of an industrialising effort relying on materialism and the adoration of the machine. While impressive factories had recreated medieval-style citadels exploiting their surroundings, Soviet people lacked in the necessities of life. Heroic was their effort and enthusiasm in sustaining the state policy, but results in terms of economic efficiency and extended welfare had been scarce. Transforming the Soviet Union in a monstrous bureaucratic corporation, American style, had proved a failure when measured in terms of increased standards of living. Both the Soviet experiment and its twin, the capitalist United States, basing growth on materialism, trustification, bureaucratic gigantism and economic oligarchy were destined to failure. A sustainable progress could be granted only by corporatism: a state leaving individuals be if not for a general coordinating effort aiming at continuous innovation trough science and education. With his numerous writings and even more numerous engineering and architectural projects, Gaetano Ciocca perfectly represents the army of demiurges that transformed and rationalised economies and societies from the beginning of the 20th century. Futurists depicted machines and airplanes, adored velocity and movement, they ignored, though, all the technicians, architects, mechanics and engineers that 27 Monika Poettinger planned, projected, designed and built those automobiles, trains, radios, houses and factories with mathematical precision and a measure of visionary attitude. They were also largely disregarded by their employers as by later historians. Idealistic and Fascist Italy looked upon those agents of rationalisation with suspe t. I a fields thei effo ts ould e ai . Cio a s o pa t. His Judge e t o Bolshe is p oje ts ould e ealised o l i i i al , narrative of his Soviet experience, would enjoy, instead, a huge diffusion and success. Quoted by Mussolini, Einaudi, Fanfani and many more, the volume would immediately become standard reference regaling Ciocca a fleeting moment of notoriety. Aside from commonplace notions on corporatism and the guiding role of Italy for other nations to follow, the olu e still o tai s a useful i sights i the i ple e tatio of “tali s fi e-year plan and on the technocratic illusion that sustained it. Ciocca himself would trace back to this extraordinary time many of his future projects, from the interest in mass theatre to minimalist rural houses. As Giuseppe Bottai argued against fascist censure, the Soviet experiment presented an inestimable occasion of studying economic and social change and should not be wasted for ideological reasons. Bibliography Allio Renata, Roberto Incerti e le origini della Riv, in: Anna Maria Falchero (ed.) 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