The Great Break 1927–28 and knowledge management for a modern sewer system in Petrograd/Leningrad (1918–1928)

Abstract

AbstractThe article deals with the process of knowledge management in the construction of urban infrastructure in Leningrad in the 1920s and the influence of political and economic factors on this process. At first, municipal engineering was included in the so-called circulation zone, i.e. those selected spheres of Soviet industry, science, and culture, where a relatively free exchange of technology and knowledge with leading Western firms and corporations was practised. Because of the Great Break and War Scare of 1927, municipal engineering was excluded from this zone. The main source to build this argument is archival material about the international expert commission on sewerage system construction of 1927. In the spring of that year, experts from the United States and Germany were invited to come to Leningrad. However, in the summer of that year, the War Scare cut off this cooperation. The article discusses the shaping of new knowledge management and the new industrial culture which emerged from the crisis.