I've read (and watched) a lot of Anthony Sutton's work on US-USSR economic relations, he's generally viewed as a kook, but some of the stuff he talks about is well-established (e.g. Ford and the GAZ plant, Averill Harriman and the Georgian manganese). What is the consensus, was the US' role in the USSR's modernization decisive?
Various books on the post-civil war period mention American industrialists and technicians being brought over to help get Soviet industry started.
It wasn't so much a national project as much as the Soviets reaching out to individuals and companies.