Gostrest Tochmekh.

After the upheaval of the revolution and civil war, the remains of the Kahn, Buhre and Moser watch businesses together with the remnants of other watch enterprises and workshops, came under the umbrella of various bodies. Importantly, it eventually became the responsibility of the “State Trust of Precision Mechanics” Гострест Точмех (English; Gostrest Tochmekh). Gostrest Tochmekh was the consortium that dealt with precise mechanics and the name is a shortened version of Gosudarstvennyy Trest Tochnoy Mekhaniki. According to the Russian State Archive of the Economy, RGAE, it was established in 1920, during the civil war period, as Glavtochmekh (Chief Administration) and became Gostrest Tochmekh in 1922 after the civil war under the direction of Andrei Mikhaylovich Bodrov (see bio Page 2).

Slava history records that at the start of Stalins 1st Five Year Plan, in 1928, Tochmekh absorbed the troubled Moscow Electro Mechanical Plant (MÈMZ) which was housed in a renovated stone building at Tverskoy Zastavy, Moscow. Initially the factory employed around 125 production workers, who were mainly engaged in the custom manufacture of telegraphic equipment, radios, projectors, as well as repairing the electromechanical timers used to control Moscow’s trams. In November 1930 it became the 2nd State Watch Factory 2ГЧЗ or in English 2GCHZ (later 2nd Moscow Watch Factory, 2MCHZ - then Slava - Cлава meaning Glory), to distinguish it from the newly created 1st State Watch Factory 1ГЧЗ or in English 1GCHZ. Gostrest Tochmekh would eventually be dissolved at the beginning of the 2nd Five Year Plan in 1933, three years after 1 and 2GCHZ were established.

 

Tsentrochasy 1923: The first attempt to set up watch making.

As early as March 1923 the Soviet trade mission in Berlin, reported that the People’s Commissar of Foreign Trade, Leonid Krasin, had been made, by representatives of five minor Swiss watch companies, a proposal to form a mixed company “for import into Russia of pocket watches and wristwatches”. However, the Supreme Economic Council “cut the project in the bud”. It said that all those firms were producers of low-quality watches and, since the war, had accumulated large reserves of watches of “worthless quality” which they intend to sell in Russia because of the lack of demand for them in other countries. At the same time Soviet representatives in Berlin were in talks with major Swiss watchmakers, including Moser, Nardin, Doxa, Tissot, Omega, Longines and Zenith. Moscow even sanctioned the formation of joint stock company ‘Tsentrochasy’ with these companies. Under the terms of the preliminary agreement, the Soviet Union received 49% of the shares, whilst the remaining were divided proportionately between the Swiss firms. It was assumed that in exchange for the right to import watches (up to 400 thousand units per year). These firms would help establish Soviet production of alarms, high quality clocks, wall and desktop clocks. A factory was to be built and equipped, the workers would be trained for three years and by the fourth year production would reach full capacity.

Then in Lausanne Switzerland, in May 1923 a Russian exile assassinated the Soviet ambassador to Italy. A Swiss court acquitted the assassin causing relations between the countries to become hopelessly corrupted. In June the Central Executive Committee and the People’s Commissars issued a joint resolution to boycott Swiss companies. The Soviet representatives in Berlin specifically asked Moscow whether the boycott applied to the Tsentrochasah negotiations. They responded that further negotiations should be conducted only with German watch companies. But nothing came of the these latter negotiations.

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The Stalin era begins

Lenin died of a stroke on January 21, 1924. His participation in, and influence on, these events are negligible. Upon his death, Joseph Stalin was officially hailed as his successor as the leader of the ruling Communist Party and of the Soviet Union itself. By April of the same year he replaced Lenin’s ‘New Economic Policy’ with his highly centralised ‘Command Economy’ which heralded in both industrialisation and collectivisation resulting in the Soviet Union moving quickly from a predominantly agrarian society into an industrial power. In horological terms this was opportune as within two years the warehouses had been depleted of all the imported watchmaking stock. Tochmekh relied upon this stock to feed the ever increasing demand for timepieces, of all sorts. To supply their network of co-operative workshops (Artels Aрте́ль), Tochmekh had had to import whatever components they could acquire on the international market, finishing the timepieces with internally manufactured parts and “Гострест Точмех” signed dials. This chaotic, unsystematic production continued into the early 1930’s and was supplemented throughout the 1920’s by timepieces imported, in some quantities, from Switzerland and Germany. The country’s  ndustrialisation, development of transport, raising of the cultural level within the population, together with the needs of the Red Army and Navy all increased the demand for watches.

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In 1926, Heinrich Kann, the prominent pre-revolutionary specialist watchmaker, wrote in his book, A Brief History of Watchmaking. “It’s time to shake things up and we understand that and we can get in the way of serious competition from abroad in watchmaking. However, we must not ignore the fact that at present time the production equipment abroad stands at a height that would have required significant efforts in order to catch up in this respect abroad. We are late in the industry and strong late, but it is not hopeless, because on our side the advantage, as the vastness of the internal market. The current consumption of our watches and all kinds of movements is negligible compared to the immediate future, since we only embark on a path of intensive development of our material culture. Our people can not be denied in the innate abilities and talents needed for