Widely unknown, the Russian tractor industry which later in war almost completely switched to tank production was erected with massive American assistance in the late 20s and early 30s of the last century.
The young communiste state had such an urgent need for agricultural machines that many of the so-called »Tractor Zavod«s were established nationwide, among those the Chelyabinskii Traktornyi Zavod imeni Stalina (»ChTZ«).
The sons of Stalin (»Stalinez«) S-60 and S-65 produced during the late 30s were copies of the Caterpillar 60, fitted with petrol and diesel engines resp.
As the need for military crawlers was at least equally high as that for agricultural crawlers, the 37,626 S-65 built from 1937-1941 increasingly found their way into the Red Army arsenals.
However, with a max speed of only 7 km per hour, thousands of S-65 became victims of the German »Blitz« during that fatal summer of 1941.