A Tall Order: Baku and the Battle for Soviet Oil Exports, 1920–1929

Abstract Azneft, located in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, was the primary state oil enterprise of the early Soviet Union. The operational challenges faced by Azneft versus overseas competition from 1920 to 1929 revealed the structural limitations that challenged the Soviet Union in its early efforts to compete in international trade through the exportation of industrially produced goods. Throughout the 1920s, despite the issues besetting the oil industry, Soviet authorities were largely successful in restructuring Azneft as an avenue for diversifying Soviet exterior trade. However, the events surrounding Azneft’s exposure to international markets also showed the Soviet Union’s critical vulnerability to sudden swings in global energy prices as well as other serious complications, including supply constraints and rapidly accumulating fiscal liabilities. These factors would subsequently limit the ability of the Soviet Union to become a more aggressive challenger in international markets across the interwar period and further hamper the future expansion of Soviet foreign trade.