As the clip’s voice-over notes (albeit in French now in Russian — sorry!), Andrei Tupolev was selected to head the construction project which brought together more than 800 technicians representing dozens of aviation workshops and bureaus from across the USSR. Work on the plane progressed from late 1933 through the spring of 1934. When completed, the Maxim Gorky measured 112-ft long and possessed a wingspan of just over 206 ft. [11 ft greater than the earliest Boeing 747s] In its initial configuration, the ANT-20 was equipped with eight engines, three on each wing with two mounted in tandem above. (Later, the tandem engines were removed when found to be unnecessary).

Like the airplane from which its design was derived, the Soviet TB-4, the ANT-20 was ostensibly to function as a heavy bomber. The plane did set a number of world records for lift capacity, but its was ponderously slow. Its maximum speed of 138 mph would have made it easy prey for contemporary fighter aircraft. In reality, the Maxim Gorky prototype was intended to be a propaganda platform. It was routinely dispatched to the Soviet hinterlands to generate support for the Communist Party’s policies. To fulfill this task, the Maxim was equipped with a powerful radio transmitter (known as the “Voice of the Sky”), a printing press, a photographic laboratory, and a projector to screen films for isolated rural audiences. Rows of lights located underneath the wings enabled the crew to display electronic text messages to spectators on the ground.

Less than a year after its triumphal debut, the Maxim Gorky was destroyed in a mid-air collision with an escort plane during a public flyover at the Moscow aerodrome.

If you’d like to know still more about the Maxim Gorky, check out this excerpt from Dictatorship of the Air where you can read about the origins and construction of the aircraft and the problems that plagued the propaganda squadron to which it was attached.

Happy New Year!

ScP