This paper exploits a short-lived cooperation between the U.S.S.R. and China, which led to the construction of 156 ``Million-Rouble plants'' in the 1950s. We isolate exogenous variation in location decisions due to the relative position of allied and enemy airbases and study the long-run impact of these factories on local economic activity. While the “156” program accelerated industrialization in treated counties until the end of the command-economy era, this significant productivity advantage fully eroded in the subsequent period. We explore the nature of local spillovers responsible for this pattern, and provide evidence that treated counties are over-specialized and far less innovative. There is a large concentration of establishments along the production chain of Million-Rouble plants which limits technological spillovers across industries.