 At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War the following year the factory ship, catchers, and crew were captured by the Japanese.The decision by the Soviet government to initiate commercial whaling was made in the early 1930s, during Joseph Stalin’s mass industrialization as part of the new series of Five-Year Plans.To start it off, an American cargo ship named "Glen Ridge" (11,000 tons) was purchased by a Kamchatka-based stock company and converted into a factory ship named "Aleut" throughout 1931 and the first half of 1932.