Part one of the review of this book describes how thousands of Americans immigrated to Russia during the Great Depression to find jobs in the “Worker’s Paradise.” They were treated well in the early days, but the Soviets began to arrest and imprison them along with all other nationalities, including Russians, when the Terror began. Part two of the review describes the Gulags and the brutal treatment of millions of people. Few survived. The United States government seldom did anything to help any Americans who were desperate to escape. The official policy was to never do anything that would cause embarrassment to “Uncle Joe,” which is what Roosevelt called Stalin.

Roosevelt was forced to deny Stalin’s request to return one defector who was stirring up negative publicity about what was happening in the Soviet Union. The defector, Victor Kravchenko had attracted international attention. Both  Ambassador Joseph Davies and Harry Hopkins advised Roosevelt to return Kravchenko. Hopkins argued that no one would know what happened to Kravchenko if he were returned, but Roosevelt sensed a political disaster in the making and refused the extradition. Kravchenko published “I Choose Freedom,” describing Stalin’s crimes, and was tried for libel in France after an onslaught of furious attacks from Soviet critics. Kravchenko won a token one franc award, but there continued to be a “…willingness to deny the truth of what was ongoing in the Soviet Union.” Kravcheenko repeatedly claimed Soviet agents were trying to kill him and was eventually found dead of what was declared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Manhattan apartment.

Stalin wasn’t finished with the Terror at the end of WWII. He obtained an agreement from both Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta that all Soviet prisoners of war would be repatriated to the Soviet Union “…without exception and by force if necessary…” Stalin publicly warned that “…in Hitler’s camps there are no Russian prisoners of war, only Russian traitors and we shall do away with them when the war is over.” The prisoners being prepared for return were given leaflets “…showing a beautiful Russian woman stretching out her arms and saying, ‘Come home, dearest son, your motherland calls you’.” The returned POWs were immediately stripped, given striped prison pajamas, and shipped to the Gulag. Some Russian being prepared to be shipped from Fort Dix New Jersey expected what would happen on their return and rioted to resist. Rifle fire, tear gas, and clubs had to be used to quell the riot. Some chose suicide over return to the Soviet Union. Continue reading →

This is the second part of the review of the book by Tim Tzouliadis. My objective to posting book reviews is to give readers sufficient information to decide whether to read the book. I recommend this book, and the new book cost at Amazon is discounted.

Part I was about the massive immigration of Americans to the Soviet Union during the Great Depression and the beginning of the Terror in which Americans and all other nationalities, including Russians, were arrested and either executed or sentenced to slave labor in the Gulags. This part is about the Gulags and how Roosevelt and Churchill ignored the evidence of massive crimes against humanity by Stalin to justify support of their new ally against the Germans.  Reading the many descriptions of individuals being tortured made me wonder how anyone could have done what was described to another person and how the person being tortured could have held up to such treatments. Victor Herman, an American Jew, was punched in his back over his kidneys day after day while being exhorted to confess. On the fifteenth day he “…began bleeding from his penis, his rectum, his nose, and his eyes.” On the fifty-third night he was told he would be released if he only signed a list of names. He refused and was beaten by a gang with clubs. He was shocked into consciousness by the smell of his leg being burned. Believing he was about to die, Victor Herman spat in his torturers face. He woke up in the prison hospital and was sentenced to work in the Kolyma gold fields in Siberia where few prisoners survived for more than a few weeks. He served out his sentence, was released, built a house out of permafrost, married, and fathered a daughter who begged to be told stories about America.

Not all arrested were tortured. Millions were transported in NKVD prison trains with 70 packed into each car. Those who survived the trip would usually be quickly worked and starved to death in the Gulag. Walter Duranty wrote in the New York Times about “…thirty or forty thousand killed” in the Terror, which understated the number of deaths by about a factor of about a hundred. The Soviet Union’s own statisticians unwittingly revealed the truth about the Terror. One Soviet census was reported at 159 million instead of the expected 176 million. Stalin had the statisticians that had compiled the census executed. Continue reading →

This book by Tim Tzouliadis gave me at least a partial answer to my puzzlement over the years why some Americans were taken in by Soviet propaganda and some were even willing to serve as Soviet spies. I hadn’t known before reading the book that thousands of Americans immigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s to escape the oppression of the Great Depression and to take part in the “Worker’s Paradise.” They are described as being mostly ordinary citizens in search of what they had been told was a better life. Many entire families immigrated. The early years seem to have gone more or less well for most of them. By the late 1930s most of them had been arrested and shot or died in the Gulags. Very few managed to escape back to America.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been elected President in a landslide and began to launch the New Deal. He said in his inaugural address that “The moneychangers have fled from their high seats in the temple…,” and “The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.” The author observed Americans couldn’t be blamed for being drawn to Russia if the President could make such a speech without being called a “Red.” Moscow-based New York Times reporter Walter Duranty wrote in early 1931 of “…the greatest wave of immigration in modern history…” One writer observed that “broke Americans” unable to afford transportation to Russia could wait for winter and “…walk from Alaska to Siberia over the ice of the Bering Straits…” George Bernard Shaw broadcast a lecture after visiting the USSR saying Americans should want to go to Russia to escape “…our bankrupt Capitalism…” There were as many as 150 Americans arriving in Moscow a day by the end of 1931. Anna Louise Strong, a progressive friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and frequent visitor to Moscow, was giving glowing reports about Soviet progress to FDR. Continue reading →

This book by Robert Strayer provides a history of the Soviet Union beginning with the 1917 revolution and analyzes various theories about what caused its collapse. The revolution was of course based on the ideas of Marx that were expanded by Lenin. Even Lenin’s ideas were being questioned and rejected by the time of the collapse. However, flaws in Communism weren’t the only reason the Soviet Union dissolved. The huge empire was an agglomeration of many ethnic groups that had diverse aspirations. The desire of politicians for the Soviet Union to be a world power had caused resources to be stretched to the breaking point through domestic and foreign commitments and expenditures. However, as interesting as the history and analysis might be, my favorite part of the book was the jokes recounted in the last three paragraphs of this posting that citizens privately told each other about the system and their leaders.

“Soviet” was the name given to grassroots councils that had sprung up in 1905 and again in 1917. Some historians believe the Soviet Union was doomed from the beginning, because of the “…fatal flaw created by the utopian social engineering that flew in the face of both history and human nature.” Stalin assured success of his regime through the use of force that removed much of the middle and upper classes through execution and starvation. The record of Stalin’s purges, suppression of anyone or group that might oppose him or his policies, and endless inhuman brutality is difficult to understand, especially because he was admired by liberals who thought his “grand experiment” in Socialism/Communism should be imitated by other countries. The fear generated by the brutality of his methods did result in cohesion of the regime. The victory in World War II also validated the regime despite the 20-30 million casualties and devastation of the country. Continue reading →