The Migration Into Stalinist Russia
In the years of the Great Depression, an unheard of migration of American citizens moved to Russia in search of jobs. These people were kept from returning back from the United States because Moscow would not allow it. Tim Tzouliadis describes their life and struggle in communist Russia in the book “The Forsaken.” Most of this book discusses Soviet-American relations and is meant to open people’s eyes to what had been done to these people who went over their during this time. Dr. Tzouliadis does an amazing job at showing how tough and sad this experience was and he really opened my eyes to what had been done to these poor American citizens. Before reading this book, I never really knew that people moved to Russia to get jobs and they were involved in a scandal declining their return back.
In the beginning of the book, Tzouliadis portrays this black and white image of these two baseball teams. You would think that this time would be happy and joyful, but it is not. These men learn quickly that what they are getting into will be the end of most of their lives. It’s just the beginning for these American migrators as he explains that it is the beginning of the “most sustained campaign of state terror in modern history” (Tzouliadias 1.) The two teams names are the Autoworkers Club from Gorky and the Foreign Workers Club of Moscow. Baseball is a sport that these men brought over from the United States. Tzouliadias really starts off this book happy in the sense that the men are moving to Russia in search of work but quickly leads to this sad and depressing tone once they realize how the country really is.
There were many factors that were driving these citizens out of American and into Russi...
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...lutely disgusting. The fact that our own people could not help fellow Americans who were just in search of work and a better life for their families. This book gives people a better understanding of our relations with the Western world at the time and signifies that there was much more brutality going on than generally talked about. A famous reporter by the name of Walter Duranty estimated in 1942 that roughly “thirty or forty thousand” were killed during this terror. I believe that these numbers are extremely high and should be examined more in 20th century history. It is a shame what happened to these American men who went over there in search of a happier life, but instead faced the toughest, most brutal times of their lives.
Works Cited
Tzouliadis, Tim. The Forsaken: an American tragedy in Stalin's Russia. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Print.
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Platt, Kevin M. F. and David Brandenberger, eds. Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2006.
Tolstoy, Leo. “The Devil”. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories.Trans. Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Print.