Yanks for Stalin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yanks for Stalin (1999) is a 60 minute History Undercover series special that aired on the History Channel chronicling the story of American white and blue collar workers who left America during the Great Depression to work in the Soviet Union to bolster Stalin's Five-year plans. Though white collar workers there received special treatment, blue collar laborers often had to suffer the deplorable conditions of Soviet workers. As one testified: "Men froze, hungered and suffered, but the construction work went on with a disregard for individuals and a mass heroism seldom parelleled in history." This program examines how both the Soviets spun the facts and American industry shrouded the truth of how they aided the Soviets.
[edit] Links
Yanks for Stalin [1]
Yanks for Stalin Interview Transcript [2]
Abamedia Site [3]
[edit] Links Related to the Topic
American Workers in the Soviet Union Between the Two World Wars: From Dream to Disillusionment [4]
Disillusionment on the Grandest of Scales: Finnish-Americans in the Soviet Union, 1917-1939 [5]
Ford Builds World's Largest Automobile Plant in the Soviet Union in 1930 [6]
Stalin's Political Pilgrims by Adam Young [7]
A secret revealed: Stalin's police killed Americans [8]
Artist and Gulag Survivor Thomas Sgovio [9]
[edit] Books Related to American Workers in the Soviet Union
Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union by Robert Robinson is the story of a Jamaican born Ford tool maker who left America to work in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. [10]
They Took My Father: Finnish Americans in Stalin's Russia by Mayme Sevander, Laurie Hertzel [11]
Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel by John Scott [12]
American Engineer in Stalin's Russia: The Memoirs of Zara Witkin, 1932-1934 by Zara Witkin [13]
In Coming Out of the Ice, Victor Herman, a young American, is brought to Russia in 1931 by his father who returns to his native land to open and run an automotile plant. While there, Victor wins a medal for his athletic abilities, but is sent to a gulag when he refuses to sign a paper testifying that he is a Russian. [14]
Dancing Under the Red Star relates the true story of Margaret Werner, the only American woman known to have survived Stalin's gulags. She comes to Gorky in 1932 when Henry Ford sends 450 of his Detroit employees to operate the Gorky Automobile factory. Her father is arrested on trumped up charges and Margaret and her mother are left to eke out a wretched life at times facing starvation and terror. Margaret is eventually arrested herself and sent to live ten years in a Soviet gulag. [15]
