Yanks for Stalin
Interview Transcript

Sergei Dyakonov,  (cont)

Q.  But you tried, correct?  Could you tell us about that?

A.  At that time shootings took place on a large scale, and trucks would carry the bodies from Lubyanka to be buried in various places, usually at night.  The Kommunarka State Farm was one site, the Donskoy Monastery was another, some bodies were burned up in crematories, and so on.  When I inquired about Dyakonov's case at the KGB, and talked to KGB employees, I asked them where his body had been sent.  They could not answer.  That is why I made the following decision:  on Lubyanskaya Square stands a stone brought from a Soviet prison camp.  This stone is a monument to all the innocent people who were killed or suffered as a result of political repression.  Every year my family and I visit this stone, and we consider this to be the place where we can pay our respects to my father, my children's grandfather, there on Lubyanskaya Square.

Q.  How did the Americans leave?  Were there any dramatic scenes?

A.  No.  I don't know of any dramatics.  Those whose contracts with the plant had expired gathered their things, collected their money, and left for America or wherever they came from.  On the other hand, I don't know of any mass deportations or mass arrests of foreigners, although I do know that many foreigners were arrested.

Q.  These people came here to build new lives.  Were they disillusioned?

A.  Of course they were disillusioned, and they shared their feelings with everyone that they trusted.  They thought that they had come to the land of socialism.  They never dreamed of things like the mass arrests that were going on at that time, like the flood of propaganda present here at that time, like the ideological brainwashing being conducted here at that time.  They envisioned basically the same society as they had at home, but with more justice, because of socialism.  Here, each worker had the same rights as any person with a lot of money.  Disillusion came very quickly, although during the first years of the plant's construction, when enthusiasm was still high, when the Stakhanov-Busiguin movement began….  Did you know that Busiguin was a blacksmith at the Gorkovskiy plant?  Such workers, blacksmiths, like Faustov, or Zharin, completed the work of three shifts in only one.  And that was not organized production.

Q.  In those days there was much propaganda against capitalists, bourgeoisie, foreigners, Americans.  Was there any of that here?

A.  No, none at all.

Q.  What did you hear or read that didn't correspond to reality?

A.  The propaganda written in newspapers was one thing, but in everyday life--.

Q.  What kind of propaganda?

A.  Anyone who was not of worker or peasant descent was a second-class citizen.  This definition included capitalists, businessmen, and those people who proved themselves our enemies in the international arena.  "They can't be trusted.  You can't associate with them.  They are worthy only of destruction," they said.  But it was all untrue.

Q.  Did you see these people?

A.  Of course I did, with my own eyes.  For the most part, they were normal, nice, kind-hearted people.  Among them, of course, might have been someone with a difficult personality, but such people are everywhere.  And that does not depend on one's political convictions.  Another side of the story.  In the American settlement there were clubs for foreign workers, where they would go to spend time.  They could get a bottle of beer and sit at a table, sit and talk about life at home and at work.  I heard the names of several workers who distinguished themselves at the Gorkovskiy plant.  I remember the surname Roiter.  These were people who highly distinguished themselves at the Gorkovskiy plant.

Q.  Were they considered bourgeoisie?

A.  Of course not.  Very often we forgot whether they were foreigners or Russians.  They were just like everyone else.  No one drew lines between us and them.  There was no difference at all between the Russian workers and the foreign workers.  They worked together, they went to lunch together at the Gorkovskiy plant cafeterias.  Russian workers would frequent the clubs for the foreign workers.  I didn't feel any difference.

Q.  Was the Stakhanov movement active here?

A.  Well, I should tell-- don't record for now, I should tell you what I think.  When Gaganova served as our leading worker, the model for us to follow, well, that was a phony Stakhanov movement.  Why?  Because many machines were prepared for her…

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