Yanks for Stalin
Interview Transcript

Vladimir Posner      (cont)

Q You know it is funny, as we go into the research.....their attitude in that regard, specifically to the coming year.

A It is interesting to note that while predominately the United States had a very negative attitude toward this Soviet Russia, there was some Americans, and when I speak of them, I mean Americans of influence and power who saw other opportunities open up and felt that economically that Russia was an untapped market that could bring tremendous wealth. Also, who felt that by impacting that market, they could somehow make what was going on more palatable to the United States. One of those was Henry Ford.  Russia's first automobile plant really, seriously speaking, automobile plant was built in the city that was called Gorky.  The Gorky automobile plant is now in (Russian) as we know. It was the largest plant and it was built by Ford, by American engineers.  You could take it further than that.  Take the famous, well, famous to the Soviets and to Russia, the famous tractor plants that were built. One in the city of Stalingrad, now Volgograd and the other in (Russian city). Caterpillar built those.  So, there was real American expertise backed by big American money coming out of the pockets of big American industrialists who saw this as a double edged opportunity.  One, there is a market out there guys, lets go get the money. There is huge wealth, in the sense of what is buried in the Earth, in natural wealth.  On the other hand, there is also a way, or perhaps a possibility to impact the outlooks there and make Socialism, at least Soviet style Socialism, something not as threatening as it might otherwise be.  Incidentally, I think that Stalin saw that very clearly which is why this kind of activity was stopped. It was stopped cold in the thirties, just null, end, finished, out, no more.  Some Americans were arrested and shot.  Many others got out as quickly as they could.  Precisely because Stalin saw this as a way of influencing thought and ideology.

Q Great. You answered about three of my questions.  This whole thing of a Socialist City and what that means...

A One of the most famous Soviet poets,(Russian name), was a great poet and Stalin called him the most talented poet of his era, which didn't stop him from committing suicide at the age of 37 in 1930.  Precisely because, I believe, he saw what was coming and he was very much in love with the whole idea of Socialism as he understood it.  He wrote a very talented poem about Lenin.  He never wrote one about Stalin though, for reasons that are understandable, anyway, he wrote about the Socialist concept of what a city is like.  He called it a garden city and the vision you got was of a city that was green gardens and parks and flowers, and straight broad thoroughfares, much light and smiling people and laughter and to each according to his capacities and to each according to his work.  A city where there was no crime and no dirt and no grime and a city where everyone loved everyone because everyone was equal and everyone participated.  In a way it could be a 20th century utopian model of some of what the utopian philosophers thought about back in the 18th century, Owen and many others.

Q You know where you were, tell me about it.

A It was a kind of version of Capanella's 'Sun City' if you will, but something based on the Marxist concept of economic equality which is really what this is all about.  One of the cities, one of the first cities, that they tried, the Soviet government at that time, what they tried to create was (Russian).  In reality, at least as I see (Russian city) it is one of the ugliest cities that you can possibly imagine.  The architecture is very much what I call the totalitarian style and you can find that all over the world where there has been a totalitarian government .  You can find it Spain.  You can find it in Germany, certainly.  You can find it in Rome, in certain parts of Rome, and you can find it in many places in the Soviet Union.  They all look exactly the same.  There is something about this, I guess it's the outlook which creates the architecture, pompous and very inhuman. You don't feel well in those surroundings.  It is not an architecture that makes you relax.  It kind of makes you look up and say' Geez, I am a tiny nothing'. You know, instead of being part of it, I have always wandered about this. When, for instance, you go to France and you visit  some of the cathedrals that were built in the 14th or 13th century.  They are huge, but at the same time there is something about them that makes you proud, that look at what we did. It is like,'wow, and I am part of this', whereas, the totalitarian architecture keeps telling you that you are a cog in the wheel.  You may have participated in this but you are inferior, you are nothing.  I think that instead of Socialist city, as Socialism was suppose to be, what you got there was this very cold, very indifferent, very anti- human, as I call it, city. Living in those conditions, I think has effected the way people think.  I think that living in those, it is almost like a "Clockwork Orange" in many ways. It is the same cold, gray style where everything is the same and it is suppose to produce people who are the same.  Well they are not and when you put that kind of pressure from day one from birth on a human being, I think it effects the human being in a very negative way.  So, instead of a Socialist city, what you got was a 1984 horror.

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