Yanks for Stalin
Interview Transcript

Vladimir Posner      (cont)

Q The question was, the Americans who came here to build the Gorky plant...okay, fine.

 Finish your thought.

A Now, if you look at the foreigners in this mix, they were easy targets.  Obviously, they were not Russians.  Obviously, they had different views, they reacted differently.  They were easy to target, being, "Well, these are probably spies".  These are, especially Russians, who had immigrated and who had come back and there were not a few of  those. So they were arrested.  Not a few of them were sent to camps.  Not a few  of them were shot, but, it was not  a specifically anti-foreign movement.  It was part of the whole system of repressions that under Stalin really became a mass movement.

Q Do you think, in the end, Americans really, you might tell me about that, at the end of the day.

A I have often wondered what Americans thought as they participated in building some key Soviet industries.  On the one hand, you know, I have seen portraits of Marx, Ingles and Ford up there together at the plant. On the other hand, I've seen movies made that were in a certain sense, anti-American.  There was a very famous movie called 'The Circus', where it showed racism in America and what happens to a white woman who marries a black guy and how she is nearly killed, lynched , or what have you....or, showing documentaries of goons beating up workers in American plants, which happened, of course.  But, did they not feel that they were being used by Stalin for a certain purpose, and I think that probably some did.  I have not had the opportunity to meet those people, but , I think it is a possibly.  Did Americans contribute?  You bet your life they contributed. Let me just make one point here.  The (Russian) tractor plants, both of them, became major, major tank production lines during W.W.II.  It is very easy to switch from tractors to tanks and I don't know whether the Soviets would have been able to produce that huge army of tanks, which ultimately won the famous Battle of the (Russian), had it not been for the Americans, who helped build the tractor plants.  So, I think it many ways, that we don't really understand, the Americans who came here did contribute, and contributed in many ways.  I don't want to over do this and say, well, without them Stalin would have....of course not.  But, again, to say 'Oh was that important secondary, they never did anything', that is not true at all.  They did. They did contribute a lot.

Q That is fabulous.  Can you think of anything else, from your perspective, you want to add?

A One thing I would like to add is that some Americans participated in Soviet propaganda.  I worked in propaganda myself.  I worked for the better part of twenty years, from, more than that, from 1961-1986, twenty five years I worked in Soviet propaganda. First, in the press, I worked in a magazine called 'Soviet Life', which was an exchange for an American propaganda magazine called 'America'. Then, I worked for the North American section of Radio Moscow, which is a (mumble) of Voice of America, which is, of course, also a propaganda outlet , but it is on the other side. At the Voice of Russia, the North America section, there were quite a few Americans who had come here and had stayed here and who broadcast to the United States. There were a number of them and a number of Italians, and Spaniards, and Frenchmen, and Dutch and Germans, and what have you, who worked there and who broadcast.  What people have to understand is that, initially, the ideal and idea proposed by the Revolution in this country was attractive to a great number of people, especially if you look back to the 1920's and 30's and you see the Great Depression, what looked like the real failure of Capitalism in America and elsewhere.  The homeless, the jobless, the poverty.  And, the rise of Fascism in Germany and in Italy and then the war and the fact, whether you want to believe it or not, the country that dealt the death blow to Hitler was the Soviet Union.  All of this really contributed into creating a lot of people who profoundly believed in this idea and who came here and wanted to work here and wanted to make it happen.  They failed and we know why, because the idea turned out to be corrupt, in this country it was corrupted.  Maybe the idea is still, I mean, you know, Marx has not gone away, nor will they, as much as some people would like them too. The idea of this society of true justice, where maybe money doesn't matter and where other things are more important than wealth, is still a very attractive idea. Whether or not it can work, who knows, maybe it is too idealistic.  Maybe we are not cut out to be that way, we human beings, but, the attraction remains. So, these were people who tried to, who did their best, and who lost, who lost.  I, frankly, feel sorry for them, more than anything else.

Q Great.  A minute of ambiance. I am quite pleased.

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