Dancing Under the Red Star (7 page)

Stalin first targeted the wealthier peasants, or kulaks. Their property was seized, and about one million kulak households (approximately five million people) were deported to remote Siberian regions and never heard from again. All other peasants were forced into collective farms, where they worked the fields with the collective’s equipment and were paid with grain and other basic agricultural products. The remainder of the harvest became the property of the state.

Although the first Five-Year Plan called for the collectivization of 20 percent of peasant households, by 1940 virtually all peasant households had been collectivized. The ownership of private property was almost eliminated.

Many peasants fiercely resisted collectivization, resulting in a disastrous disruption of agricultural productivity. Nevertheless, in 1932 Stalin raised Ukraine’s grain procurement quotas by 44 percent. This meant there would not be enough grain to feed the peasants, since Soviet law required that no grain from a collective farm could be given to the members of the farm until the government’s quota had been met. Even indispensable seed grain was confiscated from peasant households. Stalin’s decision, and the methods used to implement it, condemned millions of peasants to death by starvation.

With the aid of regular troops and secret police units, party officials waged a merciless war of attrition against peasants who refused to give up their grain. Any man, woman, or child caught taking even a handful of grain from a collective farm could be executed or deported. Those who did not appear to be starving were often suspected of hoarding grain and consequently interrogated. Forced collectivization helped achieve Stalin’s goal of rapid national industrialization, but the human cost was incalculable.

When my family arrived in Russia, the entire Soviet Union was suffering a massive famine. In the Ukraine alone, the death toll from the 1932-33 famine exceeded six million. According to a Soviet author, “Before they died, people often lost their senses and ceased to be human beings.” Yet one of Stalin’s lieutenants in the Ukraine stated in 1933 that the famine was “a great success” because it showed the peasants “who is the real master here. Sure, it cost millions of lives, but the collective farm system is here to stay.”
*

As we prepared to leave Moscow after a layover of several days, I was haunted by the misery I had witnessed there. Russia didn’t feel like America at all. I was only eleven years old, yet I felt the full weight of the hopelessness of the Russian people.
Will they ever hope again?
I wondered. For the rest of my days, I shall never forget the darkened, desperate, and dead eyes of the people of Moscow.

*
“Revelations from the Russian Archives,” Library of Congress,
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intro.html
.

Four

GORKY BEGINNINGS

A
s we departed Moscow, our train passed through countless miles of icy snow chambers, at least five feet high on both sides. I had never felt this kind of cold before. It was cold enough to freeze your brain! After traveling along the frozen steel rail at a painfully slow pace, we finally arrived at midday in Gorky, the city originally called Nizhni Novgorod.

Upon our arrival we received a relatively warm welcome from a Ford factory representative, who promptly escorted us to a large old hotel in the center of town. This hotel was a check-in point where all foreigners stayed before they were assigned to permanent residency elsewhere. Our cold room had only one bed and no toilet; we used the filthy, reeking communal bathroom at the end of the corridor as little and as quickly as possible.

Our escort led us to the hotel dining room, where lunch consisted of buckwheat cereal, salted fish, black bread, tea and lemon, with sugar in large chunks. My mother was the only one who ate anything. She deflected disappointment better than Papa and I did. We both wore our hearts on our sleeves, but not Mama. I envied her ability to detach from adversity.

Papa’s face looked sullen, unlike his exuberant expression just days before. Perhaps he didn’t eat because he was appalled at the things he was seeing here. I didn’t eat because I felt sick. Just the very thought of eating, coupled with the horrible smell of the food, turned my stomach.

After a few days in the transit hotel, our group assembled at the train station, where we were met by the Gorky factory officials. It was April 28, 1932—my father’s birthday. We boarded a bus and headed to the American Village, about ten kilometers away. As we jolted along the furrowed road, I was thrilled to see mountains in the distance. I had always longed to live near mountains, so I was soon disappointed to learn that these “mountains” were just high bluffs across the Oka River. Other visions, once alive and strong, were quickly disappearing as well.

Gorky’s American Village housed all of the foreign specialists who were under contract with the Ford automobile factory, situated about two kilometers away. More than a hundred families—from countries including the United States, Germany, Poland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Austria—populated the village, crowding into about forty two-story wooden structures. The eight apartments in each building were alike: single-room flats that consisted of a bedroom with access to a communal kitchen, complete with a wood-burning stove, and a communal toilet. Washroom facilities were in a separate building. (Later, during World War II, many of these apartments were occupied by at least three families each.)

When we arrived, the village was surrounded by water. A winter of unusually heavy snow had caused the nearby Oka, a tributary of the larger Volga River ten kilometers away, to swell over its banks. Much to my delight, we had to board a rowboat to reach our apartment building. Once there, a short, white-haired man showed us to our quarters. As we looked them over, I saw Papa’s shoulders sink as he mumbled, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

We were assigned one room for our family. Sure enough, there was a communal kitchen and a communal toilet on each floor but no bathtubs or shower facilities. To bathe, we had to walk to a nearby public bathhouse, where men and women were assigned alternate days. We washed and rinsed with a wooden pail that was provided there; everyone bathed in the nude in a large washroom.

Oh, Papa, what have you done to us?
I thought.
I love you so very much, and I know you meant well, but can our temporary trip to Russia be over? Please, today? Can we go back to Detroit now?

I believed Papa had made a dire mistake, but there was nothing I could do about it. I knew my father’s pride would never allow him to admit he’d made a mistake. And if Mama shared any of these thoughts, she never spoke them. She was always devoted to Papa. But I always knew that look in her eyes, the look that never lied to me, the look that said she agreed with me.

We had special passes for three meals a day in a dining room that was open only to foreigners connected with the factory. The menu never changed: buckwheat cereal, salted herring, an unidentified meat submerged in the darkest gravy I’d ever seen, a weird berry drink, and tea with lemon.

Within a few weeks, my father lost so much weight that he went to a doctor. His “illness” was diagnosed as starvation. To our surprise, the doctor provided some valuable coupons for white bread, butter, milk, and coffee. This brightened Papa’s mood, if only slightly, and he began to eat and regain some weight. Mama and I were thankful to see his health improve, but his recovery was short lived. Following a shave in the village barbershop, Papa’s face broke out with sores from a dreadful skin disease. That was his last visit to the barber. With disdain for our new life in Gorky, Papa grumbled, “To hell with them all.”

After several months we received a rare treat one day—a meat we could identify: roast pork. Unfortunately, the pigs had been fed rotten fish, which contaminated the meat. Despite Mama’s best attempts to disguise the bad taste, we couldn’t eat the pork. We survived on eggs and vegetables, which Mama cooked for us in the communal kitchen. As usual, Mama masked her disappointment.

I entered school in Gorky at the third-grade level, the approximate equivalent of American fifth grade. Our teachers were all Americans, with the exception of one woman from England. Classes were taught in English, and we studied Russian only as a foreign language.

In Gorky, our small community of children and teenagers lived together harmoniously, but outside of school we did not associate with the Russian children much. When weather permitted, we held regular baseball games and other outdoor athletic competitions. In the evenings the kids in the village danced and played billiards in the clubhouse. I learned how to pole-vault and eventually became a fairly accomplished vaulter. Sports, or anything involving athletic skill, were my main interests—in fact, my life! The thrill of victory over another talented opponent fueled my competitive athletic drive, no matter what the sport.

The Russians never took anything quite as seriously as their sports, except perhaps their anger. Oppressed by the totalitarian state, they showed their hopelessness in their contempt for the system that dictated their way of life. Athletic competition was an important diversion for the people of the Soviet Union; the more accomplished you were at one or more sports, the easier your life would be.

Like the Russians, I thrived on the spirit of head-to-head competition. I already excelled in virtually every competition of skill that I attempted. Papa had carefully groomed me to be a winner at everything in life. I hated to lose, no matter what.

If I wasn’t practicing or competing in sports, I could be found volunteering in the village library. Books were scarce in the Soviet Union, but there I was able to read to my heart’s content. Since damaged books were not easily replaced, I also learned the art of repairing them. The only thing I enjoyed more than reading was sports.

As a highly qualified tool and die designer, my father’s first advisory job at the factory was that of foreman. But from the outset, Papa was as disappointed with his work situation as he had been with our housing. He wanted the Ford automobile factory to excel in its Soviet production through honest, quality workmanship, and he expected integrity in his workplace. But he was alone in his vision.