Andrew Smith I Was A Soviet Worker and J PDF

Candidate
Number – 4271645
Andrew Smith, ‘I Was A Soviet

Worker’ and John Scott, ‘Behind The
Urals’ – A Comparative Study

“When the reports finally reached this country of the completion and
success of the first Five Year Plan, I decided to leave the United States and
make my home in the one country where I was confident my wife and I
would enjoy a happy life.”i

Smith’s confidence was not without grounding. Already a committed
Marxist, he had played a prominent role during the labour struggles at the
Hungarian iron mines, and, after moving to America in 1907, had become an
active member of the Communist Party of the United States. ii Thus, following the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Smith was naturally enticed by the prospect of
moving to the Soviet Union. This appeal was exacerbated when, in 1929 as part
of an American delegation, “at last an opportunity came to visit the Workers’
Paradise.”iii The quixotic portrayal of Soviet life with which he was presented
seemed a far cry from the American Depression to which he returned, and
indeed left him “deeply stirred.”iv Smith was not alone in his enthusiasm. As
Koestler too recalls: “If History herself was a fellow-‐traveller, she could not have
arranged a more clever timing of events than this coincidence of the gravest
crisis of the Western World with the initial phase of Russia’s Industrial
Revolution… The contrast… was so striking and so obvious that it led to the
equally obvious conclusion: They are the future – we, are the past.”v It is with this
mind-‐set that, on February 16th 1932, Smith and his wife set sail on the
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Candidate Number – 4271645
Berengaria for the Soviet Union, expecting to find ready-‐made workers’ paradise
for he and his wife to enjoy.vi
Smith arrived expecting an equally quixotic welcome to the one he
had received on his previous visit as part of the American delegation. As he
reminisces:

“Everything was ready for us on the Soviet side. The finest food and
plenty of it was piled high on tables decked with the cleanest white
tablecloths, meats, fish, cake, fruit and wine in abundance. We were
greeted as if we were distinguished diplomats representing a foreign
power. A squad of Red soldiers saluted us at the border. I can still
remember the thrill of pride I experienced upon seeing them with their
long khaki coats and their pointed caps with the magic red star of
Communism. Every time I saw the hammer and sickle floating in the
breeze, I felt a lump in my throat. This was our country, the fatherland of
the international proletariat.”vii

Yet the reality with which he was met could not have been more different:

“There was no delegation to meet us at the Belo Ostrov this time. No brass
band and no speakers. All we saw were some poor emaciated-‐looking
peasants, who passed us with looks that did not appear very friendly. We
called to them and cheered in greeting, ‘Long live the Soviet Union. Long
live the Red Army.’ But they passed on with weary steps without
answering…. We made haste to find the stolovaya, or restaurant… A
terrible stench greeted us as we entered. The tables were bare and topped
by dilapidated boards, spotted with remnants of decayed fish. The
waitresses were dressed in coats which had once been white but now
showed the marks of many soup stains. These garments looked as if they
had not been washed in months…. The smell which arose from the soup
was indescribable. It seemed that they had cooked the entire fish, entrails
and all, to make this appetizing dish. We could see the fish eyes and heads
floating about the plate. The soup itself was the colour of dishwater. There
were no vegetables. I felt terribly ashamed of myself… I turned away
heartbroken and disgusted”viii

Seven months later, John Scott too left for the Soviet Union, albeit with,
(rightly), much more modest expectations. Just 19 and fresh out of college, ‘he
was restless, he wanted to see the world and he wondered whether the
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Bolsheviks might not have “found the answer to at least some of the questions
Americans were asking each other.” He had learned a trade, had his youth,
enthusiasm, and the willingness to work.’ix Far from expecting a ready made
utopia, he was aware that, “… most Russians ate only black bread, wore one suit
until it disintegrated, and used old newspapers for writing letters and office
memoranda, rolling cigarettes, making envelopes, and for various personal
functions.” He left in September 1932 knowing that he “…was about to
participate in the construction of this society… [And] …was going to be one of
many who cared not to own a second pair of shoes, but who built blast furnaces
which were their own.”x
Yet despite these much more modest expectations, Scott realised that he
too had been, at least in part, mistaken about the reality of life in the Soviet
Union. As he recalls upon arriving in Magnitogorsk, “It did not take me long to
realise that they ate black bread principally because there was no other to be
had…” And that they wore rags, not because they did not care to own a second
pair of shoes, but rather “because they could not be replaced.”xi Nevertheless,
these “people were enduring the most intense hardships to build blast furnaces
… with [a] boundless enthusiasm, which infected me from the day of my
arrival.”xii Indeed, Scott fully immersed himself in the day-‐to-‐day life of the
Russian workers: “I plunged into the life of the town with the energy of youth. I
literally wore out my Russian grammar, and in three months I was making
myself understood. I gave away many of the clothes I had brought with me, and
dressed more or less like the other workers on the job. I worked as hard and as
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well as my comparatively limited experience and training permitted. [For this] I
was liberally rewarded. My fellow workers accepted me as one of themselves.”xiii
Whilst Smith’s initial days in the Soviet Union can also be seen to
resemble those of the average Soviet citizen, the same cannot be said once he
finds work at the Elektrozavod factory in Moscow: “As a result of various tests I
was placed in the seventh, or highest category, as a machinist. Under this
category I was to receive the highest wage scale, and I was permitted to buy my
food at the Insnab (store for foreign workers and specialists). Most of the other
workers in the plant were in the third category.”xiv As such, Smith was never
accepted by his fellow workers as ‘one of themselves.’ Rather, “I found out that I
was looked upon with hatred by many workers because of the special privileges
which I enjoyed as a foreign specialist. This was true in spite of the fact that I
tried to defend their interests as far as I could. I could not blame them for their
embittered attitude toward me, and toward the foreign delegations in general,
when I saw what they had to bear. Many a time I would overhear remarks about
the privileges I enjoyed that would bring a blush of shame to my face.”xv

It is in this context that one is able to understand why it is so that,
although seemingly witnessing the same things during their years in the USSR,
Smith and Scott come to develop very contrasting opinions and memories of it.
This notion is perhaps best illustrated by the following accounts of how the
majority of the workers lived during these years of rapid industrialisation.
4
Smith, despite only being a visitor, and never having to experience first
hand living in such circumstances, paints an extremely derogatory picture of
these conditions:
“I visited Vassiliev, a Russian machinist… who lived in what is known as a
General House on the Izmaelov. This was a four-‐story brick structure
about three years old, but of slipshod construction. In this building lived
about 150 families, divided up into groups of fifteen families with one
room each. This group of fifteen families used one kitchen and one toilet,
at which there was always a long waiting line. In the kitchen was a coal
and wood stove made of brick, which was not used because it was
inconvenient. The tenants used chiefly kerosene or primus stoves. With a
dozen of the latter in full blast, there was a roar like that of a huge
furnace, in which no conversation could be heard. These stoves were also
the only means of heating…. The atmosphere was one of sadness and
misery unbroken. No song or laughter could be heard. I left as quickly as I
could.”xvi

Meanwhile, Scott recalls walking back from the roar of the huge furnaces at
Magnitogorsk, 900 miles away on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, to what
he calls home:

“We walked on up the hill for ten minutes between two rows of
whitewashed one-‐story barracks. The last on the right was home. It was a
low wooden structure whose double walls were lined with straw. The
tarpaper roof leaked in spring. There were thirty rooms in the barrack.
The inhabitants of each had made a little brick or iron stove so that as
long as there was wood or coal the rooms could be kept warm.”xvii

Although Scott does not necessarily appear enthusiastic about living in these
conditions, neither does his account reprise the disparaging image portrayed by
Smith – he simply accepts it as a necessary requirement to achieve such rapid
industrialisation. Yet, arguably more significantly, when Scott visits a
comparably lavish home to the one that Smith occupies, he does not appear
bitter or jealous, but rather fascinated and notably impressed:
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“Arrived in Sverdlovsk we went to Mike’s flat, in an immense stone
apartment house, and I received a great surprise. He had four rooms, a
large kitchen, running water, steam heat, and all the conveniences one
could wish for. The building even boasted an elevator, though it had never
been put into operation. I had not realised that such apartment houses
existed in the Soviet Union except in Moscow. Mike’s wife gave us a
marvellous dinner, we had baths, and I went to sleep in a really clean bed
for the first time in a year.”xviii

Indeed, to Scott, the privileges enjoyed by those such as Smith appeared
justified, and not something to feel guilty about. As he explains: “Party members
were privileged in that it was easier for them to get scholarships to schools,
obtain new apartments, or get vacations in August instead of November… But, on
the other hand, a great deal more responsibility was put on them. If something
went wrong and the brigade spoiled a job, a worker who was a part member was
held as much more responsible than a non-‐party brigadier.”xix What is more, more
recent research seems to suggest that Scott’s outlook was by no means unique.
As Hessler has argued, Stalin’s 1934 announcement that “Life has become better,
Comrades! Life has become happier!” And the beginning of the campaign for
“cultured trade” xx represented not “The Great Retreat,”xxi nor the “betrayal” of
the revolution.xxii Rather, it connoted “… the visible demonstration of what it
could achieve.”xxiii As Stalin explained at the First All-‐Union Congress of
Stakhanovites in November 1935, ‘… the fulfilment of the socialist revolution
required “material benefits” (material’nye blaga) to complement its hard-‐won
political benefits for the Soviet citizen.’xxiv However, until shortages were
overcome, disparities in consumption were, unfortunately, to be unavoidable. In
the meantime, the privileged minority were to be held up as ‘avatars of a day
when all workers could enjoy the benefits of cultural and material advance.xxv
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Subsequent studies have convincingly argued that ‘only a minority… qualified
these developments either as the revolution betrayed… or as the Nationalisation
of an International Revolution… the majority did not realise the reversal of the
trend and continued describing Russian events as a straight-‐line advance.’xxvi
Mehnert also makes note of this whilst reflecting on his impressions of
the Soviet people after his thirteen visits to the USSR between 1929 and 1961:

“On the whole, they accept achievement as the basis of social
advancement, and they have a genuine and sincere admiration for the
expert. If a member of the top group proves his efficiency, they will
readily concede to him the right to a higher standard of living… The same
applies to their attitude toward the wholly disproportionate incomes of
artists and writers. Respect for the goddess Kul’tura is so deeply
ingrained in the Russian that he considers it only right that those who
serve her well should live in luxury.”xxvii

Besides, even if they were going to have to wait a little longer to enjoy such
luxuries as living in an apartment such as Mike’s, with four rooms and a kitchen
with running water, nevertheless “it was true. Life had become better ‘better and
more joyful’ as Stalin put it.”xxviii Indeed, all around there was real, tangible proof
that the Soviet Union was progressing along the road to Communism. Take, for
instance, Shaimat Khaibulin:

“Khaibulin, the Tartar had never seen a staircase, a locomotive, or an
electric light until he had come to Magnitogorsk a year before. His
ancestors for centuries had raised stock on the flat plains of Kazakhstan.
They had been dimly conscious of the Czarist government; they had had
to pay taxes. Reports of the Kirghiz insurrection of 1916 had reached
them. They had heard stories of the October Revolution; they even saw
the Red Army come and drive out a few rich landlords. They had attended
meetings of the Soviet, without understanding very clearly what it was all
about, but through all this their lives had gone on more or less as before.
Now Shaimat Khaibulin was building a blast furnace bigger than any in
Europe. He had learned to read and was attending an evening school,
7
learning the trade of an electrician. He had learned to speak Russian, he
read newspapers. His life had changed more in a year that that of his
antecedents since the time of Tamerlane.”xxix

Yet such rapid progress did not come without significant costs: “Money was
spent like water, men froze, hungered, and suffered, but the construction work
went on with a disregard for individuals, and a mass heroism seldom paralleled in
history.”xxx
Neither Scott nor Smith were able to fully make sense of this disregard for
human life. And both men document vividly the poor health and safety
conditions found in their respective workplaces. As Smith recalls:

“I found a drill press hand operating a Tielle drill of German manufacture.
His head and his hand were covered with a filthy bandage. He was making
a 15 millimetre boring in a piece of steel, a size of boring which requires
an extremely slow speed of operation. This worker was running his
machine at high speed. The spindle and drill were smoking furiously. In
addition I saw with astonishment that he was operating the drill without
clamping or bolting the piece on the machine table. I rushed up and said:
‘What is the matter with you? Do you want to be killed? Why don’t you
clamp your work down?”
‘I can’t help it,’ the worker replied. ‘We have no time for such things. I had
an accident only a few days ago. Look at my head and my hand. I was
struck by a piece of steel. But I must keep on, otherwise I will not reach
my quota.’
I had noticed the enormous number of workers with bandages, in
all parts of the factory. I should say that almost one in every three showed
signs of injury. What I had seen… made me more dissatisfied than ever.”xxxi

But it is Scott who bears witness to the more gruesome and serious accidents:

“I was just about to start welding when I heard someone sing out, and
something swished down past me. It was a rigger who had been working
up on the very top. He bounced off the bleeder pipe, which probably saved
his life. Instead of falling all the way to the ground, he landed on the main
platform about fifteen feet below me. By the time I got down to him, blood
was coming out of his mouth in gushes. He tried to yell, but could not.”xxxii
8

Unsurprisingly, Scott is noticeably shaken by what he had seen: “I went toward
the office with Kolya and told him about the rigger. I was incensed and talked
about some thorough check-‐up on scaffoldings.” But Kolya did not share his
worry, and explained to Scott “that there was not enough planking for good
scaffolds, that the riggers were mostly ploughboys who had no idea of being
careful, and that at thirty-‐five below without any breakfast in you, you did not
pay as much attention as you should.” In his eyes, accident and injury were a
small price to pay for the progress his country was making: “’Sure, people will fall.
But we’re building blast furnaces all the same, aren’t we?’ And he waved his hand
toward No. 2 from which the red glow of the flowing pig iron was emanating. He
saw I was not satisfied. ‘This somewhat sissified foreigner will have to be eased
along a little,’ he probably said to himself.”xxxiii
Indeed, although he does have to be ‘eased along a little,’ Scott eventually
does begin to, if not necessarily agree, at least to cope with the fact that such
suffering was necessary for the rapid industrialisation he was helping to achieve.
In his words, “I found satisfaction… in the knowledge that despite incredible
difficulties Magnitogorsk was already producing nearly ten percent of the
country’s output of pig iron.”xxxiv Scott’s ability to cope with such hardship, once
again, appears by no means unique. Rather, research by Davies has suggested
that this was a trait common amongst the Soviet populous during these years.
Her work on Soviet popular culture persuasively argues that the majority of the
population did not become ‘dissatisfied’ like Smith, but rather found ‘… a safety
9
valve for [their] daily frustrations.’xxxv Indeed, as she has argued, the prominence
of ‘the anecdote’ in Soviet mass culture provides testimony to this. As Bakhtin
noted, humour:

“Cuts the double body in two and separates the objects of the grotesque
and folklore realism that were merged within the body. The new concept
seeks to complete each individual outside the link with the ultimate whole
– the whole that has lost the old image and has not yet found the new
one.”xxxvi

Indeed, Scott offers numerous examples of anecdotes directed at the ironies of
Soviet industrialisation:

“A bearded Soviet engineer who had been in the plane remarked, ‘Two
hours from Chelyabinsk to Magnitogorsk, a trip which takes twenty hours
on the train – and then we spend four more hours to get from the
aerodrome to the city. That’s Bolshevik tempo!”xxxvii

Thus the anecdote was a means of coping with the hardship, deprivation, and
paradoxes which resulted from such rapid industrialisation; it offered a means of
explaining away such things until industrialisation was finally complete. If one
expands this notion to include the works of Foucault, it is possible to consider
that explanations such as Kolya’s reflect ‘… a conception of truth in which truth is
neither a correspondence between words and things, nor a question of internal,
logical consistency; rather it is a question of what we could call a subjective
consistency, or a correspondence between discourse and action.’ In other words,
Kolya’s explanation emerged from ‘a certain relation with the self; it became a
question of “transfiguring the subject.”’xxxviii
It is worth noting that Smith receives a comparable explanation for these
low standards of health and safety and general disregard for human life:
10

“Don’t worry, Comrade Smith, because you do not find conditions as good
as you expected to find them here. Don’t worry that you saw people dying
of hunger. If twenty million die of hunger, we still have plenty of people to
continue our work. And what does it matter if millions of people die, as
long as we are building Socialism? Don’t worry your head about things
which you do not understand, and which do not concern you, Comrade
Smith… You have enough, haven’t you? If you do not have enough all you
have to do is ask for more. Meanwhile, don’t worry about the rest of the
workers. Keep yourself strong and healthy. When we have established
Socialism, the rest of the workers will have it better too.”xxxix

However he is never able to ‘cope’ in the same way as Smith:

“When I heard Jurov explain this new Communist doctrine, it seemed to
me that the world had turned topsy-‐turvy. I thought of the memorable
words of the Communist Manifesto, ‘They [the Communists] have no
interests separate and apart from those of the proletarian as a whole,’
which I had so often read, and taken so deeply to heart.”xl

Even the vast progress taking place all around him provided no solace: When
asked by Brodskaya, “but what are these gigantic factories we are building? Is
this not socialism?” He snappily retorts:

“I don’t call that Socialism at all. The factories are run by the State, but for
the gain of certain individuals. Under Socialism the workers are entitled
to the full product of their labour. But here the workers starve and a small
privileged group appropriates the products for itself. Under Socialism if
production increases, then the workers are supposed to benefit by
improved conditions and increased equality. But here as production
increases, the condition of the workers becomes worse… I never learned
such Socialism… Nor do I care for such a system… I struggled all my life for a
different kind of Socialism, for a Socialism under which all the workers will
be happy and receive the full product of their labour.”xli

Thus, having travelled to the Soviet Union believing it to be the quixotic
“fatherland of the international proletariat”xlii in which he and his wife could
make a happy life, he left “heartbroken.”xliii Somewhat paradoxically, however,
Smith’s personal experience of these years of industrialisation, (when compared
to Scott’s), appear remarkably favourable. Having arrived as a foreign specialist
11
and a party member, he was able to enjoy a number of privileges not shared by
the majority of the population – for instance he earned a comfortable salary of
450 roubles a month, and received his own apartment. But his idealistic Marxist
convictions mean that, rather than viewing these privileges as clear and tangible
signs that the Soviet Union was progressing along the road to Communism, (as it
appears many Soviet citizens did, and indeed as did Scott); he instead becomes
overwhelmed by guilt and disillusionment.
It is for this reason that Smith’s memoir is problematic in terms of its use
as a historical source. He leaves convinced that, “these leaders, these racketeers,
they fooled me when I was here in 1929. That Stalin and his system! He is
responsible for the fact that many American workers have come here.”xliv His
bitterness and guilt inspired him to write a memoir that sought to ‘tell the truth’
about what life was really like for the workers living in the “fatherland of the
international proletariat,”xlv in order that others do not make the same mistakes
that he did. In his own words: “It was precisely these privileges which we
enjoyed along with Soviet bureaucracy, in the face of the most abject misery of
the great mass of Russian people, which aroused our intense dissatisfaction and
moved us to the resolve that we would spare no effort to disclose the actual
situation to the American people.”xlvi
Yet too was it precisely these privileges that meant he had never actually
experienced first hand the life of the workers he wished to document. As such he
consistently exposes only the very worst aspects of his time in the Soviet Union -‐
not once does he make any reference to the sensational economic progress or the
12
genuine enthusiasm witnessed by Scott. As a consequence of this inability to
immerse himself into the Soviet way of life, he ends up largely misjudging what
he believed to be the popular consensus among the Soviet population. To Smith,
these years of rapid industrialisation represented “their deepest hour of trial and
tribulation” in which they so urgently needed “… help and sympathy.”xlvii
Scott, on the other hand, leaves the Soviet Union not because he
can no longer cope with the hardships and deprivation, indeed not even of his
own accord, but because he was forced out during the years of the terror because
of his status as a foreign worker. Tellingly, however, despite this he does not
leave the USSR disillusioned and bitter, rather:

“I left Magnitogorsk with considerable regret. I had put in five of
the most active years of my life in its mills. My fingers had helped mold
the blast furnaces, I had sweated in the heat of the summer, frozen my
nose and cheeks in the Arctic winter winds. I had watched millions of tons
of iron and steel roll out of Magnitogorsk to Soviet machine-‐building and
armament works. When I left Magnitogorsk I was profoundly shocked by
the fact that so many people I had known had been arrested. The whole
thing seemed stupid, unreasonable, preposterous. The Stalinist
constitution of 1936 had promised a democratic and free society. Instead
the NVKD seemed to have run away with the show, the purge had
appeared to be consuming everything that had been created. I mentioned
this to Syemichkin when I went around to bid him good-‐bye. His attitude
was much more sane and balanced than mine. ‘If I am not mistaken,’ he
said, ‘you in America tolerated chattel slavery for nearly a century after
your great constitution of freedom went into force. Your elections were
travesties of universal suffrage during the first decades after your
revolution. Our Soviet constitution is a blueprint of the future. It is a
picture of what we are building, and we will build it too. Now our elections
are ludicrous, or course. Civil liberties are restricted. But we are not yet
one generation old... Do not forget it”

“Syemichkin was right, or course. Not only that, but many people
in Magnitogorsk would have agreed with him. Very few of them had read
American history, not many could have expressed their feelings as
concisely as Syemichkin, but they felt that Russia was fighting a class war
against the rest of the world, and at the same time laying the foundations
13
for a new society farther along the road of human progress than anything
in the West; a society which would guarantee its people not only personal
freedom but absolute economic security; a society for which it was worth
while to shed blood, sweat, and tears.”xlviii

Having ‘plunged into the life’ of the Soviet workers, Scott’s analysis,
(when examined alongside more modern research), appears to offer a much
more realistic portrayal of the opinions and lives of ordinary Soviet workers
during this period. Yet he too realised that “Westerners have no place in Russia.
It is the Russian’s country, and it is their Revolution. Men and women from
Western Europe and America may occasionally succeed in understanding it, but
it is almost impossible for them to fit into it.”xlix Indeed, Scott believed himself to
be one of the few that had succeeded in understanding it. And he penned his
memoir too hoping to ‘tell the truth’ of these years of rapid industrialisation. For,
although “Socialism as it functioned in Magnitogorsk displayed numerous
shortcomings… [So too did] ... Capitalism as operated in Gastonia, Dunkirk or
Coventry…. But Socialism in Magnitogorsk did well enough so that I am convinced
that many valuable lessons can be learned from a study of it.”l

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(Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1984)

Chamberlin, William Henry, The “Anecdote”: Unrationed Soviet Humor, Russian
Review, Vol. 16., No. 3, (Jul., 1957), pp. 27-‐34

Davies, Sarah, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia – Terror, propaganda and dissent,
1934-‐ 1941, (Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Elliot, Mabel A., ‘I Was A Soviet Worker’ by Andrew Smith, American Sociological
Review, Vol. 1., No. 5, (Oct, 1936), pp. 862 – 863

Geldern, James von, and Stites, Richard, (editors), Mass Culture in Soviet Russia –
Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays and Folklore, 1917 – 1953, (Indiana University
Press, 1995)

Hessler, Julie, Cultured Trade – The Stalinist turn towards consumerism, in
Fitzpatrick, Stalinism: New Directions, (London, 2000)

Koestler, Arthur, Arrow in the Blue, (New York, 1952)

Mehnert, Klaus, The Anatomy of the Soviet Man, (translated from the German by
Maurice Rosenbaum), (London, 1961)

O’Leary, Timothy, Foucault – The Art of Ethics, (Continuum, London & New York,
2002)

Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,
(Secker and Warburg, 1942)

Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,
(Enlarged edition prepared by Stephen Kotkin), (Indiana University Press,
Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1973)

Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker, (London,
Robert Hale & Company, 1937)

Stalin, Sochineniia, I [XIV] (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution, 1967)

Timasheff, Nicholas S., The Great Retreat – The Growth and Decline of Communism
in Russia, (Arno Press, New York, 1972)

Treat, Ida, ‘Behind the Urals’ by John Scott, (Review), Political Science Quarterly,
Vol. 57, No. 4., (Dec, 1942), pp. 601 – 603

Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it going?
(New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1937)
15

Endnotes

i Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker,
(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), p. 24

ii Elliot, Mabel A., ‘I Was A Soviet Worker’ by Andrew Smith, American Sociological
Review, Vol. 1., No. 5, (Oct, 1936), p. 862

iii Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker,

iv Ibid., p. 16
v Koestler, Arthur, Arrow in the Blue, (New York, 1952), pp. 277-‐78. As cited by
Kotkin, Stephen in his introduction to Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American
Worker in Russia’s City of Steel, (Indiana University Press, Bloomington and
Indianapolis, 1973), p. xii
vi Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker,

vii Ibid., pp. 15-‐16
viii Ibid., p. 28
ix Treat, Ida, ‘Behind the Urals’ by John Scott, (Review), Political Science Quarterly,
Vol. 57, No. 4., (Dec, 1942), p. 601

x Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,

Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1973), pp. 4 -‐ 5
xi Ibid., p. 5
xii Ibid., pp. 5-‐6
xiii Ibid., p. 6
xiv Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker,

xv Ibid., p. 71
xvi Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker,
(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), pp. 43-‐45

xvii Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,

Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1973), p. 39
xviii Ibid., p. 103
xix Ibid., p. 151
xx Stalin, Sochineniia, I [XIV] (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution, 1967), pp.
79-‐101, esp. pp. 81-‐2, 89-‐90

xxi Timasheff, Nicholas S., The Great Retreat – The Growth and Decline of
Communism in Russia, (Arno Press, New York, 1972)

xxii Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it
going? (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1937)

xxiii Hessler, Julie, Cultured Trade – The Stalinist turn towards consumerism, in
Fitzpatrick, Stalinism: New Directions, (London, 2000), p. 184

xxiv Ibid., p. 185
xxv Ibid., p. 198, Stalin, Sochineniia, I [XIV] (Stanford, California: Hoover
Institution, 1967), pp. 81-‐2, 98-‐99
16

xxvi Timasheff, Nicholas S., The Great Retreat – The Growth and Decline of
Communism in Russia, (Arno Press, New York, 1972), p. 363

xxvii Mehnert, Klaus, The Anatomy of the Soviet Man, (translated from the German
by Maurice Rosenbaum), (London, 1961), p. 111

xxviii Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,

xxix Ibid., p. 16
xxx Ibid., p. 92
xxxi Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker,

xxxii Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,

Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1973), pp. 19-‐20
xxxiii Ibid., pp. 20-‐21
xxxiv Ibid., p. 80
xxxv Geldern, James von, and Stites, Richard, (editors), Mass Culture in Soviet
Russia – Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays and Folklore, 1917 – 1953, (Indiana
University Press, 1995), p. 118
xxxvi Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais And His World, (translated by Helene Iswolsky),
(Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1984), p. 53

xxxvii Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,

xxxviii CCF, 82, as cited by O’Leary, Timothy in Foucault – The Art of Ethics,
(Continuum, London & New York, 2002), p. 151

xxxix Smith, Andrew, (supplemented by Smith, Maria), I was a Soviet Worker,
(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), pp. 196-‐197

xl Ibid.
xli Ibid., pp. 228 – 229
xlii Ibid., pp. 15-‐16
xliii Ibid., p. 198
xliv Ibid., pp. 54-‐55
xlv Ibid., pp. 15-‐16
xlvi Ibid., p. vi
xlvii Ibid.
xlviii Scott, John, Behind The Urals – An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel,

xlix Ibid.
l Ibid., p. 249
17

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Candidate

Andrew Smith, ‘I Was A Soviet

for he and his wife to enjoy.vi

memoranda, rolling cigarettes, making envelopes, and for various personal

which were their own.”x

industrialisation. Yet, arguably more significantly, when Scott visits a

bitter or jealous, but rather fascinated and notably impressed:

required “material benefits” (material’nye blaga) to complement its hard-­‐won

Subsequent studies have convincingly argued that ‘only a minority… qualified

trend and continued describing Russian events as a straight-­‐line advance.’xxvi

instance, Shaimat Khaibulin:

conditions found in their respective workplaces. As Smith recalls:

along a little,’ he probably said to himself.”xxxiii

question of “transfiguring the subject.”’xxxviii

this not socialism?” He snappily retorts:

make a happy life, he left “heartbroken.”xliii Somewhat paradoxically, however,

to Scott’s), appear remarkably favourable. Having arrived as a foreign specialist

overwhelmed by guilt and disillusionment.

situation to the American people.”xlvi

leave the USSR disillusioned and bitter, rather:

although “Socialism as it functioned in Magnitogorsk displayed numerous

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), p. 24

Review, Vol. 1., No. 5, (Oct, 1936), p. 862

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), p. 15

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), p. 26

Vol. 57, No. 4., (Dec, 1942), p. 601

(Enlarged edition prepared by Stephen Kotkin), (Indiana University Press,

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), p. 41

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), pp. 43-­‐45

(Enlarged edition prepared by Stephen Kotkin), (Indiana University Press,

79-­‐101, esp. pp. 81-­‐2, 89-­‐90

Communism in Russia, (Arno Press, New York, 1972)

going? (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1937)

Fitzpatrick, Stalinism: New Directions, (London, 2000), p. 184

Institution, 1967), pp. 81-­‐2, 98-­‐99

by Maurice Rosenbaum), (London, 1961), p. 111

(Enlarged edition prepared by Stephen Kotkin), (Indiana University Press,

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), p. 62

(Enlarged edition prepared by Stephen Kotkin), (Indiana University Press,

(Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1984), p. 53

(Enlarged edition prepared by Stephen Kotkin), (Indiana University Press,

(Continuum, London & New York, 2002), p. 151

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), pp. 196-­‐197

(Enlarged edition prepared by Stephen Kotkin), (Indiana University Press,

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required “material benefits” (material’nye blaga) to complement its hard-‐won

trend and continued describing Russian events as a straight-‐line advance.’xxvi

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), pp. 43-‐45

79-‐101, esp. pp. 81-‐2, 89-‐90

Institution, 1967), pp. 81-‐2, 98-‐99

(London, Robert Hale & Company, 1937), pp. 196-‐197