Moscow Yankee (Radical Novel Reconsidered)

The Depression era closing of a Ford plant sends Andy and two companions to Moscow to find work in a Soviet automotive plant, where he meets Natasha, an exemplar of the "new Soviet woman." Based on Myra Page's own experiences in Moscow during the first Five-Year Plan, Natasha is a portrait of women's contradictory social position in the early periods of socialist construction. At the core of this novel is a firsthand look at the developing forces and changing relations of production forces that bring about the conversion of Andy into a "Moscow Yankee." While revealing the political and economic policies that would inevitably lead to the demise of Soviet-style socialism, Moscow Yankee refutes the notion that egalitarian societies cannot succeed because they fail to take into account the individualism and greed of "human nature." Barbara Foley's introduction analyzes the Soviet Socialist construction in Page's novel and the politics of the novelistic form in relation to Moscow Yankee. Originally published in 1935 "A picture of Americans lured to Moscow by hope in the 'great experiment, ' and of others driven there by the depression, and of still others attracted by the simple desire to get good engineering jobs, Moscow Yankee; has a decided value . . . a sense of life, stirring in the chaos of destruction and reconstruction." -- The New York Times Book Review