Moscow Yankee

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