Yes, it's Unz, which is an automatic turn-off for some, but the book review is worthwhile. I sure intend to read it. Also note, Linh Dinh has a short prelude of observations about his ongoing peregrinations before the book review begins. Scroll down if you don't dig the local color reporting.[Unz] Thanks to an Unz commenter, mark tapley, I found out about Tim Tzouliadis’ The Forsaken. Scrupulously researched and beautifully written, it’s 364 pages of harrowing yet mesmerizing reading, and entirely relevant to our times. Most instructively, Tzouliadis highlights the moral dimension of each character, from world figures to the forsaken and practically erased, even now.
Tzouliadis’ important book was completely ignored by the Washington Post and New York Times, etc., but it’s no surprise, really, for the red tinted Paper of Record had just run a remarkably bloodless, wistful and even optimistic series on Communism, The Red Century. Since there were a few unfortunate snags the first time around, let’s do it again, but more political correctly. It’s time for a Red redux!
snip
By 1937, Soviet Russia has already disappeared 17 million souls. Tzouliadis, "According to a report from Mech, a Russian-language weekly published in Poland, the [1937] census declared a population total of 159 million, instead of the projected 176, amounting to 17 million people who had disappeared [...] Stalin reacted to the news by having the hapless statisticians shot. A new census was ordered whose experts learned from their predecessors’ mistakes and wisely presented the ’correct’ set of results. Years later a secret report ordered by Nikita Khrushchev revealed that between 1935 and 1941, the NKVD arrested more than 19 million citizens."
At the beginning of the 1930’s, however, no one could foresee this impending carnage, so thousands rushed to the Socialist Paradise. "In the first eight months of 1931 alone, Amtorg—the Soviet trade agency based in New York—received more than one hundred thousand American applications for emigration to the USSR." As the country collapsed, like right now, citizens simply fled. There were "more people out of work in the United States, both actually and proportionately, than in any other nation on earth."
This influx of Americans was a propaganda bonanza for the Soviets, so they gladly touted how well these transplants were doing. In 1934, 30,000 Russians watched as a 19-year-old American, Victor Herman, jumped from an airplane to set the world free fall record, at 142 seconds. Herman was feted as "the Lindbergh of Russia."
When a black American, Robert Robinson, was assaulted by two white compatriots, the resulting trial generated worldwide publicity. Ironically, the repatriation of his assailants likely saved their lives, while Robinson would be stuck in the Soviet Union for 44 years, with his attempts to get out repeatedly thwarted.