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 revolutionized relations of production in the early Soviet Union - changes that bring about the conversion of Andy into a Moscow Yankee. While revealing some of the political and economic policies that would eventually 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 portrait of Soviet socialist construction in Page's novel and the politics of novelistic form in relation to Moscow Yankee.