"You will not be allowed to leave this country, no matter how many times you try." The colonel from the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs did not look up at me as he spoke. With difficulty, I had obtained an appointment to see the head of the department of visas and registration (OVIR) in Moscow. On that day in 1960, I had come to appeal the refusal to let me visit my parents in the United States. My husband had died and I had made up my mind to do everything in my power to return to the land where I was born...Though I ...
Read More
"You will not be allowed to leave this country, no matter how many times you try." The colonel from the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs did not look up at me as he spoke. With difficulty, I had obtained an appointment to see the head of the department of visas and registration (OVIR) in Moscow. On that day in 1960, I had come to appeal the refusal to let me visit my parents in the United States. My husband had died and I had made up my mind to do everything in my power to return to the land where I was born...Though I have now lived in the United States longer than in the Soviet Union, the thirty-four years I spent there - my entire youth - were the most significant years of my life, as was the historical period I was compelled to live through. Hence my story. At the beginning of 1931, Mary M. Leder was a fifteen-year old teenager attending high school in Santa Monica, California. By the year's end, she was living in a Moscow commune thousands of miles from her family and learning a trade in a factory. She would spend the next thirty-four years of her life in the Soviet Union, half of them as a dedicated member of the Young Communist League who looked forward to full-fledged membership in the Communist Party. Yet, by the mid 1940s, Mary's loyalty to the USSR would collapse, eroded by the ugly anti-Semitism and xenophobia of post-war Russia. Although the young woman who came to Soviet Russia in 1931 believed in socialism and internationalism, she was totally disillusioned when she finally returned to the United States in 1965. My Life in Stalinist Russia chronicles Mary's experiences from her parents' Depression-era decision to leave the United States for the Soviet Union and her separation from them when she was sixteen until she returned to America. The narrative focuses primarily on 1931 to 1953, the era when Joseph Stalin wielded supreme power. Through Mary's eyes, we see the Soviet Union during the First Five-Year Plan, Stalin's Great Terror, the German invasion of the USSR and World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War. This unique autobiography presents a vivid view of life within Stalinist Russia.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 850grams, ISBN: 0253338662.
