The Reluctant Comrade

Looks at the story of Robert Robinson, a black American, who inadvertently ended up living and working in the Soviet Union for over 40 years, until his escape in 1974. Born in Cuba and brought up in America, he went to work for the Soviet Union that was crying out for industrial technicians, in the 1930s, disillusioned with the poverty and racism endemic in the US. Whilst there, he was elected to the Moscow Soviet without his consent, and automatically lost his US citizenship. He describes meeting Stalin and living through the hunger, cold and suspicion of the Second World War and the Cold War, and of how he eventually got out of the country.

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