The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia.

I haven’t finished yet. It is not that my traditional reading speed has been slowed down by age or other things, but it is because the more I read this book, the more I get really angry and I have to put it down for a while.

The Forsake is the story of a group of Americans that moved to Stalin’s Russia during the Great Depression. Most did it because they were promised a job with good wages in what then was considered the utopia on this planet: The Soviet Union. Some moved because ideological motives as they truly believe in Socialism/Communism and wanted to do their part. Both groups were tragically wrong.

I am still trying to decide who was the bigger prick: Stalin and his apparatchiks who managed to erase more people from this planet even before the Nazis got the numbers they did (and the infamy), the American journalists that not only covered up the wanton massacre of fellow Americans and the Russian populace in general, the State Department and the ambassadors that were too stupid to see what was going on or did not want to see it because they were having too much of  a good time (Apparently this tradition still continues.) And FDR was a much bigger idiot and prick than I previously thought.

Just the description of the travels and life in the Gulags is worth the full price of the book. Do yourself a favor and read it.

And if you travel abroad, remember: that big building with the Stars & Stripes waving, may contain people whose job is not to take care of you but make sure they attend parties and try not to be embarrassed by Ugly Americans visiting foreign lands. If they can leave you hanging out to dry, they will.