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Excellent Book. Couldn't put it down! You have to read this book. All I can say is, WOW! I really could not put this book down and it is a large book with approx 400 pages in the hardback form. While reading this book, I laughed and I cried. It was so powerful and so moving. It really changes what we thought we knew about Russia. I have actually traveled to Russia while it was still a communist country so I thought that this book would be a nice addition to what I already knew. Let me change that statement to, "What I thought I knew". Reading this book helped me to understand the Soviet system and made it clear to me why as Americans we were followed and why the family that put us up in their apartment were very careful when they spoke to us. It really put everything in perspective for me. I also learned a great deal about the United States and our relationship to the Soviets. I wish I could speak to Robert Robinson and shake his hand and I wish there was something that someone could do to give him back the years that the Soviet system took from him. I truly wish the book would have been bigger. I wish all of Robert Robinson's memiors were available to read. Don't wait another minute-----READ THIS BOOK! Fabulous memoir! I found this book probably 15 years ago in my local library and I still remember the title, the author, and the story. It's an amazing "inside" view of real day to day living in the Soviet Union over a period of four decades. Mr. Robinson's memoir relates not only what it's like to be an American in the Soviet Union but also what it's like to be a black man in a "perfect" socialist society. We see from his first hand experience that it is not as perfect as originally advertised to him by the recruiters! But, he was able get his engineering degree which is something he would never have been able to achieve in the USA during the 1930's. I highly recommend this book! An insider's glimpse into the Soviet system This book gives an interesting view of the inner workings of the Soviet system, i.e. the day to day lives of ordinary Soviet citizens in the period from 1930 to the early 1970s when the author lived there, e.g. its very strange and dysfunctional bureacracy, ordinary living standards, morale, etc. He also provides a rare glimpse into the late 1941 evacuation of Moscow to cities to the east. Additionally, he provides some insights into the workings of the Russian mind, and Russian habits. In these respects this book has great value. A small number of American blacks have gone to live in the Soviet Union, and it seems that all or most of them sooner or later became disenchanted and accused the Soviet system and people of racism. But they never seem to examine their own black racism and its set of assumptions and hostilities towards whites. Throughout Robinson's decades in the USSR, he always sought out other blacks and it seems assumed the worst of whites there whenever situations didn't match his expectations or desires. Robinson correctly points out that the Soviet system was repressive and dictatorial, but when he ultimately fled to Uganda in the early 1970s, he had little or nothing critical to say about THAT system. At that time it was run by a bloodthirsty dictator named Idi Amin Dada, who murdered about a million or so Ugandans, waged aggressive war against his neighbors, and pretty much ruined his country's economy and infrastructure. In fact, he was an international joke. Robinson mentions none of this. In spite of his accusations of America being a sort of hell-hole for people of color and in which racial injustice is an ever-present reality, America let him in as a naturalized citizen from the Caribbean and he attained a very good job at the Ford Motor Company during the depression, and even after he gave up his US citizenship whilst in the USSR, he was once again allowed entry to America and became a citizen for a second time after he fled the Soviet Union. Surely in such a racist system steeped in hatred for black people, such events could never have occurred? Robinson does not explain these 'contradictions'. This book has some script errors - for example a number of the photographs are incorrectly captioned - but aside from that I think it is a very useful read with respect to the USSR from the 1930s thru the early 1970s. See also:
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