Migration in Stalinist RussiaDuring the years of the Great Depression, an unprecedented migration of American citizens moved to Russia in search of work. These people were prevented from returning from the United States because Moscow would not allow it. Tim Tzouliadis describes their life and struggle in communist Russia in the book “The Forsaken”. The majority of this book discusses Soviet-American relations and is intended to open people's eyes to what was done to these people who looked into their matters during this period. Dr. Tzouliadis does an amazing job of showing how hard and sad this experience was and really opened my eyes to what had been done to these poor American citizens. Before reading this book, I had never known that people moved to Russia to find work and were involved in a scandal that prevented their return. At the beginning of the book, Tzouliadis portrays this black and white image of these two baseball teams. You would think that this time she would be happy and joyful, but she isn't. These men quickly learn that what they are walking into will be the end of most of their lives. It is just the beginning for these American migrants as he explains that it is the beginning of “the most sustained campaign of state terror in modern history” (Tzouliadias 1.). The names of the two teams are Autoworkers Club of Gorky and Foreign Workers Club of Moscow. Baseball is a sport that these men brought from the United States. Tzouliadias really starts this book happy in the sense that the men are moving to Russia looking for work, but it quickly leads to this sad and depressing tone once they realize what the country is really like. There were many factors driving these citizens to abandon American and Russian... middle of paper... absolutely disgusting. The fact that our own people could not help fellow Americans who were just looking for work and a better life for their families. This book gives people a better understanding of our relationships with the Western world at that time and means that there was a lot more brutality going on than is generally talked about. A famous journalist named Walter Duranty estimated in 1942 that about “thirty or forty thousand” were killed during this terror. I believe these numbers are extremely high and should be examined more in 20th century history. It's a shame what happened to these American men who went over there looking for a happier life, but instead faced the hardest and most brutal moments of their lives. Works Cited Tzouliadis, Tim. Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Print.