Racism in a "Raceless" Society: The Soviet Press and Representations of American Racial Violence at Stalingrad in 1930

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Author
Roman, Meredith
Journal title
International Labor and Working Class History
Date Published
2007-01-01
Publication Volume
71
Publication Issue
1

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URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/2376
Abstract
In late August 1930, two white American workers from the Ford Motor Company in Detroit were tried for attacking a black American laborer at one of the Soviet Union's prized giants of socialist industry, the Stalingrad Traktorostroi. Soviet trade-union authorities and all-union editors used the near month-long campaign to bring the two assailants to “proletarian justice,” in order to cultivate the image that workers in the USSR valued American technical and industrial knowledge in the construction of the new socialist society, but vehemently rejected American racism. They reinforced this image in publications by juxtaposing visual depictions of Soviet citizens' acceptance of black Americans as equals against those which portrayed the lynching of black workers in the United States.
Citation
Roman. M. (2007). Racism in a "Raceless" Society: The Soviet Press and Representations of American Racial Violence at Stalingrad in 1930. International Labor and Working Class History, 71(1): 185-203. Available on publisher's site at http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0147547907000403
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Copyright 2007 Cambridge University Press
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