History of The Autonomous Industrial Colony "Kuzbass" in Foreign Research: Review of Julia L. Mickenberg’s "American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream" (2017)

Abstract

The current paper features "American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream" (2017) by Julia L. Mickenberg, PhD in American Studies from the University of Texas. The author gives a thorough account of reasons that led American women in 1920–1930 to Soviet Russia. One of the chapters is dedicated to American author and journalist Ruth Epperson Kennell (1889–1977), who worked for the Autonomous Industrial Colony Kuzbass in 1922–1924, which makes her part of a unique industrial experiment in international partnership. She fulfilled duties of a secretary and librarian and continued to work at the library of Comintern in Moscow after her contract with Kuzbass expired. In 1928 she accompanied Theodore Dreiser in his Russian tour; he chose her as a prototypefor one of the novellas in his "Gallery of women". Relying on Kennell’s archive and written accounts of other Colony members, J. L. Mickenberg suggests that American women were attracted by the communal lifestyle ofsuch organizations as AIC "Kuzbass", as long as it offered them a relief from what was considered a woman’s traditional duties and a professional and artistic fulfi which led to a paradox: American women left for Soviet Russia in pursuit of the so-called American dream. Professor Mickenberg explains some of the radical feminism in her research subjects from the point of view of psychoanalysis and shows how environment and social changes influenced private life of the "Russian Americans". The monograph proves that the constant interest for the history and heritage of the Autonomous Industrial Colony "Kuzbass" is not only local but international.