Name:  

Part I: Topic Overview

In the depths of the Great Depression, thousands of Americans made a fateful choice: they emigrated to the Soviet Union, trading the uncertainty of unemployment in a collapsing capitalist economy for the promise of stable work under Stalin's industrialization program. This lecture follows that exodus from its rational origins — skilled workers responding to a genuine labor shortage created by the First Five-Year Plan — through the catastrophic consequences that followed when the Soviet state reclassified its foreign guests as enemies during the Great Terror of 1936–1938. Through three individual stories (Victor Herman, Thomas Sgovio, and John Scott) and the machinery of NKVD Order 00447, the lecture examines how a totalitarian system administered mass killing with the same bureaucratic logic it applied to steel production. The lecture closes with a comparative argument: both American capitalism and Soviet socialism produced mass suffering in the 1930s, but only one system retained the structural capacity to acknowledge — and potentially reform — its own failures.

Fill in the Blanks

Complete each statement using the lecture deck. Terms in bold appear in Part II.

1. During the Great Depression, Albert Hirschman's framework identifies three responses to a failing system:  , loyalty, and exit.
2. In 1931, the Soviet agency   advertised 6,000 industrial positions in American newspapers and received more than 100,000 applications in eight months.
3. Stalin's   (1928–1932) created massive demand for skilled foreign labor to build industrial facilities with no existing infrastructure.
4. By 1931, Ford had cut its workforce from 128,000 to   workers, while American steel plants were operating at only 12% capacity.
5. Victor Herman was arrested in 1938 not for espionage, but for refusing to renounce his   — and was subsequently sentenced to 18 years at Kolyma.
6. Thomas Sgovio survived Kolyma in part by secretly drawing portraits on  ; his drawings are now held at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
7. Beginning in 1932–33, the Soviet state began confiscating foreign workers' passports for  , making it impossible for them to leave the country.
8. NKVD Order No. 00447 (July 1937) established regional arrest quotas dividing victims into Category 1 ( ) and Category 2 (Gulag sentence).
9. Ambassador Joseph Davies reported the Moscow Show Trial confessions to Washington as  , shielding the Soviet government from accountability.
10. The lecture's central comparison argues that American capitalism's failure was  , while Soviet socialism's failure was deliberately concealed — a structural difference that determined whether reform was possible.

Part II: Essential Terms & Concepts

Term  (Section)	Your Definition
Exit / Voice / Loyalty Exit as a Historical Category	After — deck + popups: Hirschman's framework; what "exit" means as a political act
Amtorg Trading Corporation Scale and Geography of the Exodus	After — deck + popups: Soviet agency; number of applicants; what it reveals about the crisis
First Five-Year Plan Scale and Geography of the Exodus	After — deck + popups: Stalin's industrialization program; why it needed American labor
Victor Herman Three Americans	After — deck + popups: Detroit teenager; celebrity parachutist; crime charged; years at Kolyma
Thomas Sgovio Three Americans	After — deck + popups: Italian-American artist; how arrested; drawings at Hoover Institution
John Scott Three Americans	After — deck + popups: Wisconsin welder; how he survived; what Behind the Urals argues
National Operations From Guests to Enemies	After — deck + popups: NKVD ethnic targeting campaigns; how Americans were reclassified
Ambassador Joseph Davies From Guests to Enemies	After — deck + popups: FDR's ambassador; what he reported about show trials; consequences for Americans
NKVD Order No. 00447 Mechanisms of the Great Terror	After — deck + popups: What it ordered; Category 1 vs. 2; quota system and escalation
Troika System Mechanisms of the Great Terror	After — deck + popups: Three-man tribunal; no defense, no appeal; processing speed
Holodomor Comparative Failure	After — deck + popups: Ukrainian famine; death toll; Soviet denial; Duranty's role
Walter Duranty Comparative Failure	After — deck + popups: NYT correspondent; what he denied; Pulitzer; institutional consequences

Part III: Study Checklist

Check each box once you can answer the statement confidently. Use your completed terms table and the deck's speaker notes.

• I can explain the difference between exit, voice, and loyalty as political responses to a failing system. (Exit as a Historical Category)
• I can describe why more than 100,000 Americans applied to work in the USSR in 1931 — and why that number was not a sign of ideological extremism. (Scale and Geography of the Exodus)
• I can explain the structural connection between the First Five-Year Plan and American emigration to the USSR. (Scale and Geography of the Exodus)
• I can compare the fates of Victor Herman, Thomas Sgovio, and John Scott — and explain what single variable determined each outcome. (Three Americans)
• I can describe how the Soviet state reclassified foreign workers from guests to enemies through administrative procedure — without a single dramatic decree. (From Guests to Enemies)
• I can explain how NKVD Order 00447's quota system reveals the organizational logic of the Great Terror. (Mechanisms of the Great Terror)
• I can explain why Ambassador Davies's reports about the show trials were diplomatically significant — and historically damaging to American citizens in the USSR. (From Guests to Enemies)
• I can describe the structural difference between American and Soviet failures in the 1930s using the terms "visibility" and "concealment." (Comparative Failure)
• I can explain the lecture's argument about what the New Deal actually achieved — and why that achievement matters beyond economic recovery. (Comparative Failure)