Moscow Yankee by Mira Page Describes Post-Depression America

In the novel Moscow Yankee, by Mira Page, the reader is shown what it is like to live during the reconstruction period in America after the depression through the eyes of Andy. We follow Andy as he is laid off from Ford Motor company, forcing him to "go where the work is," taking him all the way to Moscow. Besides a comment on work ethic and communism there is also a view of women presented in the novel that is both empowering and disempowering with the small comments about women and the character Natasha juxtaposed with the character of Elsie.

In the beginning of the novel you are set up to believe that the Soviet Union is a frightening and essentially terrorizing place. This is displayed by the guards taking the jazz records on the train and saying: "No importing bourgeois jazz in to Russia" (Page 19). When I first read this I thought that Russia was going to be a place where there was a lot of rules and an army of men with to enforce them. This preconception that I had about Russia was that it was a very tough place to live due to the fact that they were run by a communist government, and this proved itself to be wrong throughout the course of the novel. When Andy starts working for the Red Star auto company you think that he is being threatened by the boss who visits the line often. Because Andy can not speak Russian he does not know what the boss is saying, but he immediately gets defensive assuming that the boss is angry with him. Little does Andy know that the work environment is much more laid back than it is in the US at places like Ford and General Motors.

In the novel there are a few places where women are spoken about in a negative way, which was very confusing for me. I do not know much about Russia and the ideas of communism, and to some extent I expected the degradation of women, but was surprised when the character of Natasha was introduced to the story. The first real impression of women that the reader gets in the novel is through the stories about Elsie that Andy tells. Elsie is a selfish liar, who is embarrassed to tell her coworkers about what Andy does for a living, and she turns out to show that she was never actually in love with him she does not come to Moscow to be with him. The bold contrast to Elsie is Natasha, who is more of an equal for Andy. She works alongside of him and she is not a girl who is preoccupied with getting dressed up or with buying lavish things. She is a woman who is working to earn a living, she is strong, and she will do what she has to despite what her feelings tell her. Her strength is evident with she finds out about Elsie and confronts Andy, "About me? Don't worry. Thank you. I manage quite well by myself." (252) she then turns and walks away, leaving Andy to basically feel like a jerk.

The book, for me, basically laid out the idea that communism or socialism could present answers to many of society's problems despite the negative views and beliefs that people have about the class structures. In the book the only way that equality for all people is going to be achieved is through men and women working together in order to gain rights and freedoms. I think that this is a much better approach to social change than men simply running revolutions and silencing the women of the society, because nothing truly gets accomplished that way.