Robinson spent WW II mainly in Moscow, tremendously deprived and hungry. The horror of the purges ended, only to be followed by the German invasion. Back in Russia, once Stalin's purges began, he could not leave, though he tried to visit his ailing mother. Robinson signed over for another year and another, coming home just once to see his mother. Thus, when a visiting group of Russian engineers spotted him behind his machine and later offered him a one-year job in Moscow at much higher pay (which would allow Robinson's mother to move from Cuba to Harlem) with rent-free quarters, paid 30-day vacation, and so on, he went. Despite his expertise, he was victimized by the white toolmakers he worked with. He was already a machinist, but had to start as a floor sweeper in the Ford plant before being allowed to attend machinists' school and at last become the lone black toolmaker in the entire factory. Robinson left Harlem for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit when he heard about the high wages being offered machinists. He's now 80 and has spent the past 10 years back in the States-and lying low. Compelling account of a black American (with Jamaican and Cuban background) who gave up his citizenship in the early 30's to work in the Soviet Union.
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