Robert Robinson

Robert Robinson (1907–1994) was a Jamaican-born toolmaker who worked in the auto industry in the United States. At the age of 23, he was recruited to work in the Soviet Union, where he spent 44 years after the government refusing to give him an exit visa for return.

Starting with a one-year contract by Russians to work in the Soviet Union, he twice renewed his contract. He became trapped by the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II and the government's refusal to give him an exit visa. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering during the war. He finally left the Soviet Union in 1974 on an approved trip to Uganda, where he asked for and was given asylum. He married an African-American professor working there. He finally gained re-entry to the United States in 1976, and gained attention for his accounts of his 44 years in the Soviet Union.

Life

Born in Jamaica, Robinson moved with his parents to Cuba, where he grew up.^[1] He and his mother were abandoned by his father when he was six.^[2] His mother was born in Dominica and had gone to Jamaica while employed by a doctor.^[3] He and his mother emigrated to the United States and settled in Detroit. He went to local schools and became a skilled toolmaker at the Ford Motor Company, during the expansive years in the auto industry.

In 1930, a Russian delegation visited the Company, where Robinson worked as a toolmaker.^[4] The delegation leader asked him and others if they wanted to work under a one-year contract in the Soviet Union. The pay would be far greater. They were promised free rent in a grand apartment, maid service, and a car. At 23, fearing he could be laid off at any moment due to the effects of the Great Depression and the institutionalized racism in the United States, and taking into account that a cousin of a friend had recently been lynched in the South, Robinson accepted.^[5] In its effort to industrialize, the Russian delegation recruited skilled American and other foreign workers.

He arrived in Stalingrad on July 4, 1930 to begin working in a tractor factory.^[6] He renewed with another contract. After his second one-year contract expired in June 1932, Robinson went to Moscow to obtain a return ticket to the United States. Officials persuaded him to accept another one-year contract working at a ball-bearing factory.^[7] He was one of 362 "foreign specialists" at the plant when he started working there.^[8]

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the USSR. Due to the nature of Soviet news reports, Robinson and others at his plant suspected that the Soviet forces were suffering devastating loses.^[9] The Russians flocked to church that day, surprising Robinson, although after twenty-four years of Communist rule there were no priests to lead the congregation.^[10] Throughout the rest of the war, the government tolerated attendance to religious services.^[11]

Robinson survived Stalin's purges, famine and the German invasion of Russia, with Hitler's army arrested only 44 miles from Moscow. During the Eastern Front (World War II), he almost died from starvation, having as meals six or seven leaves of cabbage soaked in lukewarm water. Despite the war, the Soviets arranged for continued education. According to his autobiography, in July 1944, Robinson graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, but did not receive his diploma until two years afterwards.^[12]

Since the 1950s, he had annually applied for a vacation visa abroad and each time, it was denied. Through the influence of two Ugandan ambassadors, Robinson was granted permission to visit Uganda in 1974. He bought a round-trip ticket so not to arouse suspicion. Once there, he appealed for refuge, which was temporarily granted by Idi Amin. In 1976, Robinson married Zylpha Mapp, an African-American professor who was working at a university in Uganda.

Through the efforts of Ugandan officials, and U.S. Information Service officer William B. Davis, he was eventually allowed to re-enter the United States and re-gained United States citizenship. He lived in the US until his death in 1994. Following his return, he gave interviews about his insights into Soviet life from the inside, and was also featured in the Detroit Free Press. He was honored by the Ford Motor Company, 60 years after he began his work there. He moved to Washington, D.C. with his wife.^[13]

After returning to the United States, Robinson wrote his autobiography, with the writer Jonathon Slevin. It was published posthumously as Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside The Soviet Union (1988). He described acquaintances in the Soviet Union: Henry Smith, a journalist; Wayland Rudd, an actor; Robert Ross, a Soviet propagandist from Montana; Henry Scott, a dancer from New York City; Coretta Arle-Titz, actress and music professor; John Sutton, an agronomist; George Tynes, also an agronomist; and Lovett Whiteman, an English teacher. He noted meeting the American writers Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson in the 1930s, who had traveled to the Soviet Union. At the time, Robinson asked Paul Robeson to help him escape the Soviet Union. Robeson declined to do so as it would harm his relations with the Soviet leadership.

Robinson died of cancer in 1994. Among those attending the funeral were his wife,^[14] William B. Davis, and Mathias Lubega, former Ugandan ambassador to the Soviet Union.^[15]

References

Further reading

• Robert Robinson; with Jonathon Slevin (1988). Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union. Washington, DC: Acropolis Books. ISBN 0-87491-885-5
• Tim Tzouliadis. The Forsaken: From the Great Depression to the Gulags - Hope and Betrayal in Stalin's Russia. Little, Brown, 2009.