Foreign workers in the Soviet Union

Of those, 50% were German or Austrian, 25% were American, and the rest were Finnish, Czech, Italian, French, Spanish, Swedish, and Japanese workers.

Between 1920 and 1922 about 10,000 Russian-Americans who had earlier emigrated to the United States made their way back to the Soviet Union, either voluntarily or through deportation by American authorities.

[1] A permanent commission on foreign immigration was formed under the STO (Sovet Truda I Oboroni), which received approximately 420,000 requests for admission between 1922 and 1925.

Some fled their home countries due to their experiences of racism, hoping that Soviet Russia would provide a better environment for racial equality than their homelands.

[2] Some radical western women also came to the Soviet Union in the 1920s, curious about a country that claimed to have achieved gender equality.

The Amtorg Trading Corporation, the Soviet Union’s trade representation in the United States, announced it had received more than 100,000 appeals for immigration in 8 months in 1931; the socialist newspaper Die Rote Fahne reported more than a million Western workers had requested to go to Russia in that same year.

[2] However, due to the high demand and the priorities of the five-year plan, only very skilled workers, specialists, or people with instruments or machinery were allowed in.

Of those, 50% were German or Austrian, 25% were American, and the rest were Finnish, Czech, Italian, French, Spanish, Swedish, and Japanese workers.