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iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In the sprg of 1936, Lovett Fort-Wheman, an Ain Amerin man om Dallas, Texas, vanished Mosw. He had lived the Soviet Unn for nearly a , most recently wh his wife, Mara, a Rsian Jewish chemist, a cramped apartment around the rner om the Central Telegraph buildg. By then, a half-dozen Ain Amerins had settled Mosw permanently. Even among them, Fort-Wheman, who was forty-six, was a strikg sight. He wore knee-high boots, a black leather p, and a belted long shirt the style of Bolshevik missars. Homer Smh, a Black journalist om Mneapolis and Fort-Wheman’s close iend Mosw, later wrote, “He had adopted the practice of many Rsian Communists of shavg his head, and wh his fely chiseled nose set to a V-shaped face he rembled a Buddhist monk.”</p><p class="paywall">Nearly two s had passed sce the Bolshevik Revolutn tablished the world’s first Communist state, a society that promised equaly and digny for workers and peasants. In the Soviet Unn, racial prejudice was nsired the rult of palistic exploatn, and, for the Kreml, unterg racism beme a qutn of geopolil P.R. Throughout the neteen-twenti and thirti, dozens of Black activists and tellectuals passed through Mosw. Wherever they went, Rsians would give up their place le, or their seat on a tra—a practice that an N.A.A.C.P. lear lled an “almost embarrassg urty.” In 1931, after the so-lled Sttsboro Boys—ne Black teen-agers falsely acced of rapg two whe women Alabama—were put on trial, the Amerin Communist Party provid pro-bono legal fense, and ralli their support were held dozens of ci across the Soviet Unn. Two years later, Pl Robon, the sger, actor, and activist, vised Mosw and remarked, “Here, for the first time my life, I walk full human digny.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Homer Smh eventually published a memoir, “Black Man Red Rsia,” which he scribed Fort-Wheman as one of the “early Negro pilgrims who journeyed to Mosw to worship at the ‘Kaaba’ of Communism.” Fort-Wheman, Smh went on, was a “dyed--the-wool Communist dogmatist” who once said that returng to Mosw after a trip to the U.S. felt like g home.</p><p class="paywall">By the mid-thirti, however, the exuberance of Mosw’s expat muny had begun to wane. In 1934, Sergei Kirov, a leadg Bolshevik functnary, was shot ad Lengrad. Joseph Stal, who had spent the prev nsolidatg power, ed the event to jtify a mpaign of purg targetg the Communist éle. Foreigners, once fêted, beme objects of spicn. “The broom had been sweepg steadily,” Smh, who attend the heargs for a number of high-profile fendants, wrote. “Thoands of lser victims, I knew, simply disappeared or were liquidated whout benef of trial.”</p><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman had bee a polarizg figure. He uld be pedantic and grandse, wh a penchant for name-droppg. “He did his bt to proselytize and doctrate,” Smh wrote. Increasgly, Fort-Wheman me to argue that the Communist Party, orr to w more support among Ain Amerins, mt acknowledge that racism, as much as social class, fuelled their plight. For Marxist iologu, this was hery.</p><p class="paywall">One day, Smh stopped by Fort-Wheman’s apartment. He knocked a few tim, and fally Mara opened the door. “Is Gospod Fort-Wheman at home?” Smh asked, g the Rsian honorific. Mara was clearly on edge. “No, he isn’t,” she said. “And I beg you never to e here lookg for him aga!” From his reportg on the purg, Smh uld reasonably assume the worst. He later wrote, “I had been livg Rsia long enough to unrstand the implitns.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Like many Ain Amerins the early twentieth century, Fort-Wheman’s life was directly shaped by the atroci of the antebellum South. His father, Mos Wheman, was born to slavery on a plantatn South Carola. Shortly after Renstctn, he moved to Dallas and married a lol girl named Elizabeth Fort. They had a son, Lovett, 1889, and then a dghter, Hazel. When Fort-Wheman was around sixteen, he enrolled at the Tkegee Instute, the historilly Black universy Alabama, then led by Booker T. Washgton. Mos died a few years later, and Elizabeth and Hazel moved to Harlem. Fort-Wheman eventually me, too, fdg work as a bellhop and moonlightg as an actor a Black theatre troupe.</p><p class="paywall">In his mid-twenti, he went to Mexi, enterg whout a passport, and head for the Yután. The Mexin Revolutn was unr way, wh upstart anarchist and socialist movements nontg the wealthy landowng class. By the time Fort-Wheman returned to Harlem, four years later, 1917, he was a mted Marxist.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In Rsia, was the year of the October Revolutn, which Vladimir Len and the Bolsheviks, after the abditn of Tsar Nicholas II, seized power and clared a dictatorship of the proletariat. In the U.S., the appeal of Communism for many immigrants and ethnic mori was obv: few other polil philosophi at the time held out the possibily of full equaly. “It n be difficult for many who thk of the Soviet Unn through the lens of Stalism or the ‘evil empire’ to regnize all seemed to offer Ain Amerins,” Glenda Gilmore, the thor of the 2008 book “Defyg Dixie,” a history of the radil roots of the civil-rights movement, told me. “They weren’t lnal but, rather, thkg que practilly.”</p><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman enrolled a six-month urse at the Rand School, a socialist trag amy operatg out of a nverted mansn on East Fifteenth Street. He told a reporter om <em>The Msenger</em>, a Black-owned magaze that vered the polics and lerature of the Harlem Renaissance, “Socialism offers the only lastg remedy for the enomic ills om which humany is sufferg and which weigh so heavily on the lored race.”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">In the years that followed, Fort-Wheman returned to actg and began publishg theatre cricism and short fictn <em>The Msenger</em>. His stori were richly imaged and often laced wh a brash disregard for the era’s racial mor. In “Wild Flowers,” Clarissa, a Northern whe woman wh “a slight but well-kn figure,” has an affair wh Jean, a Black man om the South “of pleasg untenance, and the early flh of manhood.”Eventually, Clarissa gets pregnant, and she tri to hi the affair by accg her hband of harborg Black anctry.</p><p class="paywall">As soldiers returned om the First World War, creased petn for jobs and hog ntributed to risg racial tensns the Uned Stat. Durg the summer of 1919, some twenty-six race rts broke out across the untry. In Chigo, a Black teen-age boy who drifted on a raft to a wh-only area of Lake Michigan was attacked wh rocks and left to drown by a crowd of whe bathers. In the vlent aftermath, hundreds of Black bs and hom on the South Si were stroyed, and nearly forty people were killed.</p><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman set off on a speakg tour, the hope that this natnwi spasm of racist vlence, known as the Red Summer, would open up Ain Amerins to his radil msage. A labor anizer om Illois pared him to “a man rryg a flntg torch through dry grass.” Fort-Wheman was taed Youngstown, Oh, after tryg to nvce Black laborers to jo strikg steelworkers. He drew a meagre dience St. Louis, where the police arrted him, boastg to the lol papers that they had bted the “St. Louis Soviet.”</p><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman eventually ught the attentn of the Bure of Invtigatn, soon to bee the F.B.I. In Febary of 1924, an agent named Earl T, one of the first Ain Amerins to work at the Bure, saw Fort-Wheman speak Chigo. As T wrote his report, Fort-Wheman told the crowd that “there is nothg here for the negro, and that until they have a revolutn this untry as they have had other untri, the negro will be the same.” Fort-Wheman add that he “would like very much to go to Rsia.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Two crows a field judge two srecrows drsed as tourists." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Let’s eat somewhere that isn’t so touristy.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Jeremy Nguyen</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair 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6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Four months later, at the age of thirty-four, he got his chance: he was selected as a legate to the Fifth World Congrs, the preëment gatherg of the Communist Internatnal, to be held that summer Mosw.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">On arrival, Fort-Wheman and other legat to the Comtern, as the Communist Internatnal was known, were taken to Len’s msolm, on Red Square. The father of the Revolutn had died six months earlier, and his body lay perpetual state, attractg pilgrims om all over the world. Stal had been named the head of the Party, but he had not yet solidified power. Bolshevik polics were a limal phase, marked by a boistero bate over the future of Communism. Everythg seemed up for grabs, cludg the Comtern’s policy toward recg and anizg Ain Amerins.</p><p class="paywall">Durg a ssn voted to the “natnal and lonial qutn,” Fort-Wheman was given the floor. Stal was the dience, along wh foreign legat such as Palmiro Togliatti, a lear of the Italian Communist Party, and Ho Chi Mh, then a young Vietname socialist, who had travelled to Mosw on a fake Che passport. Fort-Wheman began by explag the Great Migratn: Blacks were movg north, he said, not only search of enomic opportuny but also as an “exprsn of the growg revolt of the Negro agast the persecutns and discrimatns practiced agast them the South.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman suggted that issu of race and class, varyg and overlappg ways, were rponsible for the opprsn of Ain Amerins. “The Negro are not discrimated agast as a class but as a race,” he said, seemg to acknowledge that this was a ntroversial statement. For Communists, he ntued, “the Negro problem is a peculiar psychologil problem.”</p><p class="paywall">Much of the ngrs was leisurely. Delegat went boatg on the Mosw River and attend a classil-mic ncert held along the shore. At the end of the three-week event, Fort-Wheman cid to rema Mosw. He was ved to enroll as the first Ain Amerin stunt at the Communist Universy of the Toilers of the East (K.U.T.V.). Whe Amerins attend the Internatnal Len School, Mosw’s premier amy for foreigners. But, bee Soviet policy emed Ain Amerins a “lonized” people, they were to study at K.U.T.V., alongsi stunts om Cha, India, Indonia, and elsewhere. (Ho Chi Mh was a stunt there; so, too, was Deng Xiaopg, the future Che lear.) Stunts spent nety mut a day on Rsian lsons, and the rt of their time readg Communist texts.</p><p class="paywall">That summer, Fort-Wheman embarked on a tour of the Soviet Unn. Gilmore, her book, reunts that a Cossack divisn Ukrae ma him an honorary member; Soviet Turktan, rints voted to rename their town Whemansky. The archiv of W. E. B. Du Bois nta a letter om Fort-Wheman, wrten “om a village ep the heart of Rsia,” which he scrib how the many natnali of the Soviet Unn “live as one large fay, look upon one another simply as human begs.” He tells Du Bois of evengs spent wh his K.U.T.V. classmat, stagg open-air theatril performanc the fort: “Here life is poetry self!”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="7hzm"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="6mkp"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Back Mosw, Fort-Wheman settled to his room at the Hotel Lux, where he wrote a number of letters to top Communist officials. I read them the Comtern archive, held the buildg that once hoed the Marx-Engels-Len Instute—a five-story edifice what is now a posh stretch of central Mosw, across om a Prada boutique. Fort-Wheman asked Grigory Zoviev, a powerful Bolshevik and the head of the Comtern, about the possibily of enlistg “the disntented elements of the Negro race Ameri to the revolutnary movement.” He noted that, though Ain Amerins were the most opprsed group the Uned Stat, Amerin Communist anizatns had done ltle to reach out to them. Even if most Black workers had not read Marx, they had been phed toward radilism by the ccible of Amerin racism. The Party, he wrote, mt “rry Communist teachg to the great mass of Amerin black workers.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Fort-Wheman soon returned to Chigo, where he tablished the Amerin Negro Labor Congrs (A.N.L.C.), a fom for Communists to make their pch to Black workers. Not long after he arrived, he ran to Oliver Goln, a iend om his stunt days at the Tkegee Instute. Goln, who was his late thirti, worked as a railway porter. Fort-Wheman was walkg down the street a Rsian bloe and boots. Goln later relled, “I asked him what the hell he was wearg. Had he e off stage and fotten to change cloth?” Fort-Wheman said that he had jt returned om Rsia, and asked if Goln wanted to study Mosw. Goln remembered, “At first I thought he was kiddg, but, man, I would have done anythg to get off those dg rs!” A uple of weeks later, Goln was on a boat head across the Atlantic.</p><p class="paywall">That year, Fort-Wheman dispatched ten Black stunts to study at K.U.T.V. “Feel assured that the universy will be satisfied wh the group of young men and women I am sendg,” he wrote to K.U.T.V.’s director. The New York <em>Herald Tribune</em> reported that Fort-Wheman hoped for his recs to “do some real upheavg when they e home,” and that he planned to open a K.U.T.V. branch Harlem wh urs such as “Enomics of Imperialism” and “History of Communism.” The journalist, clearly alarmed, wrote, “The flame of Bolshevism, kdled by Len and threateng at one time to set all Europe ablaze, is beg quietly ncentrated upon the Uned Stat through the stment of the Amerin Negro.”</p><p class="paywall">Harry Haywood, a child of enslaved parents, who had served a Black regiment the First World War, helped Fort-Wheman anize the Amerin Negro Labor Congrs. (His olr brother Otto was among the men whom Fort-Wheman nvced to study at K.U.T.V.) Haywood, his memoir, “Black Bolshevik,” published 1978, wrote, of Fort-Wheman, “There was no doubt that he was a showman. He always seemed to be actg out a part he had chosen for himself.”</p><p class="paywall">On the eveng of October 25, 1925, five hundred people assembled a rented hall on Indiana Avenue, Chigo, for the A.N.L.C.’s foundg nventn. The program, which Fort-Wheman had arranged, quickly went awry. A member of a “Rsian ballet” pany—actually ma up of whe Amerin dancers—shocked by all the Black fac the dience, shouted a racial slur. Someone yelled back, “Throw the cracker bch out!” The pany refed to go on. A Soviet theatre troupe performed a one-act Phk play, Rsian. “Of self, was undoubtedly tertg,” Haywood noted. “But s relevance to a black workers ngrs was, to say the least, que unclear.”</p><p class="paywall">After the nventn, Fort-Wheman mounted a barnstormg tour of dtrial ci, vg prs attentn wherever he went. In Baltimore, the lol Ain Amerin newspaper wrote, approvgly, “If this is red propaganda, then for God’s sake let all our lears supply themselv wh a pot and a bsh and give 12,000,000 lored people this untry a genero atg.” The whe prs reacted wh predictable hysteria. In 1925, an article <em>Time</em> referred to Fort-Wheman as the “Redst of the Blacks.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman never ventured farther south, where the vast majory of Ain Amerins lived. The A.N.L.C.’s recment efforts flounred. A Communist Party directive the Comtern archive not the failure of Fort-Wheman’s missn, rmg Party members that “all shortgs tactics and anizatn mt be ankly brought to light.” One high-rankg Black official the Workers Party of Ameri clared that the anizatn end up “almost pletely isolated om the basic mass of the Negro people.”</p><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman was removed as head of the A.N.L.C. 1927. It appeared that his great ambn had failed: he hadn’t nvced many Ain Amerins that socialist revolutn was a means for battg racism, nor had he nvced his Communist brethren Mosw that Ain Amerins were opprsed based on their race. But Fort-Wheman wouldn’t let the matter drop.</p><p class="paywall">In an article the Comtern’s official an, he wrote that “race hatred on the part of the whe mass extends to all class of the negro race.” This bate about the rol of race and class the perpetuatn of equaly ntu among leftist activists and thkers today. “It was clear then, as is now, that, Ameri, race <em>class</em> you,” Gilmore told me. “Fort-Wheman and others were talkg about which should be fixed first.” If race is a social nstct, then an egalarian revolutn uld be seen as a means for achievg racial equaly, too. But, Gilmore add, Fort-Wheman had a different notn: “Even as a voted Communist, he unrstood that, Ameri, always me down to the fact that he was a Black man.”</p><p class="paywall">In the Comtern archive, I read an “edorial note” that Fort-Wheman’s ras later attached to his say, llg his posn “very superficial.” Fort-Wheman, they warned, was “shiftg om the Communist to the petty bourgeois natnalist pot of view.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">At the Sixth Congrs of the Comtern, the summer of 1928, there was a major bate about how bt to agate for Communist revolutn among Ain Amerins. Some people wh the Party phed for recg sharecroppers and ral laborers the South. Fort-Wheman, who had returned to Mosw as a legate, argued that was better to wa out the Great Migratn, anizg Black workers once they beme urban proletariat the factori of the North. His posn aligned wh that of Nikolai Bhar, the edor of <em>Pravda</em>, who saw palism as ascendant; worldwi revolutn, Bhar argued, would have to be ferred. Stal, of urse, disagreed.</p><p class="paywall">But, even as Fort-Wheman found himself opposn to the Communist mastream on the “Negro qutn,” as Comtern iologu lled , he was thrivg the Soviet Unn. He studied ethnology at Mosw State Universy and spent a summer Murmansk, the Arctic Circle, rearchg the effects of hydrogen ncentratn water on fish metabolism. The Mosw <em>Daily</em> <em>News</em>, an English-language paper, hired him as a ntributor. His clips reflect an omnivoro md, on subjects rangg om early radiatn therapi (“The rult of this experiment was a 70 per cent cure of ncero mice”) to the fna of wtern Siberia (“The expedn reports the prence of an abundance of elk”). In an terview that Smh nducted for the Chigo <em>Defenr</em>, a Black-owned paper, Fort-Wheman scribed the Soviet Unn as a place where “the Negro is untrammeled by artificial racial rtrictns to make a genue ntributn to human culture.”</p><p class="paywall">Along the way, he married Mara, a chemist her late twenti, although, as Smh rells, Fort-Wheman’s Rsian was still dimentary, and Mara’s English wasn’t much better. Soviet thori opened an Anglo-Amerin school Mosw, to te the children of foreign workers; Fort-Wheman took a job there, as a science teacher. Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, a celebrated poet, wrote a verse about a vis to Fort-Wheman’s classroom: “The black teacher Wheman / Leads the lson. / From my heart I draw my words / From the ept reach wh / I see aga, and aga, and aga / You, my Black ra!”</p><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman was eager to mentor the other Ain Amerins livg Mosw. He regularly hosted lunch at his apartment, where he expound on Marxist theory and boasted about his nnectns to top Bolsheviks, such as Bhar and Karl Rak, an Atrian-born Jewish Communist and a former secretary of the Comtern. He also implored his visors to rema acutely aware of their race. This emphasis on lor nscns, which ran unter not only to reigng Communist theory but also to the everyday experience of beg Black Mosw, was often met wh ristance. One of Fort-Wheman’s guts suggted that, if he enjoyed “gog around wh a black chip on his shoulr,” he should return to the Amerin South. Smh later wrote, “His Negro guts relished the food and drks, but the doctratn dish did not prove as digtible.”</p><p class="paywall">In 1931, a productn pany fanced by the Comtern backed a big-budget movie, “Black and Whe,” about the Amerin race problem. The film was set Birmgham, Alabama, and featured Black stokers steel ls and domtic workers affluent whe hoeholds. Fort-Wheman was enlisted as a screenwrg nsultant. A number of aspirg Black actors the U.S. exprsed tert takg part. Langston Hugh joed on as a wrer.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In the early-morng hours of June 14, 1932, twenty-two Black stunts, teachers, actors, and wrers set off om New York, travellg to Germany on the ocean ler Europa, and then by tra to Mosw. Fort-Wheman met them on the platform wh a wele party that clud most of the cy’s small Ain Amerin muny. As Hugh later relled, vokg a popular spirual, “Certaly lored ra Wheman didn’t look anythg like <em>a motherls chile, a long ways om home</em>.”</p><p class="paywall">The Amerins spent the next few weeks dancg at the Metropol Hotel, vortg wh nu bathers along the riveront, and embarkg on love affairs. A member of the pany was soon engaged to a Rsian woman; Mildred Jon, an art stunt at the Hampton Instute, Virgia, was pursued by an official om the Soviet Foreign Mistry. Acrdg to Smh, one uple were so engrossed their renzvo on a rowboat the Mosw River that they failed to notice the boat was skg.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="cftve9"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Fort-Wheman had helped wre the first draft of the “Black and Whe” script. I found a py at the Rsian State Archive of Lerature and Art, where a typewrten note om the teemed Soviet filmmaker Boris Bar was attached to the first page. “This picture tri to provi a historil perspective to the narrative of the enslavement of Amerin Negro, which is part of the general enslavement and exploatn of the palist system,” Bar wrote. “Even if dividual events this picture may seem grotque or almost credible, the flt li not wh the thor but wh the viewer himself, who liberately clos his ey to the celty of the palist system.”</p><p class="paywall">Hugh, put charge of revisg the script, found the draft “improbable to the pot of ludicrons.” He relled, “I was astonished at what I read. Then I lghed until I cried.” A number of the film’s scen, cludg one which the son of a rich whe dtrialist asks a Black servant to dance at a party, were “so terwoven wh major and mor impossibili and improbabili that would have seemed like a burlque on the screen.” At one pot, a well-heeled palist hatch a plot to keep labor unrt at bay, sayg, “You see, racial hatred allows to avoid more ser nflicts.” The workers, however, aren’t havg : “The proletariat do not see racial differenc,” one of the unn lears proclaims.</p><p class="paywall">“Black and Whe” was a dream world of Fort-Wheman’s makg. As Smh put , “He was a negro tellectual and so steeped party dogma that he had pletely lost touch wh Ameri.” Hugh told his Soviet hosts that the script was beyond savg.</p><p class="paywall">In the end, the project fell apart for reasons that had nothg to do wh Hugh or Fort-Wheman. In the tumn of 1933, after years of negotiatns, the Uned Stat agreed to grant formal diplomatic regnn to the Soviet regime. The agreement, Stal hoped, would help secure the loans and the foreign machery need to realize his Five-Year Plan, an amb race to build up dtry and morn astcture. But return the Kreml was required to lim s dissematn of anti-Amerin propaganda. “Black and Whe” was ncelled before a sgle scene had been shot.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A person on a boat wh a basket of lndry is about to enter the Tunnel of Lndry." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by J. 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His secret police, the N.K.V.D., was sendg prevly loyal Party members to an expandg work of work mps, the Gulag, the harsht rners of the untry. Smh began to sour on the Soviet Unn, wonrg, “Was the racial equaly worth the bare subsistence livg an atmosphere filled wh fear and spicn?”</p><p class="paywall">Even Fort-Wheman was havg doubts. He nfid to Smh that he feared Stal was leadg the untry away om the origal tes of the Revolutn. In October, 1933, he sent a letter to the Workers Party head office, New York. “I wish to return to Ameri,” he wrote, proposg that he work as a lecturer at the Party school on East Fourteenth Street. Soviet thori monored the rrponnce of foreigners Mosw, and the letter was tercepted before left the untry. I found Fort-Wheman’s file at the Comtern archive. A handwrten note om a top official at the Comtern’s Anglo-Amerin secretariat, scribbled across the page, stcted subordat to brg Fort-Wheman for a talk. His requt to leave was nied.</p><p class="paywall">Letters documentg Fort-Wheman’s activi began pilg up his personnel file. His rmal apartment gathergs were a e of ncern: “Fort-Wheman held the most backward view that a group of this kd should not exist as a polil enty nor wh existg stctur.” Indoctratn was the exclive role of the Party, and Fort-Wheman was gog off script.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Durg the purg, iologil disagreements and skirmish over burecratic posng often blend wh petty personal grievanc. In April, 1935, at the Foreign Workers’ Club, Fort-Wheman led a discsn about “The Ways of Whe Folks,” a new llectn of fictn by Hugh, which picts the immutabily of racism wh tragiic irony. Fort-Wheman, perhaps still stung by his experience on “Black and Whe,” was not a fan of the work, dismissg as “art, not propaganda.”</p><p class="paywall">William Patterson, a proment Black Communist and a leadg civil-rights lawyer, who had travelled to Mosw om Harlem some months before, was the dience that night. He seemed to harbor ill feelgs toward Fort-Wheman, and moved to strike agast him unr the pretext of fendg Hugh. In a letter to the Comtern, Patterson wrote that Fort-Wheman had ed his review of the book as ver for makg “a very open attack upon the Comtern posn on the Negro Qutn,” addg that Fort-Wheman should be “sent to work somewhere where ntact wh the Negro ras is impossible.”</p><p class="paywall">That summer, at the Seventh Congrs of the Comtern, a few Amerin legat met to discs what to do about Fort-Wheman’s efforts to “mislead some of the Negro ras.” It was agreed that Patterson and Jam Ford, a Black Communist who had n for Vice-Print of the Uned Stat on the Party’s slate, would take charge of the qutn. Durg the next several months, Patterson filed a flurry of letters wh the Comtern. In an elegant cursive, he alleged that Fort-Wheman had a “rotten” attu toward the Party and was preoccupied wh “the rptn of the Negro elements.”</p><p class="paywall">Once a person was intified as unreliable, the pile-on was evable; the only danger was to be seen as aquately vigilant llg out class enemi. A kdly archivist passed me a summary of the “secret” portn of Fort-Wheman’s personnel file, still technilly off lims nearly a hundred years after s pilatn. Acrdg to the acunts of unnamed rmants, Fort-Wheman had been overheard sayg that the work of the Comtern had amounted to “empty talk,” that Stal was a “mor” figure the Bolshevik Revolutn, and that Communists held their “whe terts arer and closer” than those of Blacks. Fort-Wheman, one source claimed, nsired himself a natural “lear of the people” who would return to the U.S. and create a movement among Ain Amerins outsi Soviet fluence.</p><p class="paywall">Readg the list of Fort-Wheman’s supposed transgrsns, I pictured him strollg through Mosw those days, projectg an air of headstrong dtrns. He was still workg on mancripts and speech, teachg, travellg, and attendg the theatre—generally enjoyg the kd of spired tellectual and social life that would have been impossible the land of his birth. In the sprg of 1936, when he was orred to report to N.K.V.D. headquarters, on Lubyanka Square, how uld he have foreen the celty that his adopted untry was about to flict on him? By the time Homer Smh knocked on Fort-Wheman’s door, a few days later, he was exile.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">After the Soviet llapse, many archiv Rsia were sudnly accsible. Alan Cullison, who worked as an A.P. reporter Mosw durg the neti, spent much of his ee time rearchg the fat of Amerins the Soviet Unn. In the Communist Party archive, he found a partial rerd showg that Fort-Wheman had been banished to Semipalatsk, a distant outpost the eastern reach of Soviet Kazakhstan. It was a hard, unfivg place, but Fort-Wheman ma a life for himself. He found work as a language teacher and a boxg stctor, attractg a circle of cur lols to his sports club.</p><p class="paywall">Back Mosw, the purg had taken on a fearful momentum. Rak, the former Comtern secretary, who had mentored Fort-Wheman, was clared a traor and sent to a labor mp. Bhar was executed after providg a false nfsn at a show trial. On November 16, 1937, a squad of N.K.V.D. agents showed up at Fort-Wheman’s apartment Semipalatsk. Fort-Wheman’s vtigative file at the agency’s Kazakh bure was unearthed by Sean Guillory, a rearcher at the Universy of Ptsburgh who is workg on an d documentary about Ain Amerins the early Soviet Unn. The file clus the ttimony of a young man, whom Fort-Wheman tried to rec as a boxg pupil, reportg that Fort-Wheman had remend foreign lerature and said, “Come jo my club, we’ll earn a lot of money, travel across the Soviet Unn and go abroad.”</p><p class="paywall">For the next eight months, Fort-Wheman was held a prison cell Semipalatsk, while a “special uncil” of the N.K.V.D. was assembled to ci his fate. The Kazakh prosecutor’s office sent me a py of his se. It showed that, Augt, 1938, he was found guilty of crim cludg anti-Soviet agatn, slanrg the Party, and “cultivatg exil around himself while stillg a unter-revolutnary spir.” He was sentenced to five years a rrectnal labor mp.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="yh6pw"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="1isqmd"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">His statn was Kolyma, a regn the Rsian Far East which Aleksandr Solzhensyn scribed as a “pole of ld and celty.” Fort-Wheman was assigned to a work of forced-labor s known as Sevvostlag, where nvicts med for gold and laid new stretch of road on the ozen tundra. The prisoners were outfted wh c boots and thly padd jackets—ltle fense agast temperatur that regularly dipped to fifty gre below zero.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Wh a few months, Fort-Wheman fell behd on his work quota, and his daily food ratns were whheld. Camp guards beat him btally and often. A man of so much valy, even glamour, was rced to a <em>dokhodyaga</em>, mp slang that roughly translat as “a person nearg the end of his walk.”</p><p class="paywall">None of his Mosw iends had any ia what had happened to him. Among them was Robert Robson, an Ain Amerin toolmaker om Detro who had been reced to work Rsia by Soviet emissari who were visg the Ford Motor plant. Robson ultimately stayed the Soviet Unn for more than four s. In a memoir, he scribed an enunter wh a iend Mosw who had been a prisoner Kolyma wh Fort-Wheman. “He died of starvatn, or malnutrn, a broken man whose teeth had been knocked out,” the iend said.</p><p class="paywall">The fal document Fort-Wheman’s long rerd is his ath certifite, a fad sheet of paper held a distant archive Kazakhstan. Jt after midnight on January 13, 1939, Fort-Wheman’s ozen rpse was livered to the hospal Ust-Taezhny, a settlement rved out of fields of snow. The official e of ath was “weakeng of rdiac activy.” Fort-Wheman is the only Ain Amerin rerd to have died the Gulag, but his fal moments that distctn ma ltle difference. He was buried a mass grave wh thoands of fellow-mat who met the same fate. ♦</p><le-embed name="" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="" ntentType="llout:"><hr class="paywall"/><h2 class="paywall">New Yorker Favor</h2><ul class="paywall"><li>How we beme fected by <a href=">cha e-mail</a>.</li><li><a href=">Twelve classic movi</a> to watch wh your kids.</li><li>The <a href=">secret liv of fungi</a>.</li><li>The photographer who claimed to pture the <a href=">ghost of Abraham Lln</a>.</li><li>Why are Amerins still <a href=">unfortable wh atheism</a>?</li><li>The endurg romance of the <a href=">night tra</a>.</li><li>Sign up for our daily <a href=">newsletter</a> to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</li></ul></le-embed></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div 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What will take to fd them?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Matthew Hutson</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Could Put Lose Power?" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">The Weekend Essay</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Could Put Lose Power?</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">Regime stabily is a funny thg. 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Mar Vargas Llosa" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Daily Comment</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Puzzlg, Increasgly Rightward Turn of Mar Vargas Llosa</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">The wrer has shocked many by endorsg Lat Ameri and Spa’s risg thorarian movements.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div 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