J. V. Stalin
Source: Works, Vol. 13, 1930 - January 1934
Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
Transcription/HTML Markup: Salil Sen for MIA, 2008
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Dear Mr. Barnes,
Your fears as to the safety of American citizens in the U.S.S.R. are quite groundless.
The U.S.S.R. is one of the few countries in the world where a display of national hatred or an unfriendly attitude towards foreigners as such is punishable by law. There has never been, nor could there be, a case of any one becoming an object of persecution in the U.S.S.R. on account of his national origin. That is particularly true with regard to foreign specialists in the U.S.S.R., including American specialists, whose work in my opinion deserves our thanks.
As for the few British employees of Metro-Vickers,1 legal action was taken against them not as Britishers but as persons who, our investigating authorities assert, have violated laws of the U.S.S.R. Was not legal action taken similarly against Russians? I do not know what bearing this case can have on American citizens.
Ready to be of service to you,
J. Stalin
Published for the first time
1.Metro-Vickers—a British electrical-engineering firm which had contracted with the U.S.S.R. to render technical aid to enterprises of the Soviet electrical industry. In March 1933, criminal proceedings were instituted against six Britishers, employees of the Moscow office of Metro-Vickers, on the charge of engaging in wrecking at large Soviet electric power stations.
The investigation and the trial, which took place on April 12-19, 1933, established that the arrested Metro-Vickers employees had carried on espionage in the U.S.S.R. and, with the assistance of a gang of criminal elements, had organised damage to equipment, accidents and acts of sabotage at large U.S.S.R. electric power-stations for the purpose of undermining the strength of Soviet industry and of weakening the Soviet state.