John Dickinson "Jack" Littlepage (September 14, 1894 – July 8, 1948) was an American

mining engineer Mining engineering is the extraction of minerals from the ground. It is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, metallurgy, geotechnical engineering and surveying. A mining engineer m ...

. He was born in

Gresham, Oregon Gresham ( ) is a city in the Willamette Valley, Located in Multnomah County in the U.S. state of Oregon, bordered by Portland to the northwest and partially in the southwest. It was first settled in the early 1850s by the Powell brothers. It ...

on September 14, 1894. Littlepage was employed in the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

from 1928 to 1937, becoming Deputy

Commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means ' commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and ...

of the USSR's Gold Trust in the 1930s. He is one of the foreign recipients of the

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour () was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the Soviet state and society in the fields of production, science, culture, literature, the arts, education, sports ...

.Tzouliadis, Tim, ''The Forsaken'', Penguin, New York, 2008, pp 164-166

Biography

Alexander Serebrovsky, "one of the mainstays of the ovietregime", was charged by

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

with reforming the Soviet gold industry. Stalin had read several books about the 1849

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

, including works by

Bret Harte Bret Harte ( , born Francis Brett Hart, August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902) was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a caree ...

and

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars (), was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European ...

' book ''Sutter's Gold'', later turned into an

American film The cinema of the United States, primarily associated with major film studios collectively referred to as Hollywood, has significantly influenced the global film industry since the early 20th century. Classical Hollywood cinema, a filmmakin ...

. In 1927, the 45-year-old Serebrovsky travelled to

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

posing as a simple "Professor of Mines" (he was in fact a professor at the Moscow Mining Institute as well as a key functionary of the regime); his plan was to duplicate American mining techniques in the USSR. At one of the first mines he visited, Serebrovsky met Jack Littlepage, then age 33, who was a successful mining engineer. Littlepage initially dismissed Serebrovsky's offer of work in the USSR stating that he "did not like Bolsheviks" as they "seem to have the habit of shooting people, especially engineers." However Serebrovsky persevered and persuaded Littlepage to emigrate to the USSR with his family. Littlepage arrived on 1 May 1928 with his wife and two young daughters. In a Soviet

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

leaflet, Littlepage was said to have been "drawn to the Soviet Union by the grand scale of our construction work, the ideas of great Stalin, the chance to unfold his talents freely.", with the financial incentive left unstated. Littlepage soon learned

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

, was renamed Ivan Eduardovich and with unflagging drive "set about verifying calculations, designs, estimates, plans of work." In the following six years, the USSR's

gold production Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more complex ...

outstripped the United States' and was poised to exceed the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

's. Unlike many US citizens who emigrated to the USSR at the time, Littlepage was not forced to take up Soviet citizenship nor did the Soviet regime confiscate his US

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that certifies a person's identity and nationality for international travel. A passport allows its bearer to enter and temporarily reside in a foreign country, access local aid ...

as it did in the case of many such emigres. However he was required to ignore the use of

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

labour in the Soviet gold mines. In the midst of the Soviet repressions, Littlepage carried on his work as Deputy Commissar, advising Serebrovsky on the deployment of Alaskan-style prospecting parties in the virgin Soviet gold fields. The December 1934 assassination of Stalin's right-hand man

Sergei Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (born Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolsheviks, Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and a member of the Bolshevik faction ...

served as one of the triggers for the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

of the Soviet Communist Party. Littlepage noted that the assassination when occurred "the country had just begun to settle down to a fairly comfortable routine after the painful years which followed the Second Communist Revolution." Just a few months prior "in the summer of 1934, the Government had announced... that the federal police... would no longer have the power of arrest people.... for five years without open trial. Now the Government announced the old powers were restored to the police, and the latter began to exercise them with the greatest vigor." Littlepage's success earned him the

and a Soviet-built Ford Model A the latter being regarded as one of the most precious gifts of the time in the USSR. Littlepage was to return to the US several times to recruit more engineers into the Soviet gold mine industry: at the time of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

there was never a shortage of willing candidates. Many of the thousands of US workers who emigrated to the USSR at the time in search of work subsequently became victims of the Terror. In 1936, Serebrovsky's Russian-language book ''On the Gold Front'' was published; however his book was "withdrawn from circulation very shortly after it appeared because some of the men mentioned in it were later discovered to be conspirators." Serebrovsky was eventually "unmasked", according to Stalin's own report, as a "vicious enemy of the people" who had delivered no less than 50m gold bars to

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

. Dubbed the "Soviet Rockefeller" for his work on the Caucasian oil fields, Serebrovsky was executed and Littlepage was tainted by his connection to Serebrovsky; Littlepage found himself starved of work. Petrified Russian employees refused to come anywhere near him, a friend of an executed "

enemy of the people The terms enemy of the people and enemy of the nation are designations for the political opponents and the social class, social-class opponents of the Power (social and political), power group within a larger social unit, who, thus identified, ...

" and a foreigner at a time when foreigners were deeply distrusted by the paranoia which dominated Soviet policy.Tzouliadis, Tim, ''The Forsaken'', Penguin, New York, 2008, pp 169-171 Remarkably, Littlepage was one of the few immigrants from the US allowed to leave the USSR during the Terror: those who remained captive were killed or persecuted. Littlepage left the USSR shortly after an interview at the

US embassy The United States has the second largest number of active diplomatic posts of any country in the world after the People's Republic of China, including 272 bilateral posts (embassies and consulates) in 174 countries, as well as 11 permanent miss ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

on 22 September 1937 in which he asserted his opinion that Soviet industry Commissar

Georgy Pyatakov Georgy Leonidovich Pyatakov (; ; 6 August 1890 – 30 January 1937) was a Ukrainian revolutionary and Soviet politician. He was a leading Bolshevik in Ukraine during and after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Born in Kiev Governorate, Pyatakov wa ...

had organized "wrecking" in various gold mines. In a series of articles for ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influ ...

'' Littlepage described a continuing "Far Eastern gold rush" and the "intrepid men and women" prospecting the wastes of Eastern

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. Even when responding to questions from the US War Department, Littlepage did not mention the legions of slaves deployed to extract the gold in lethal conditions in the frozen wastelands of the

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

in north-eastern Siberia. Littlepage authored a book on his experience: "In Search of Soviet Gold" jointly with foreign correspondent for the

Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influ ...

and

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in Electronic publishing, electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 ...

Demaree Besshttps://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19620615&id=TywyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pukFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2200,4897824 (Jan 1, 1938), .

Notes

References

* *

External links

In Search of Soviet Gold by John D. Littlepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Littlepage, Jack 1894 births 1948 deaths American emigrants to the Soviet Union 20th-century American engineers American mining engineers Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour

Biography

See also

Notes

References

External links