SUMMARY:

This article examines immigration from North America to the Soviet Union under the immigration policy of the NEP-era Soviet state (1921–1927). Drawing on archival sources in both the United States and Russia, Sawyer contends that the failure of this policy to fulfill Soviet leaders’ goals rests primarily with those charged with recruiting and managing immigration. In supporting this argument, Sawyer interrogates the expectations of state policymakers in Moscow, their agents outside the Soviet capital, and the migrants themselves, to demonstrate that the “disillusion” narrative that has long served as the dominant explanation for the policy’s failure is not only largely incorrect, but also is dismissive of those who had very real reasons to be dissatisfied with their new lives. Far from “utopian dreamers” whose unrealistic visions of Soviet space were shattered by the horrible political realities they encountered upon arrival, most American migrants in these years held expectations that were not inherently out of reach, but were made unattainable by the disconnect between the aims of Soviet leaders in Moscow and their agents outside the capital as well as the administrative deficiencies of the early Soviet state.