Acknowledgements
Writing acknowledgements for a book one has worked on for a third of a century, receiving enormous assistance from a remarkable number of scholars and others, is a difficult task.
First, let me say some words in gratitude to my dissertation committee, who could not have been better. To its chairman, Soviet historian Yuri Slezkine, whose support down the years has been invaluable. To Russian labor historian Reginald Zelnik, who told me he felt honored to help supervise my dissertation. To Russian historian Victoria Frede, who stepped in at the last moment when Reggie passed, read over the entire dissertation and made a string of valuable suggestions. To sociologist Michael Burawoy, who liked my sociological analyses of Soviet bureaucracy. And to one of Americaâs best-known labor historians, David Brody. I was his last student â in fact, he came out of retirement to participate in my dissertation committee. Having him read over what I wrote on American labor history and find it worthwhile was reassuring and good for my morale.
Other scholars who read over parts of my manuscript and gave useful suggestions were Paul Buhle, Tony Michels, Bryan Palmer, Steven Harris and Stephen Wheatcroft, as did socialist veteran Andrew Busby, who taught me âThe Cloakmakers Unionâ. He also provided first-rate stylistic advice, as did David Brody. And Alex Colston, master of how to turn a dissertation into a book people want to read, and Steven Hiatt, who finalized the job. Their assistance has been invaluable.
My extended Jewish family provided many of the photographic materials, especially my sister Dolly Holmes, artist, graphic artist, and family repository for old family photos. Her scanning, photo research and touchups were invaluable. As also was scanning and digital repair work by Martin Goodman of the Riazanov Archive.
Others who have assisted the project over the years include Michal Goldman, producer of the documentary film At Home in Utopia, and her assistant Andrew Hazelton; Dmitri Reider, who enabled me to arrange a telephone interview with Miril Londonâs old friend Esther Markish in Israel; Dick Lewisâs daughter Lucy Lewis, who found and gave me access to the file of his correspondence with my great aunt Rose Risikoff during her visits to the Soviet Union; and NYU Jewish historian Gennady Estraich, formerly managing editor of Sovetish Heymland before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I also thank my hosts overseas, especially my hosts in war-torn Ukraine, whose names I do not list due to the current situation, and whom I discuss in more detail at the end of the Introduction below.
In addition, I need to say that my late parents, Joseph Everett Holmes and Beatrice Hort Holmes, read over and gave detailed and useful comments on every chapter in the dissertation. This work is something of a family project.
Rabbi Gershon Caudill-Steinberg of the Eco-Kosher Cleaning Service, now retired, a former Mormon elder from a Harlan County coal mining family, a relative of the Hatfields, gave solid counsel on Jewish-Mormon relations. Given the central role of coal mining and miners in this book, having a son of a coal minerâs family provide spiritual counsel as well as interest and support for the book project down the years was highly useful. His encyclopedic knowledge as a scholar of âflexodox Judaismâ, of Jewish theology and traditions, was also helpful. Insofar as any traces of Jewish spiritual values are to be found in this book, that is entirely to his credit â as was first-rate cleaning service.1
Many archives and archivists aided me in my research. Of particular note are Leo Greenbaum, first of the Jewish Bund Archive and later of YIVO, and also the late Marek Web of YIVO; Peter Filardo of Tamiment; Tim Davenport of the Early American Marxism website; David Walters of the Marxist Internet Archive; and Emily Turnbull of the Prometheus Research Library. In Moscow, Soviet historian Oleg Khlevniuk, Jewish historian Oleg Budnitsky and oil historian Alexander Igolkin were very helpful, as was Robert Cherny of San Francisco State University, my mentor in my masterâs program there. His research visits to Moscow preceded mine, and he introduced me to my invaluable Moscow research assistant, Daria Lotareva. In Kiev I was assisted by Ukrainian Soviet historian Yuri Shapoval, and by Soviet Donbass historian Zoia Likholobova in Donetsk. Civil engineers Leonid Prishchepa and Gennady Trikash of Ukrpromvodchermet, the contemporary descendant of Noah Londonâs Donbassvodtrest, deserve special mention for the help they gave me with complex technical Donbass water issues. Their telling me that as late as the early 1950s, when one of them began work there, Noah London was still remembered and respected at his trust was good to hear.
Many ex-Soviet archivists were very helpful in finding me materials about Noah London and his work in the Soviet Union. Especially I wish to thank Boris Lebedev at RGAE, the Russian State Archive of the Economy in Moscow, for finding for me some particularly valuable materials on Noah Londonâs work as an industrial administrator in the mid-1930s that had managed to survive a Khrushchev-era purge of the archive by Noah Londonâs direct superior in those days, Semion Ginzburg. Who, unlike Noah London, survived the Great Terror.
Last not least, my compañera Marge Turngren has helped maintain my sanity throughout this whole decades-long project.
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