The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia

by Tim Tzouliadis

In the Lubyanka, Alexander Dolgun’s MGB interrogator took evident pleasure in ridiculing an American letter of protest written on his behalf: “Fuck your embassy. That’s all you are going to hear from them. That’s the end of it. That’s all they are good for. You are going to be here for the rest of your life, do you understand that?”19 Transferred to the notorious Lefortovo Prison, Dolgun was put on the “conveyor” and placed in an isolation cell painted black. Severe physical abuse continued for nine months, as his interrogators attempted to force his confession to an alleged espionage plot while screaming at him, “The State fucks you, you stupid son of a bitch.” As the starvation and torture continued, Dolgun’s hair fell out and his weight dropped to less than ninety pounds. By early 1950, when his condition had degenerated to the point where he could hardly walk, he was sentenced to twenty-five years at the Gulag camp of Dzhezkazgan, in the deserts of Kazakhstan.20