In a strange twist of Zamyatinesque fantasy, I discovered that Chekhov House was supported by the Eastern European Fund of the Ford Foundation, established by Henry Ford in 1936. Just prior to that, Henry Ford had instigated operations that used the principles of Frederick Winslow Taylor to promote efficiency in his automobile factories—as did Lenin to advance his super-population in 1920. As extraordinary as it might sound, the name Henry Ford became well known throughout Russian villages in the 1920s—better known, in fact, than the names of many party leaders. Lenin had imported Ford Motor
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