Games played against “fraternal” teams from Moscow will sometimes be the occasion of “anti-Soviet demonstrations” by American fans; and the players will not escape blame.
All the same, the dangers of the profession are comparatively small, and you will have the satisfaction of being able to give your fellow citizens harmless pleasure at a time when there will be little of that around.
Automobile Dealer
Out of business.
Banker or Bank Employee
Banks will be among the first businesses to be nationalized. Services will be cut to the barest minimum—indeed, even checking accounts are regarded with suspicion by the Soviets. Savings will be limited to State bonds, although there will be little spare money to save. Credit cards will be abolished. (See also Businessperson.)
Barber
Barber shops will be countenanced, although any but the most orthodox haircuts will be heavily discouraged. You may not be nationalized for several years but will then become standardized and paid as a public servant, under a new Department of Internal Trade, as in other Communist countries.
Beautician
Most beauty salons will close for lack of patrons with enough money to be able to afford such luxuries. A few will remain open at the center of big cities to serve the new Communist elite and the wives of Soviet generals and senior officers.
Black
It has always been a Communist aim to penetrate and control black movements in the United States, with a view, first of all, to using them against the American system, and second, to persuading them that only under communism can the black get justice. The Russians will turn their attention to the blacks, as to the other minorities, as a major article of policy. Black Communists will at first enjoy a disproportionate chance of being given a high position. On the other hand, the importance attached by the Russians to building up black participation and cooperation in the political sphere is going to result in particularly strict purges of those black leaders and organizations that stand in the way of such plans. Those that emphasize the idea of a black culture different from the official one and unassimilable to it, such as the Black Muslims, will be crushed at once. Others will simply be placed under black Communist leaders; and these in turn will suffer the usual cycle of purges. Such groups as compete for the souls of the black population, like the Southern Baptists, will be taken over, or disrupted, with special ruthlessness as the Soviets seek to capture the black constituency.
For the unpolitical majority of blacks, the Occupation is bound to bring about a sudden turn for the worse. While equality of the races as well as of the sexes (see Feminist below) will have been proclaimed, there will be a cessation of all quotas in jobs and education and a cancellation of all “equal opportunity” and “affirmative action” programs. There will no longer be a problem of black unemployment—in the sense that people who are unemployed cannot expect to have their problems more or less sympathetically examined at their labor exchanges, but instead will be summarily directed into any kind of job or into the regular labor corps or labor battalions.
The American Communists at one time envisaged a black Soviet republic in the old “Black Belt” in the South; but this was abandoned long ago in favor of an integrationist attitude, and it now seems unlikely, although perhaps not quite impossible, that it will be revived. More probably areas with a high proportion of black population will have black mayors, and the first secretary of the local Communist party will also be black. But it is a principle of the Soviet order that the interests of the Party come first, and that key power positions must be filled according to this principle regardless of racial or other considerations. The Soviet method is to give all powers of controlling personnel to the second secretary, who, in minority areas in the Soviet Union, is almost invariably a white man appointed directly from the Central party apparatus. You will often find, in fact, that a rather shadowy figure from out of state, often white, will be the repository of real power in your neighborhood. It will be an offense for black party members to raise the issue and will result in their removal.
It will be declared that complete equality now reigns and much publicity will be given to figures proving that this is so. No independent bodies will exist to investigate or question these figures or to draw attention to spheres which have been mysteriously left unrecorded. If you do discover imbalances, you will not be in a position to launch a campaign about them unless it is a very short one cut off abruptly by arrest.
Thus in the earlier phase, the Soviets will need to strengthen their position as best they can, and in the face of sullen distaste for the new order, they will seek to use the minorities. In the long run, however, and as they entrench themselves, they will begin to place emphasis on the majority.
The Russian record with their own minorities is, indeed, very bad. In theory all nations are equal, but in practice control by Russians, the Russification of schools, and the repression of all nationalist elements is continual. In Stalin’s time eight small nations, totaling about a million and a half people, were deported—every man, woman, and child—from their homelands to Siberia and central Asia, where around a third of them died. To this day, although the charges against them have been dropped, three of these nations, numbering about half a million, are still in exile.
Bookstore Owner or Employee
Bookstores will be State-run and will only stock State-printed literature. Employment may possibly be obtained in one of the State stores, though your previous exposure to non-Communist books will render you suspect. (See also Librarian; Publisher.)
Building Contractor
You will be regarded as a virtually unreconstructible member of the bourgeoisie, and your chances of remaining at liberty are low. In any case your firm will at once be incorporated in the new Department of Construction and your workers will become low-grade state employees. (See also Contractor.)
Businessperson
Big-time businesspeople, and particularly such paladins of capitalism as bankers and stockbrokers, will almost all be arrested and sent to the labor camps. Later, a few with specialist abilities may be released, if they have survived, and put to work in the State monopolies.
On the other hand, if you are in a small business and have not given offense in other respects, you may be allowed to go on operating during an interim period. Be prepared to accept detailed instructions as to how to proceed. Raw materials and their distribution will be under central control from the outset, as we indicated earlier, and they will be in short supply; but failure to fulfill your quota and meet your obligations will not be excused on the grounds that you could not obtain your raw materials through legal channels. Unfortunately, if you are enterprising enough to obtain them illegally or on the black market, that will not be condoned either. You will be between a rock and a hard place. Moreover the taxation on your profits, if any, will be extortionate and will change in a capricious fashion. Your operations will be further hampered by the fact that a “representative” of your employees (really a nominee of the Party) will have the power to oversee all your activities.