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Current Publication:
Book--- JOHN SUTTON - Black Texan, Cotton Farmer for Stalin
Published Dec. 2005

For details contact Dr. Peyton Albert Hughes at:

Phone: (828) 264-4281

Fax: (828) 268-0343

hughespa@appstate.edu


         During the Depression years of the 1920-1930's, a small number of black agricultural specialists and dirt farmers from the southern US were recruited by the Communist Party USA to go to the Soviet Union. Their job was to improve cotton production, poultry production and, mechanization and irrigation projects in Uzbekistan. By 1934, most of the farmers had returned to the US. However, two of the group, John Sutton and George Tynes, remained until 1938 when Sutton was deported as an undesirable worker. Tynes remained and has generally been lost to history.
 

         Sutton was married to a Russian woman and the father of a son who because of circumstances could not go to the US. The Nazi invasion of the USSR and, specifically the southern region of Krasnodar where Sutton's family lived, led Sutton to believe his family had been killed. He remarried only to find out in the 1950's that his family was still alive. During this time he is also being hounded by the FBI under suspicion of being an agent of the Communist Party. He is not allowed to travel to the USSR and the USA authorities. Because he is under investigation by the FBI, his job opportunities are limited. It takes the influence of two younger brothers, one a NY State Supreme Court Justice, the other a mayoral candidate for NY City and the Democratic Party Manhattan Borough president, to get the FBI to finally determine he is no threat to the security of the USA.
 

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