Janna Blanter’s first memory is of her family’s apartment in urban Moscow: cramped quarters divided evenly between six families. After the Soviet Union’s communist revolution began in the early 1900s, housing became scarce, and Communist Party leadership moved the proletariat from sprawling quarters with room for servants and maids into shared apartments built by the state. 

This was Soviet luxury – one stove per family; a bed for Blanter and her mother; a folding couch for her father; and one toilet for all six families. 

“Those buildings were colorless square boxes. But we were given 650 feet,” Blanter told IW Features. “This was unheard of for just three people.” 

Blanter, who was born in the USSR in 1960, enjoyed some privileges due to her parents’ professional status. Her father was a well-respected inventor and engineer, and her mother a dentist. Their lives, of course, were still dictated by the whims of the state. What modest comfort the Blanters enjoyed came with the shackles of bribery and political surveillance. 

“Bribery was the way of life,” she recalled. “Anything you needed, you needed a bribe for.” 

To access basic groceries, for example, her mother would treat government officials free of charge, though even bribery couldn’t guarantee the family fruits and vegetables. Due to the failure of collective farming, these basic goods were available only for the bourgeoisie in private markets. 

Janna’s recollections of childhood in the USSR read like an Aleksandr Solzhenitzen novel. People avoided joking or creating deep connections with neighbors, friends, and family for fear of being reported to authorities, she said. 

This was a hallmark of Soviet era suppression tactics. A 1935 report by the Communist Party Central Committee Secretary in Soviet Russia documented a network of 27,650 resident police agents and 270,777 informants employed by authorities, who were incentivized to report on friends and family. Stalin’s penal code outlined broad “counter-revolutionary crimes” that could be reported, including contact with foreigners, treason, or anti-Soviet agitation, as well as “actions, thoughts, or lack of actions.”

According to a study published in the Journal of Public Economics, Stalin “created the impression that an elaborate network of traitors and saboteurs was endlessly seeking to undermine the Soviet Union’s progress and prestige.” The future of the Soviet Union, then, relied on the vigilance of its citizens in intercepting and reporting “enemies of the people” as a matter of ideology.  

The Soviet system rigidly controlled professions, favoring men in engineering and heavy industries while relegating women to fields such as pediatrics or dentistry. Education was similarly oppressive, as conformity was enforced at every level. 

“We were all young pioneers with little red bows,” Blanter recalled. 

School was grueling, with long hours from Monday to Saturday and the ever-present threat of sexual harassment and abuse – a reflection of broader issues in Soviet society. Blanter attended a prestigious math school sponsored by Moscow University, where “everybody had to study Lenin’s works” and make sure their uniforms were pristine at all times. 

The recycling of ideological textbooks every decade in her school initially struck Blanter as wasteful in a nation plagued by shortages. Later, it became a moment of awakening. 

“At first, I didn’t think much about it, but then it hit me: in a country where paper was in short supply, why were we doing this? It made me question everything,” she said.

Janna’s Russian-Jewish family faced outsized religious persecution, as did Jews at large. The state dismantled Jewish institutions, banned Hebrew, and suppressed Jewish religious practices, framing them as counter-revolutionary. Prominent Jewish figures, particularly intellectuals, were often accused of “cosmopolitanism” or treason, leading to imprisonment, exile, or execution. The infamous “Doctors’ Plot” of 1952 exemplified this, where Jewish doctors were falsely accused of conspiring to assassinate Soviet leaders.

The Blanters clung to their heritage in secret. Attending synagogue was an impossibility – there were people posted inside to report congregants to the state. Blanter recalled one Passover celebrated behind drawn curtains, led by a rabbi in secret. 

“The fear was palpable, but it was our only way of holding on to our identity. Jewish holidays were all about secrecy and survival,” she said.

At 16 years old, Blanter faced demands from the Komsomol, also known as the Communist Youth League, to join the group, a step required for university admission. However, Blanter already faced difficulties in regards to higher education in Moscow since her mother decided to keep her Jewish heritage listed on her passport rather than bribing officials to list her as “Russian.” This decision ended up preserving the Blanters’ chance to emigrate.

“I was already becoming subversive even before we left. In my heart, I was always a freedom-loving person,” she said.

The turning point came when the Blanters found out Russia was facing a severe wheat shortage. The United States, rich in wheat, was negotiating a trade agreement with the Soviet Union, which included a provision for Jewish families to reunite in Israel, Blanter said.

“That was the opening we needed,” she added. 

After the death of Blanter’s father in 1968, her mother discovered an uncle living in the Holy Land and applied for reunification, which was granted in 1976. 

From Israel, the Blanters traveled to Italy to await their green cards, later joining her mother’s first cousin in Chicago just days before the bicentennial celebration in the U.S.

Blanter and her mother “had nothing” when they came to the U.S., she said, except for “the opportunity to succeed.”

“We had the help of the Jewish community at first, and then it was all on us,” Blanter recalled. “We had the freedom to make something of ourselves. That’s what it’s all about – equality of opportunity.” 

The resilience that had been forged in the face of Soviet oppression became the bedrock of their new life in the U.S. 

“My [family] eventually had two condos—one on the Gulf of Mexico and one in Houston. And I own a nice house now. We made it because we worked for it,” she said.

Today, as a corporate board member and occasional financial services consultant in Colorado, Blanter remains committed to the ideals of meritocracy and opportunity that America represents. 

Blanter’s story stands in stark contrast to the propagandist picture of collectivism painted by the burgeoning American Communist Party. Blanter fears that economic disparities, rising costs of living, and political disillusionment have created fertile ground for the romanticization of communism, often stripped of its historical context. Young aspiring communist leaders, such as activist Haz Al-Din, portray collectivism as a solution without acknowledging the systemic oppression and human suffering demonstrated repeatedly throughout history. 

“There was no Holodomor,” Al-Din posted to X on Nov. 17, referring to the Soviet-made famine that killed millions of Ukrainians. “The Soviet government did not commit any genocides whatsoever.”

For Blanter, who speaks to American high schools about her story through the Dissident Project, maintaining the American dream requires vigilant protection against the insidious forces seeking to erode it. 

“People forget, or maybe never learn, that socialism and authoritarianism thrive by taking away freedoms,” she said. “This country is unique. It’s not perfect, but the opportunities here are real,” she says. “The failure, the struggle—they’re all part of the path to success.”