There is a hilarious footnote in that story. Stalin, unsurprisingly, tried to use propaganda to portray Americans as suffering under a capitalist heel. To that end, he played the movie "Grapes of Wrath" in Russian theaters. To Americans, the farmers in that movie suffered greatly, but to Soviet citizens who had to wait in line just for bread, they were amazed that even the poorest Americans had things like cars.
It's one of those stories about how America, even in its lowest points, still shined above its ideological foes in the 20th century. Quote
Never heard about that, that Stalin used the movie The Grapes Of Wrath as anti-American propaganda!