https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-nov-09-mn-51910-story.html

in 1931, a few years before the U.S. established its embassy in Moscow,
Kennan compiled a confidential list of 85 “individuals residing in Soviet
Russia, reputed to be American citizens but communist sympathizers.” A note
at the top of the list warns that some “might no longer be entitled to
protection without the special approval of the Department.”

The memo seems to indicate that the embassy was prepared to deny some
Americans help because of their politics. Kennan did not reply to questions
about the memo.

State Department records show that some Americans desperate to leave Russia
were not allowed to renew their American passports because they couldn’t
pay the small fee in American currency--dollars which would have been
generally illegal to possess in the Soviet Union at that time. At least one
American, the records show, was arrested for trying to buy some on the black
market.

Jean Singer, who moved to Russia from New York in 1932, with her father,
Elias Singer, remembers that they both gave up their U.S. passports four
years later because they could not pay the renewal fee. He was arrested and
shot a year later, at age 59.

On March 1, 1938, he came to the U.S. Embassy to renew his passport but was
turned away because he lacked the required passport photographs.

Dubin promised to return the next day, but never did. His wife called the
embassy to say he had never returned home. Dubin’s secret police file,
discovered in Moscow, shows he was arrested outside the embassy, accused of
espionage and shot. He was 26.