On the one hand I'd expect them to praise it, since a lot of people at the time, and nowadays as well, interpreted it as being pro-socialism. But on the other hand, in the 30s the Soviet Union was persecuting kulaks and peasants, and it's not like the Joads were industrial workers. However the Joads didn't own their own land while ostensibly the kulaks did. Anyways, how did people in the USSR and the USSR government react to The Grapes of Wrath?