The United States was one of the leaders in science and industrial development, while the USSR was just getting around to agricultural mechanization. If Einstein wanted access to cutting edge laboratories and to mingle with other eminent scientists he would have had to go to the US. He had celebrity status in America too while at the time the USSR treated foreigners, especially scientists, with suspicion as there were worries about spies and saboteurs.
Were they? Spies and saboteurs? I can't imagine scientists doing shit like that. Especially believers in socialism who would immigrate to the USSR.
I mean, if you were wanting to know what the USSR was up to, scientists working R&D are an absolute must to get flipped.
They can feed you information about what the USSR was working on, how focused they were on the projects, and if push comes to shove, start messing with formulas and calculations (or destroying research) to slow down development.
Don't know, I don't go into the weeds about this stuff but it seems like it would be a priority for intelligence services.
So who, historically was found out and convicted? Among immigrants.
Well.. there were probably a handful of actual spies. You might be surprised to learn that the USSR in the late 1920s/early 1930s actually had good economic ties with the United States and a lot of scientists and engineers came from companies like Ford and International Harvester to help with economic development. Not out of any sympathy for socialism, just because the companies thought it would be a good investment and they were getting paid for it. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these guys had additional orders from the state department.
However, the extent of the campaign and the paranoia stoked (like every workplace was expected to be vigilant, foreign engineers or not) makes it clear that the saboteur campaign's real purpose was to provide a reason for a purge of the CPSU's political enemies at the time. The NEP had only recently ended in favor of collectivization, and Stalin and the rest of the CPSU-Center wanted to get rid of any opposition to it. The anti-saboteur campaign would become the beginning of the Yezhovshchina (or the dramatically named Great Purge in English)
Didn't Stalin make it punishable by death to be anti-semitic?
In my gut I feel that anti-Semitism under Stalin is an anti-communist propaganda piece. However I really don't know and it's totally possible. I have heard both that anti-Semitism was illegal, but also about this anti-cosmopolitan doctrine and other things like the doctor plot.
Does.anyone know what's real about this topic?
The press used the Jewish names of accused intentionally, both during purges and the Doctors Plot. The latter had fuck all to do with Stalin himself, but antisemitism clearly was a thing you could do, and get away with. Making it illegal does not mean people won't do tropes or just avoid getting in trouble while being assholes.
Though this stuff got worse in places after Stalin, particularly in Poland
The United States was probably the best place to be a Jewish person in the 1930s, hell it probably still is today.
If your options are too go to war torn USSR or literally an ocean away from the war to New York, the choice was pretty clear.
He published that article in 1949, but his understanding of Marxism is pretty clearly advanced so I'd say at least the mid 1940s if not all the way back to his clerk days in Germany.
I mean socialism wasn't that unpopular in Germany in the 30s, especially among working class Jewish folks.
He was a member of the SDP in 1918 and anti-war back when he was 17, he initially said the Bolsheviks were disorganized in 1925, but gave some praise to Lenin in 1929 as a defender of democracy.
He was saying some pretty radical shit all through the 30s and 40s about a global communist state and the abolition of capitalism (his stark radical turn spurred on by nuclear war clearly), and eventually the feds had an almost 1500 page file on him.
Seems like his tendency of socialism (at least earlier on) was Georgism, but "Why Socialism" diverts from that ideological current so there was definitely an evolution of ideas (and I believe an acceptance of the Soviet system as mostly good and practical)
Edit: He was a Zionist, but definitely not a modern Zionist:
I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain—especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state. ... If external necessity should after all compel us to assume this burden, let us bear it with tact and patience.
I think this was actually a pretty common position among a lot of leftists at the time too, even Stalin initially supported Israel which when formed has a pretty large socialist/communist bloc. I do wonder if a less militarized and colonial formation of a Jewish homeland could have been pulled off or if it was always destined for nationalism and violent rot.
I feel that the conditions that led to Israel as it is today have a lot to do with the colonial empires (USA/UK) that had such a hand in establishing, funding, and shaping it.
No idea, he might have also wanted to work in some of the more globally prestigious colleges in America too. His socialism was clearly a big part of his life, but his passion was in physics and he'd definitely want to go somewhere that had a better physics program.
Cal Tech was bleeding edge at the time, though the Soviet institutions caught up pretty quickly in the 60s.
Plus he got to be BFFs with Paul Robeson in the US. who wouldn't want that?
