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.
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)
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.
Did this actually happen? Who were the immigrant spies?
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)