A Review of Engineering Communism: how tow americans spied for stalin and funded the soviet silicon valley Engineering Communism is the story of two men who would leave the United States to pursue their dreams of Communism and to support the country of Russia. Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant both Jewish men from New York would go on from being members of the local communist party to being the innovators behind much of the technological advances of the Cold War Soviet Union. Barr and Sarant would go from humble origins to spies for the largest Communist ring and eventually becoming leading engineers in Russia itself, but ultimately their quest for the perfect communist world would meet with harsh reality. Barr and Sarant began on separate paths.
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Barr was taken by the purity Communism promised and by the notion that Russia still had more Freedom than the United States and the capitalist system that he Rosenberg, Sobell, Danziger, Elitcher, and Perl saw as evil. Page 23 Rosenberg saw an opportunity for his friends to continue to support the war efforts with the goal of preserving of the Soviet Union and Communism. Page 38 As they graduated from the Steinmetz club they got jobs in various fields that gave them access to “blueprints, contract documents, and technical manuals they handled could be of great value to the Soviet Union.” Page 41 At first they were less than thrilled to assist in a war they did not support, however these new spies would find new purpose when in June 1941 Hitler attacked Russia and they were tasked to help defend it. Even knowing that American lives could be taken and that he put his own life at risk Barr continued with faith in the “belief that Communism represented the best hope for humanity. The only sovereign socialist country must be preserved at all costs, he believed.” Page 43 Both Barr and Rosenberg believed, even after the war, that the US had surrounded the Soviet Union and with its newly acquired Nuclear weapons Russia and the ideology that they believed in was in
Barr was taken by the purity Communism promised and by the notion that Russia still had more Freedom than the United States and the capitalist system that he Rosenberg, Sobell, Danziger, Elitcher, and Perl saw as evil. Page 23 Rosenberg saw an opportunity for his friends to continue to support the war efforts with the goal of preserving of the Soviet Union and Communism. Page 38 As they graduated from the Steinmetz club they got jobs in various fields that gave them access to “blueprints, contract documents, and technical manuals they handled could be of great value to the Soviet Union.” Page 41 At first they were less than thrilled to assist in a war they did not support, however these new spies would find new purpose when in June 1941 Hitler attacked Russia and they were tasked to help defend it. Even knowing that American lives could be taken and that he put his own life at risk Barr continued with faith in the “belief that Communism represented the best hope for humanity. The only sovereign socialist country must be preserved at all costs, he believed.” Page 43 Both Barr and Rosenberg believed, even after the war, that the US had surrounded the Soviet Union and with its newly acquired Nuclear weapons Russia and the ideology that they believed in was in