Engineering Communism: How Two Americans Spied for Stalin and Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley

by Steven T. Usdin

E ngineering Communism is the fascinating story of Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, dedicated Communists and members of the Rosenberg spy ring, who stole information from the United States during World War II that proved crucial to building the first advanced weapons systems in the USSR. On the brink of arrest, they escaped with KGB’s help and eluded American intelligence for decades. Drawing on extensive interviews with Barr and new archival evidence, Steve Usdin explains why Barr and Sarant became spies, how they obtained military secrets, and how FBI blunders led to their escape. He chronicles their pioneering role in the Soviet computer industry, including their success in convincing Nikita Khrushchev to build a secret Silicon Valley. The book is rich with details of Barr’s and Sarant’s intriguing andexciting personal lives, their families, as well as their integration into Russian society. Engineering Communism follows the two spies through Sarant’s death and Barr’s unbelievable return to the United States.

Genres: Espionage

347 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2005

Reviews

[FiveBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Harvey Klehr has chosen to discuss Steven T Usdin’s Engineering Communism   , on FiveBooks  as one of the top five on his subject - Communism in America, saying that:


"At the time the Rosenbergs were arrested suspicion also fell on some of Julius’s friends who were engineers. And we now know that he encouraged a number of them to spy for him. At the time of the Rosenberg case two of those engineers vanished. Steve Usdin found out what happened to both of them."


The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interview...

[Daniel Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Do the Americans do that? When I said I didn't know he said, "Son, remember, if they don't do something it isn't worth doing" This was typical line of Soviet designers during the cold war. After having some interest in the cold war and the history behind cold war technology I decided to pick this book up and give it a go. This was not only a great non fiction spy novel but a technical bible on how the Soviet electronics industry worked in the early 50s through the late 70s.
The book basically goes through the lives of Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant from their childhood all the way up to when they were in their mid 50s. Barr and Sarant were 2 Jewish sons of poor Russian immigrant families in the early '30s during the Depression living in New York. Both boys were frustrated with capitalism and democracy all throughout their childhood and soon turned to believing in communism as a cure for all the problems in America when they were teenagers. "Communism was in the air", Barr said, the daily worker newspaper was slipped under doorways and had leftist articles in it. When they graduated high school they went to CCNY or Community college of New York to study electrical engineering. They still had a burning flame of young communists in them so they joined the CPUSA or communist party USA. One of the more interesting quotes of when the book was in their teenage years was when Steven Usdin said that they felt more close to Kiev and Moscow more than Minneapolis or Oklahoma City. Barr and Sarant were very involved in the CPUSA but I found it interesting when they were mad when Stalin signed the non aggression pact with Hitler because communists hated fascists. Soon after, the Nazis invaded Russia and Barr felt back stabbed. Eager to help the soviets Barr was able to get good jobs with big electronics companies after he graduated, often dealing with classified projects such as the Sperry Gyroscope or the infamous anti aircraft proximity fuse used in the pacific theater to shoot down Kamakazis. The proximity fuse that Barr gave to the Soviets was one of the most classified projects he ever spied on. In 1960 when Francis Gary Powers' U2 was shot down by the Russians Barr's proximity fuze that he gave to the Russians was used to shoot it down. Later in the book when the communist spy ring started to collapse from FBI infiltration they both moved to Moscow to work there. Both of their dreams was to build a Soviet silicon valley ten times the size of the one in California to design technology for the Soviet military in the cold war. When they got to Moscow communism wasn't as great as they thought. Everywhere they looked the average person was poor. They often ran into several bureaucratic hoops to jump through to do anything of innovation related. After all the Soviets were not known for their great innovation but rather their spying and stealing of designs. Some of the most important projects for the Soviets that they worked on included making a clone of the IBM 360 computer used on a number of NASA spacecraft during the late 60s. The computer was the fastest around and the best for military applications. Apparently some Russian submarines still have the computer on board.
Steven Usdin did a good job of portraying the characters well. When he interviewed Barr in the early 90s when he came back to America he made sure to get every last detail and thought that went through their head.
Some connections I was able to make included that the Russians sucked at innovation and even the leading designers and scientists had absolutely no motivation to make anything better than it was before. I also realized how corrupt the huge bureaucratic system was and how people would slide money under the table to get what they wanted faster. Another part in the book that I thought was interesting was how the Soviet micro computing technology could keep up with US military technology but when it came to civilian american technology they just were horrible at keeping up with that.
In conclusion I recommend this book to anyone fascinated by Cold War history and espionage and the technology behind it. This truly was a eye opening about the bureaucratic mess in the USSR and anyone every trying to anything done there!

[Byron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for everybody. The writer skips around a lot, so sometimes its difficult to keep track of whats important vs the author just being thorough. Provides an interesting history of the rise and fall of Communism.

[Craig Adamson]

Reviewed in WSJ 11-26-2011