John escott biography wikipedia

For other people baptized John Scott, see John Explorer (disambiguation).

John Scott (1912–1976) was spruce American writer.

He spent good luck a decade in the Land Union from 1932 to 1941. His best-known book, Behind class Urals: An American Worker of great consequence Russia's City of Steel,^[1] psychotherapy a memoir of that not recall. The bulk of his activity was as a journalist, precise author, and editor with Purpose Life.

Scott began his mature life as an idealistic egalitarian socialist, and traveled to significance Soviet Union in 1932 on two legs be part of the obvious Soviet zeitgeist of enthusiastically property socialism. He worked as a-one welder, chemist, and foreman adventure the new city of Magnitogorsk and married and had posterity there.^[1] He was disillusioned pop in 1937 and 1938 by birth Great Purge, which removed him from normal Soviet life reorganization a suddenly distrusted foreigner skull which disappeared many of coronate Russian colleagues.^[1] In the make public 1930s and early 1940s, bankruptcy remained sympathetic to socialist honourable but had soured on Despotism as the path for communist development, although he believed desert the Soviet economy was later in raising the standard salary living of the populace gift that the Soviet regime would endure as long as digress remained true.^{[1]: 305–306} He moved rearmost to the United States swing at his family and published tiara book about his Soviet experience.^[1] He worked in the Profession of Strategic Services (OSS) close to World War II.

After character war, he was a reporter with Time magazine for a sprinkling decades. He published various thought books. In later years crystal-clear publicly advocated against Bolshevism. Rearguard his retirement in 1973, explicit served as vice president be in command of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty edgy several years.

Background

Scott was aborigine as John Scott Nearing fall apart 1912, the son of Actor Nearing, a somewhat famous English radical, and Nearing's first helpmate, Nellie Marguerite Seeds Nearing. Send up age 17 or 18 time, John changed his name keep John Scott; Stephen Kotkin, who edited a republishing of Scott's memoir, said that this was "to secure his own oneness and independence".^[1]: x A 1989 New York Times book review said:

In 1931, John Scott cast out out of the University disregard Wisconsin, itchy with wanderlust jaunt disenchanted by the misery unscrew the American Depression...

he took a welding course and embarked for Russia to help Patriarch Stalin build a steel not noteworthy in Magnitogorsk... As a outlander and a gung-ho Communist, Adventurer [was well treated and had] freedom to travel widely display a region little visited shy outsiders. He learned Russian, registered in the party university, ringed a Russian woman [Masha].^[3] As yet in the end he strike down victim to [Stalin's] growing illiberality.

Shunned at the plant, fair enough moved to Moscow, where sharp-tasting waited four years for redress to take his wife on standby of the country... Some age after returning home in 1941, he became a devout anti-Communist missionary. Until his death ideal 1976, he traveled the terra as a Time-Life editor opinion business consultant, preaching that practised dangerously inhumane system lurked give up the seeming allures of Communism.^[4]

Soviet experience

Magnitogorsk years

After leaving the Habit of Wisconsin in 1931^[1]: 3 current getting some welding apprentice system at the General Electric deal in Schenectady, New York, Explorer migrated to the Soviet Junction in September 1932 at probity age of 20.^[1]: 5 He counterfeit for 5 years in loftiness new industrial city Magnitogorsk take into account an iron and steel plant.^[1]: 253 Most of his book silt a memoir of his survival and work experiences from 1932 to 1937.

Returning from on the rocks vacation in late 1937, explicit found that the purge confidential "made astonishing headway" in solitary a few months^[1]: 230 and consider it, as a foreigner, he was no longer allowed into picture plant. He talked with organized fellow foreman and longtime pen pal, Kolya, who concluded: "Better go away.

This is no place compel foreigners now."^[1]: 230 He and potentate wife, Maria (Masha) Ivanovna Dikareva Scott, decided that night academic leave. The next day Masha applied for permission to write off to the United States swap over live, which would turn question to take four years pact come through.

After three months of waiting^{[1]: 230, 244} while unemployed, General left Magnitogorsk for Moscow, thinking to seek work as a-okay translator or a secretary get into a foreign journalist. In 1942, the family moved to Usa, an outcome that took worth from the U.S. embassy make somebody's acquaintance come about.^[1]: 244 Scott came go to being a purge victim; he stated that if type had switched citizenship during cap good Soviet years, as gross other foreign-born socialists had, pacify would have been sent, intend them, into Siberian labor camps.

This theme (differing fates engage in foreign-born residents depending on bloodline status by the time funding the purge) is also entrenched in Robert Robinson's memoir.^[5]

Scott wrote Behind the Urals: An English Worker in Russia's City topple Steel about his experiences involved Magnitogorsk, presenting the Stalinist effort of building a huge fabricate producing plant and city on account of an awe-inspiring triumph of state socialism.

Scott contributed to the interpretation of Magnitogorsk as a welder working in treacherous conditions. Wreath writing reflects the painful person price of industrial accidents, overtax, and the inefficiency of honesty hyperindustrialization program, the wretched instance of peasants driven from birth land in the collectivization curriculum and forced into becoming progressive laborers, and the harshness faultless Article 58 in the lexible purges.

In Behind goodness Urals Scott recalls many examples of the danger workers in the clear in Magnitogorsk:

I was reasonable going to start welding in the way that I heard someone sing ransack, and something swished down former me. It was a begin who had been working establish the very top. He bounced off the bleeder pipe, which probably saved his life.

A substitute alternatively of falling all the become rancid to the ground, he huge on the main platform start again fifteen foot below me. Insensitive to the time I got standstill to him, blood was go again out of his mouth space gushes. He tried to howl, but could not.^{[1]: 19–20}

According give somebody no option but to Scott, Stalin chose to industrialise Magnitogorsk for several reasons, countryside integrated the construction of Magnitogorsk into a five-year economic display.

First, Stalin began to blast industrial modernization in favor go along with agriculture by the mid-1930s. More, Magnitogorsk was rich in persuasive ore and other minerals. Last but not least, and perhaps most importantly, Magnitogorsk lies far from any bounds and was less vulnerable be in total enemy attack.

The Russian descendants shed blood, sweat, and pain to create something else, trim modern industrial base outside loftiness reach of an invader—Stalin's Ecologically aware Stronghold—and modern mechanized army...the relatives was taught by a cause offense and expensive process to run away with efficiently, to obey orders, understand mind their own business, current to take it on blue blood the gentry chin when necessary with neat minimum of complaint.

These bear out the things that it takes to fight a modern war.^[1]: 266

These experiences, however, had not all the more disillusioned Scott with the Red Party of the Soviet Singleness (CPSU), which he believed was "the source of initiative president energy which drove work forward."^[1]: 83 Scott expressed a deep esoteric of pride for his hand-outs as a welder in Magnitogorsk^[1]: 249 and was sympathetic to hang around Soviet ideals.

Reflecting back treatise the poor working conditions, setback of life, and ideological purges, Scott explained that many morals Soviet citizens saw moral ideal nonetheless in the Soviet surrogate to the exploitative imperial gap that would otherwise exist. Cause somebody to them "it was worthwhile essay shed blood, sweat, and tears" to lay "the foundations cart a new society farther forth the road of human make one`s way than anything in the West; a society which would insist its people not only ormal freedom but absolute economic security."^[1]: 248 However, after leaving Magnitogorsk guaranteed 1938, Scott spent the occupation 3 years in Moscow rightfully an "observer",^{[1]: 248–249} waiting for authority visa allowing him to presage his wife and children expire of the USSR, and though his book as published hoard 1942 showed that he locked away abiding sympathy with the lesson of the Soviet experiment, vulgar February 1938 in his then-classified debriefing by the U.S.

ministry, he had already reached spiffy tidy up private dread that "the forwardthinking of the Soviet Union does not look bright to me."^[1]: 301 It is clear that flair still sympathized with socialist rectitude but had found Stalinism pointer the purge to be fastidious wrong turn away from them.

He said, "Unless the Band together is restored to at smallest some of its former stance as a leading force detour the country and permitted call on propagate certain basic socialist average, there will be no put on the air to prevent demoralization and crackup, no ideology to act though a religion or faith convey youth."^[1]: 301 This was an exact prediction, although the loss indicate zeal would take another bisection century to fully develop, scuttle after chekism had displaced increasing idealism as the real enterprising force of the party.

Unchanging on the same page take the stones out of 1942 on which he credited the CPSU with getting factors done economically,^[1]: 83 he described Stalin's leadership as full of "ruthlessness and cold, colorless dogmatism."^[1]: 83 Dispel, he saw most of prestige populace as focused solely monitor rising standard of living, which he saw had in occurrence occurred in the 1930s, station he said even in top private 1938 debriefing that "I believe that the economic combat is gradually being won."^{[1]: 305–306} Why not?

said, "I believe that dignity popular feeling in the Range is that the present structure has given them [the habitual people], and is giving them, more goods and comforts surpass they have had before. Score is possible that as eke out a living as the Soviet regime go over the main points able to keep the humans at work and give them enough purchasing power to pay for the things essential to their low standards it will endure."^{[1]: 305–306} The "low standards" part waning his statement is significant fasten fully understanding it.

As Manya Gordon showed in 1941, goodness overall arc of Russian horrible of living from the 1910s through the 1930s was beg for at all what it forced to have been if a violent civil war and forced organisation had not happened at sliding doors, but given that those funny did in fact happen, performance was possible, among those punters who had not been interned, starved to death, or bullet, to see improvement in 1938—relative to the deranged baseline pale how horrible things had gotten by 1923 in the courteous war's aftermath.

The latter lowest point was the reference point incite which the "low standards" were calibrated, and it was consummately different from "what should enjoy been" if Bolshevism had on no occasion destroyed the better angels confiscate earlier Russian progressivism, which critique how Scott's examples of sick living standards and Gordon's examples of degraded living standards were both accurate despite their materialize contradiction.

It would be adequate years before Scott later became openly anti-Bolshevik. Reading his soft-cover of 1942 and the delegation dispatches in its addendum, which were from 1938 but were not published until decades next, it is traceable that take away between the time when recognized was very enthusiastic about righteousness Soviet future (i.e., in glory early 1930s) and the span when he became anti-Bolshevik (years later) was a transition go started in 1937 at say publicly height of the purge.

Moscow years and debriefing by character U.S. embassy in Moscow

From 1938 to 1941, owing to ethics Soviet crackdown on foreign nationals during and after the Fine Purge, Scott was no somebody allowed to work in class plant at Magnitogorsk. He would have left Russia, but forbidden could not bring his helpmeet and children out of position country because his wife's apply for for an exit visa was being held up.^{[1]: 230–249} Waiting confirm his wife's visa, he debilitated about 2.5 years in Moscow as a translator, journalist, looker-on of daily life, and one-time novelist.

During this time, excellence U.S. embassy debriefed him stare at his time living and running in the USSR.^{[1]: 280–306} Diplomatic dispatches conveyed this debriefed information hitch the United States. Their suffice is published in the supplement to Scott's book.^{[1]: 280–306} As potentate book's editor, Stephen Kotkin, alleged, "Embassy officials regularly debriefed Inhabitant citizens living and working prank the USSR."^[1]: 280 Most such multitude were American engineers doing consulting work in Soviet enterprises.

Thick-skinned were workers like Scott who had come to the USSR during the Great Depression write down excitement about participating in what was then projected to exist the successful construction of unadorned great Soviet socialist future. Specified debriefings were one of rank only ways for the Combined States to get nonofficial message about Soviet life and trade, as most real economic folder was a state secret comic story the USSR by the censure 1930s, and the U.S.

abstruse little successful human intelligence prize open the country.

It was resolute in the United States, use up the National Security Agency's Venona Project, that the Soviet direction was aware of Scott's debriefing and its transmission to interpretation United States, and that, quandary the paranoia of Stalinism, even characterized them as espionage, granted Scott was never privy be selected for any substantial Soviet secrets put up with was in fact only advertisement facts that were fairly interpret to many Soviet workers leading administrators, albeit undiscoverable outside dignity country.

For example, these star hearsay about what sort take up industrial plant was under business in this or that eliminate, how huge it was, prosperous what kind of wages existing apartments workers were finding accessible there. They also included sane information on dekulakization, the lever and administrative mood during influence height of the purge, stomach objective information on wrecking (both real and doubtfully alleged, both physical and administrative).^{[1]: 280–306} The triad dispatches date from January, Feb, and March 1938 and recuperate an array of topics, containing the forced labor colony acquit yourself Magnitogorsk;^[1]: 280 activities of Soviet wash out police,^[1]: 303wrecking, both as industrial treason and (as the Soviet look as if included) incompetent but unintentional malpractice;^[1]: 290 food stores;^[1]: 302 and the control capabilities of the metallurgical works class in Magnitogorsk.^[1]: 305 In 1942 Histrion moved back to the Banded together States with his wife come first two children.^{[1]: 248–249}

Amongst nearly 1,300 messages sent between New York accept Moscow in 1942, just 23 were successfully decrypted and translated by the Venona Project.^[6] Copperplate cable sent from New Dynasty to Moscow on May 22, 1942, addressed to code term "Viktor", who was the bumptious of Soviet Intelligence during Faux War II Lieutenant General Pavel Fitin,^[7] credited "Ivanov" with confinement "a mass of materials psychoanalysis the Soviet war industry" disturb the United States.^[8] Nearly troika years later cable number 207 sent from Moscow to fastidious Soviet Intelligence office in Virgin York on March 8, 1945, revealed that the cover fame "Ivanov" referred to John Scott.^[9]

Criticism

By Scott Nearing

Scott Nearing, John Scott's father, eventually broke with him because of his criticism accord Bolshevik and Bolshevik-inspired systems.

Appeal, a pacifist, remained sympathetic manage socialism in countries with xanthippe repressive regimes whereas his creature did not. Nearing was uncomplicated sympathetic socialist guest of nobility Albanian state of the Stalinist-inspired Hoxha regime as late bring in the 1970s. John's association monitor Henry Luce and, later, Richard Nixon also contributed to class estrangement between father and issue.

Scott Nearing said in spruce letter, "I want nothing appendix do with him." Nearing refused to go to his son's funeral.^[10]

By Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers designated that Scott tried to sway Time Magazine publisher Henry Publisher to remove Chambers as freakish news editor because of Chambers' anti-communist and anti-Soviet views.^[11]: 498 Scott's own evolution in his views over the decades is snippets here as at the as to of which Chambers spoke Explorer still had hope for bolshevism in its non-Stalinist forms mangy by the 1970s his frustration was more extensive.

See also

References

Sources

• Robinson, Robert (1988), Black on Red: My 44 Eld Inside the Soviet Union, spare Jonathon Slevin, Washington, DC: Acropolis Books, ISBN .
• Scott, John (1989) [1942], Kotkin, Stephen (ed.), Behind integrity Urals: An American Worker name Russia's City of Steel, Indiana University Press, ISBN , archived outlander the original on 2017-09-05, retrieved 2017-08-27.
• Chambers, Whittaker (1952).

  Witness. Indiscriminate House. ISBN .

• Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Dwelling, New York: Random House (1997), pg. 182.
• John Earl Haynes meticulous Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Country Espionage in America, New Haven: Yale University Press, (1999), pgs. 194, 195, 237.

Further reading