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Were Oppenheimer and Einstein socialists? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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[–] 10 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

Einstein yes, but he wasn't actually a member of a socialist party, he just supported it personally and wrote arguments defending it.

Oppenheimer, I think not entirely though he was surely sympathetic at least. His wife, his brother, and his best friend were card-carrying communists, but idk of any evidence that he ever espoused socialism/communism himself, outside of hanging out with communists a lot. He was very much accused of being a communist after the war ended, but pretty much every famous person who wasn't a fascist was targeted by mccarthyist witchhunts and accused of being communist

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    When you mention his wife are you talking about Kitty? Because if so in the movie they portrayed her as only being a communist because one of her husbands was a card carrying member of the party rather than her believing in the cause. I’m not pointing that out because I believe the movie is in any way accurate, I just wanted to know if they got that part entirely wrong and basically filmed falsehoods.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago*

    Yeah I mean Kitty. To my knowledge, it seems like what did they did include of Kitty (and also Jean) was pretty much accurate, just missing a lot of background details. Kitty was an actual member of the Communist Party but she did eventually leave it, which would be why she wasn't in it at the time of the Manhattan Project and the Oppenheimer hearing. Though, you'll notice when she gets interrogated at the hearing she refuses to give up anything about the Party and turns all of the prosecutor's rhetoric back against him. It reminded me of Paul Robeson's famous testimony to the HUAC. Speaking to her earlier dedication to communism, she had actually tried to go fight in the Spanish Civil War with her previous husband but medical issues kept her from being able to make it. It seems as though his death in the war and the many failures of western communist parties disillusioned her from the cause, and I would assume the rising red scare culture didn't help.

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