Frank was asked to write two articles for the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which indicates he must have been regarded as very trustworthy by Soviet authorities, especially since we learn from the website of the Russian Presidential Library that “all fundamental decisions relating to work on the Encyclopedia . . . had always been taken at the highest state and party level” (prlib.ru/en-us/History/Pages/Item.aspx?itemid=812). Let us not forget that the inclusion of Frank’s articles in that work was already very surprising given that he had been attacked by name in the Bolshevik sacred book, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.7
Tinker, Tailor, Philosopher . . . Spy
The story of Philosophy of Science would not be complete without a few more words about its first editor-in-chief, William Malisoff. The Venona documents (deciphered cables between Soviet spies in the U.S. and their superiors in Moscow) reveal that Malisoff was actually a KGB agent. He had two code names: “Henry” and “Talent.” The sad fact is that he spied for the Soviets not because of ideological blindness or pure loyalty to socialism but largely for a quite banal reason: money. From the KGB files we learn that when Talent was informed that a large-scale payment (which he expected) would not be forthcoming, he “took this announcement exceptionally morbidly” (Haynes & Klehr 2000, 291). He complained that the materials he had provided to the KGB yielded the Soviet Union millions of dollars while the amount he requested (but did not get) was “trifling.” When he threatened to withhold information from the Soviets in response to not receiving an adequate financial reward, the KGB officer Kvasnikov informed his superiors and “recommended being patient and continuing contact until Malisoff . . . calmed down.”
The whole thing had a humorous side too. We are told Malisoff “had been financially able to bear the burden of the journal’s occasional losses” (Churchman 1984, 21), so it follows that some of the money he received from the KGB may have been channeled into paying the costs of running the journal. And given the way Philosophy of Science reacted to the Lysenko affair, it appears the money was not squandered.
1 For more about Gödel’s views on politics, see Chapter 5.
2 For instance: “Ordinary incommensurability, for instance of the circle and the straight line, is also a dialectical qualitative difference; but here it is the difference in quantity of similar magnitudes that increases the difference of quality to the point of incommensurability.” “Identity and difference—the dialectical relation is already seen in the differential calculus, where dx is infinitely small, but yet is effective and does everything.” “A pretty good example of the dialectics of nature is the way in which according to present-day theory the repulsion of like magnetic poles is explained by the attraction of like electric currents.” (Dialectics of Nature, according to www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don)
3 “It was obvious from the debate that Lysenko’s supporters did not understand the views they were criticizing” (Maynard Smith 1992, 49).
4 Notice that David Joravsky used the term repression in such a way that a mere dismissal from a job did not count as repression. It had to include arrest plus at least one of the following: execution, internment (in jail or concentration camp), or some kind of internal exile.
5 Mitin will be discussed further on pp. 96–98.
6 “In fact, reliable news of Vavilov’s arrest and fate had long since reached the West, as early as 1944” (Harman 2003, 323).
7 Gerald Holton recounts an amusing episode in which Frank cleverly put Lenin’s attack on him to good use. Once when Frank was visited by FBI agents who were suspicious about his leftist orientation and possible Soviet connections, “he went to his bookcase, fished out the copy of Lenin’s book, and opened it to the passage where Lenin attacked him personally. As Frank ended this story, the two FBI men practically saluted him, and left speedily and satisfied” (Stadler 1993, 70). No one can blame Frank for omitting to disclose on that occasion that he had actually conceded much to Lenin’s criticism and even said he wished he had formulated his view differently so as to avoid Lenin’s objection (Frank 1997, 232; originally published in German in 1932).
Rudolf Carnap: Blaming the West for the Iron Curtain
“Since the first World War Carnap stood politically very far to the left. His reaction to the Marxist critique of philosophical empiricism is worth noting: whereas he criticized traditional metaphysical philosophers very sharply, he did not attack or criticize the Marxists.”
—WOLFGANG STEGMÜLLER
In discussing the political opinions and actions of logical positivists, our attention inevitably turns to the indisputably most important member of that movement, Rudolf Carnap. What were his views? Where did he stand compared to the notoriously radical Neurath?
The surprising answer is that, in terms of politics, there is some evidence that in the interwar period there was no difference at all between these two philosophers. According to a credible source, Carnap once said to the philosopher Robert S. Cohen: “If you want to find out what my political views were in the twenties and thirties, read Otto Neurath’s books and articles of that time; his views were also mine” (from Marie Neurath’s preface in Neurath 1973, xiii; emphasis added).
The huge difference between the two positivists was, of course, that Carnap devoted most of his energies to scholarship and did not have the time or interest for the kind of political activism Neurath was involved in. Carnap’s political engagement was restricted to being a sponsor for various leftist causes and signing political petitions. But this still tells us a lot about the man.
Carnap wrote in his diary that he once expressed “an inclination to Communism” (Nemeth & Stadler 1996, 31). This was in 1934, at the time when Stalin had already consolidated his power and immediately after the horror of the Holodomor had been reported in all media.
He never joined the Communist Party, although he supported many of its actions. Political scientist Alan Gilbert gives an interesting explanation why Carnap never became a Communist:
Carnap rightly felt that the only decent response to McCarthyism was to join the Communist Party[!]. He tried to look it up in the Los Angeles phone book, but the Party, under attack, had gone underground and was no longer listed. So he couldn’t join (Gilbert 2016).
This hilarious story is probably true because Gilbert got it from Hilary Putnam, who had worked closely with Carnap in the early fifties.
Carnap publicly supported many progressive causes and signed many petitions that appeared in the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party of the United States. So what, some will say. The Communist Party was a completely legal organization. As long as the views he defended were reasonable, it should not matter much where they were published. Doesn’t objecting to someone’s association with Communists smack of McCarthy-era witch hunting?
Not really.1 Consider the following analogous situation. If a person’s name regularly appeared in a bulletin of the Ku Klux Klan, usually we would not regard this as acceptable for an educator at a major American university, even if there were nothing particularly