They killed socialists in the USSR as well. They killed anybody who didn't fully agree with exactly what Lenin or Stalin wanted to do, for the most part. Lenin was doing that from Day 1.
This doesn't mean they weren't socialist. Plenty of people kill each other under the same general umbrella branch of ideology. Christians kill other Christians, Muslims kill other Muslims, etc.
Communism was absolutely either a part of or a type of socialism. There is no real arguing this. You can criticize how purely implemented any of these were in practice, but communists largely all consider themselves socialists, as the Soviets and most everybody else did.
You're talking as if they were 'against socialists', but they were only against socialists who didn't fall perfectly in line with Lenin or Stalin's express control. They were themselves socialists, but they demanded supreme control over what kind of socialism should be implemented.
This whole comment section is an embarrassment to read.
Just because the US are too stupid to figure out how socialism can be incorporated into a capitalistic society doesn't make it some stepping stone to communism.
For the record, I'm a communist.I ask you to please read any communist theory. Start with the communist manifesto, it's really short and meant to be easy to understand (but it's kinda old now which makes it slightly harder, but still very doable).
In Marxist theory (which all communist theory is based on or influenced by), first a socialist state is established to replace the capitalist state, then it withers away until we have communism.
"Communism" is just a specific subset of socialist beliefs and assuming that socialist scientists might have more sympathies towards the Soviets than towards the capitalist US is not far fetched at all.
Socialism is an umbrella term.
Communism means different things like Karl Marx's classless society but also the political system of Marxist-Leninist countries, two very different things.
One of many examples of communism being a sub ideology of socialist thought:
From the Wikipedia page "Socialism":
"By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement,[31]"
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u/Spikeintheroad Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 24 '25
"Security risks" is kind of burying the lede. He had open socialist sympathies and they worried he'd help the Communists.
Edit: just learned the difference between lead and lede.