> I am aware of the actual ratio of the horror stories to reality
And what is the ratio? For example, try calculating this ratio for aircraft designers of the period: imprisoned_designers / free_designers. I don't think the result would be pretty.
I was interested enough to make (completely unscientific) assessment of what happened to some of the emigrants to USSR.
I've looked through all 8 Finnish emigrants listed in Wikipedia category [1]. The result isn't pretty: 3 executed during Great Purge, 1 commited suicide, 1 killed during civil war, 1 "lucky" to die just before Great Purge. The rest 2 were politicians (one of which was very high ranking). No scientists or engineers or technicians.
And here is the same assessment of all 7 American emigrants listed in Wikipedia category [2]: 3 spies; 1 scientist (Arnold Lokshin); 1 composer (Karl Rautio); 1 short-term technician, not allowed to go back to US, Gulag prisoner (Alexander Dolgun); 1 car toolmaker, not allowed to go back to US for 44 years (Robert Robinson).
Ignoring spies, we've got 2 miserable fates, and 2 good fates. So your ratio for US emigrants is 2/2. And those two are good mostly because of political reasons: the composer of Anthem of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic; and asylum seeking scientist.
Do you still want to move to (hypothetically restored) USSR?
And what is the ratio? For example, try calculating this ratio for aircraft designers of the period: imprisoned_designers / free_designers. I don't think the result would be pretty.
I was interested enough to make (completely unscientific) assessment of what happened to some of the emigrants to USSR.
I've looked through all 8 Finnish emigrants listed in Wikipedia category [1]. The result isn't pretty: 3 executed during Great Purge, 1 commited suicide, 1 killed during civil war, 1 "lucky" to die just before Great Purge. The rest 2 were politicians (one of which was very high ranking). No scientists or engineers or technicians.
And here is the same assessment of all 7 American emigrants listed in Wikipedia category [2]: 3 spies; 1 scientist (Arnold Lokshin); 1 composer (Karl Rautio); 1 short-term technician, not allowed to go back to US, Gulag prisoner (Alexander Dolgun); 1 car toolmaker, not allowed to go back to US for 44 years (Robert Robinson).
Ignoring spies, we've got 2 miserable fates, and 2 good fates. So your ratio for US emigrants is 2/2. And those two are good mostly because of political reasons: the composer of Anthem of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic; and asylum seeking scientist.
Do you still want to move to (hypothetically restored) USSR?
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Finnish_emigrants_to_t...
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_emigrants_to_...