Columbia University and Communism

http://historyhalf.com/columbia-university-and-communism/

In that same year[1927] Columbia professors Rexford Tugwell and George Counts traveled to the Soviet Union with Columbia law student Carlos Israels, and several other left wing scholars and union leaders.

Tugwell and his companions toured Russia and wrote about what they saw in glowing terms. Especially impressive to Tugwell was the collectivization of agriculture, which, he believed, was the path to efficient food production. The accounts Tugwell and his fellow pilgrims wrote of their travels in the Soviet Union helped encourage the transfers of credit and technology that Stalin needed to maintain control of the country.