Dr. Sidney Hook included in his autobiography his correspondence with Albert Einstein in the early 1950’s. Whether it was executing the Rosenbergs for atomic spying or going all kumbaya with Stalin over the H-bomb, Dr. Einstein was as naïve as a child in the woods.
Dr. Hook also thoroughly skewered Bertrand Russell for not only not being a pacifist, but for being a Red cheerleader desirous of communist victory from the Stalin era to the Korean War down to Ho Chi Minh.
They lived in a rarified intellectual circle where as the chosen elites, they could smoke their pipes and stroke their chins, and actually believe that the "little people" would somehow be better off, with the enlightened overlords telling them what to do.
Not that different from today's liberals. They're smarter than you, and know what best for you.
I'm always stunned to think that George Orwell was an avowed socialist.
He had no idea just how influential his books would become, as shining examples of why socialism is the very WORST system.
He KNEW the true nature of socialism, but couldn't quite "accept" where it would lead.