A Study for Sovietologists, Not Scientists

The Communist Party and Soviet Science. Steven Fortesque. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1987. 234 pp. $28.50. Now when Gorbachev's perestroyha (restructuring) is presented to the public as a necessity brought upon the Soviet Union by scientific and technological progress outside the country, it is natural to ask why Soviet science, which has the world's largest infrastructure and personnel, performed so poorly that it became nearly irrelevant, particularly in many highly sophisticated fields like computers or genetic engineering. One may expect from the title of this book that it answers the question, or at least tries to find the explanation. Unfortunately, it does not. This is not a book about Soviet science written for Western scientists. This is a rather academic analysis of the interaction between party organizations at different levels and scientific networks (with special attention to the functions of party bureaus and committees inside Soviet research and educational establishments). This is a book written by a professional Sovietologist for professional Sovietologists. The author expects that his readers know Soviet history and the many developments in Soviet science during the Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev eras, the structure of the Soviet scientific establishment, the problems that Soviet science tried to solve in the past, and a lot more. Fortesque, therefore, leaves these problems beyond his attention, review and analysis. Many events that are peculiar to science in a communist country of the Soviet type are not explained, particularly in historic retrospect. It is difficult to find in the book how the current state of affairs evolved and how it may develop in the future. There are surprisingly few hard facts in the volume about Soviet science itself and practically no figures (like the number of research scientists, financial allocations, relations among many different research networks, relations between industry and science, qualitative levels of research, etc.). For nearly 60 pages of notes and references, the publisher presents an extremely brief, rudimentary index (1½ pages long); this book, apparently, is neither a comprehensive source of knowledge about the subject, nor a useful introduction. Since 1917 the Soviet leaders have claimed that the communist country will not only be one of full social justice and harmony, but also a new economic and scientific miracle. Surprisingly enough, the Soviet system (and its technology) did pass the test of the war and postwar reconstruction quite well, even leading in the fields of space exploration and nuclear energy briefly in the 1950s. It did not pass, however, the test of peaceful stability and scientific and technical revolution in 1970s and 1980s. Economic development stagnated and most indicators of social progress and scientific progress actually started to decline. This is the puszle that should be analyzed and explained in a book about the interaction between the communist state and communist science. The new Soviet leadership now clearly realizes that something fundamental was wrong in relations between the party and science. At least 10 joint decrees of the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee were passed in 1986-1987 specifically about reconstruction of Soviet scientific, technological and educational establishments. Often they addressed some real problems (poor equipment, erosion of salaries, etc.), but they also often tried to stress the necessity to improve the party guidance, supervision and instruction as the most important factors of scientific success. The previous attempts of communist leaders to interfere in problems of science were based on ideological and political considerations. They originated from a doctrine that viewed the whole Soviet system as "scientific" and the leader of the party as a kind of genius superscientist whose "creative ideas" should be implemented (often through coercion) by the scientific establishment into practice and developed in theories. It took almost 20 years of inept and bureaucratic Brezhnev leadership to kill this doctrine. Gorbachev is now trying to restore it, but in limited areas of economic and social sciences. In most other fields he plans to make Soviet science more efficient and productive through economic mechanisms, like self-financing, extra gradations of in-come differentials and similar schemes. As stated in the recent report for the Central Committee, "Scientific works also represent goods which must have consumers who should pay their value." However, this approach is still expressed in the form of very preliminary and vague ideas. As a result of previous policy, Soviet science now is not a great pool of independently minded imaginative talents, full of new initiatives and enthusiasm. It is rather a huge, expensive, bureaucratic and hierarchical system. Partly because of pressure and partly as a kind of self-protection, it has become an integral part of the Soviet state and the Communist Party. It is a mirror-image of a society. It is difficult to consider Communist Party relations with science as something different from Communist Party relations with other forms of human activities and interest groups. Individual cases of good research and expression of some bright new ideas still take place within the Soviet scientific community. However, the Soviet Union's reserves of scientists with internationally known names and acknowledged achievements are still in decline. The only way the Soviet Communist Party could reverse this trend is the full and genuine integration of Soviet science into world science at large. Medvedev, an exiled Soviet scientist, is now a senior research scientist in the Genetics Division at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK. He is an editorial consultant to The Scientist.

A Study for Sovietologists, Not Scientists

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