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Science and technology in the Soviet Union served as an important part of nationalpolitics, practices, and identity. From the time ofLenin until the dissolution of theUSSR in the early 1990s, both science and technology were intimately linked to the ideology and practical functioning of the Soviet state and were pursued along paths both similar and distinct from models in other countries. Many great scientists who worked inImperial Russia, such asKonstantin Tsiolkovsky, continued work in the USSR and gave birth to Soviet science.
The Soviet government made the development and advancement of science a national priority, emphasizing science at all levels of education and showering top scientists with honours. Very large numbers ofengineers graduated every year. Soviet scientists won acclaim in several fields, marked by a highly developed pure science and innovation at the theoretical level, though interpretation and application fell short. They were at the cutting edge of science in fields such asmathematics and in several branches ofphysical science, notably theoreticalnuclear physics, chemistry, andastronomy. Thephysical chemist andphysicistNikolay Semenov was the first Soviet citizen to win aNobel Prize, in 1956 among several other Soviet Nobel Prize winners and the mathematicianSergei Novikov was the first Soviet citizen to win aFields Medal in 1970 followed byGrigory Margulis in 1978 andVladimir Drinfeld in 1990.
Soviet technology was most highly developed in the fields of nuclear physics, where the arms race with theWest convinced policy makers to set aside sufficient resources for research. Due to a crash program directed byIgor Kurchatov (based on spies of theCambridge Five), the Soviet Union was the second nation to develop anatomic bomb, in 1949, four years after theUnited States. The Soviet Union detonated ahydrogen bomb in 1953, a mere ten months after the United States.Space exploration was also highly developed: in October 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first artificialsatellite,Sputnik 1, intoorbit; in April 1961 a Sovietcosmonaut,Yuri Gagarin, became the first man in space. The Soviets maintained a strong space program until economic problems led to cutbacks in the 1980s. The Soviet Union also had morescientists and engineers, relative to the world population, than any other major country due to the strong levels of state support for scientific developments by the 1980s.[1]
Although the sciences were less rigorously censored than other fields such as art, there were several examples ofsuppression of ideas. In the most notorious,agronomistTrofim Lysenko refused to accept thechromosome theory of heredity usually accepted by moderngenetics. Claiming his theories corresponded toMarxism, he managed to talkJoseph Stalin in 1948 into banning the practice and teaching ofpopulation genetics and several other related fields of biological research; however, this decision was reversed in the 1960s.[2]Cybernetics was also marginalised during the Stalinist period and received a hostile public campaign in 1951. Although, the discipline was rehabilitated during the post-Stalinist period from 1954 until 1959.[3]
Unlike some Western countries, most of the research work in the USSR was conducted not at universities, but at specially set up research institutes. The more prestigious of them were parts of theUSSR Academy of Sciences; others were within the system of specialized academies, or the research arms of various government ministries.
The core of fundamental science was theUSSR Academy of Sciences, originally set up in 1925 and moved fromLeningrad toMoscow in 1934. It consisted of 250 research institutes and 60,500 full-time researchers in 1987, a large percentage in thenatural sciences such asbiology.
All of the union's republics except theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic had their own republican academies of science, while the Urals, Siberian, and Far Easternregional branches of the academy coordinated fundamental science in Eastern Russia.
Medical research was coordinated by theUSSR Academy of Medical Sciences (Академия медицинских наук СССР), which after 1992 was reorganized into theRussian Academy of Medical Sciences (Российская академия медицинских наук).
Agricultural research was organized under the aegis of theAll-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union.
A large part of research was conducted inNIIs — "scientificresearch institutes" (Russian:НИИ, нау́чно-иссле́довательский институ́т). There have been a great number of NIIs, each specialized in a particular field.
Already in the 1920s, certain fields of scientific research were labeled "bourgeois" and "idealist" by the Communist Party. All research, including natural sciences, was to be founded on the philosophy ofdialectical materialism. Humanities and social sciences were additionally tested for strict accordance withhistorical materialism.[4]
AfterWorld War II, many scientists were forbidden from cooperation with foreign researchers. The scientific community of the Soviet Union became increasingly closed. In addition to that, the party continued declaring various new theories "pseudo-scientific".Genetics,pedology and psychotechnics were already banned in 1936 by a special decree of theCentral Committee. On August 7, 1948, theV.I. Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences announced that from that point onLamarckian inheritance, the theory that personality traits acquired during life are passed on to offspring, would be taught as "the only correct theory". Soviet scientists were forced to redact prior work, and even after this ideology, known asLysenkoism, was demonstrated to be false, it took many years for criticism of it to become acceptable.[5] After the 1960s, during theKhrushchev Thaw, a policy of liberalization of science was implemented, but the policy of Lysenkoism continued. Lysenkoism was officially renounced in 1964, afterLeonid Brezhnev came to power.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, rapid inflation and decline in governmental revenues caused the scientific establishment to lose much of its funding and stability for the first time since the 1920s.Salaries were not paid for months, and research monies disappeared. International organizations offered aid programs to discourage emigration. In general, however, the Russian scientific community has been slow to recover from the political and economic shocks of the 1990s.[6]
The following Soviet scientists were recipients of aNobel Prize.
The most prestigious government prize awarded for achievements in science and technology was originally theStalin Prize. After the death of Stalin, the Stalin Prize was renamed theUSSR State Prize, and the newLenin Prize became the top award.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.Country Studies.Federal Research Division. –Soviet Union
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