The Soviet Union Promotes Rapid Technological Development in the Communist Ideology

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The Soviet Union Promotes Rapid Technological Development in the Communist Ideology

Overview

In the early twentieth century, Russia and her republics experienced tremendous political and cultural upheaval with the installation of socialism and the rise to power of the Communist Party. The ideology of Communism greatly affected the scientific community, and technology in particular, as Lenin and then Stalin attempted to shape most scientific disciplines into applicable ideas that would further Soviet society. Overall, the era of the Soviet Union had a detrimental effect on the whole scientific community, depriving Russia of some of its top scientists and systematically censoring certain scientific disciplines deemed too "esoteric" for application. Nevertheless, some sciences thrived in the socialist regime. Russian technology, in particular, was especially progressive and made great strides during World War II and the Cold War, initially relying on American styles of manufacturing and industrial design. Eventually though, as the Stalin-led Soviet Union closed itself to the rest of the world, science and technology was handicapped by a ban on the free exchange of ideas. Even today, Russia struggles with a bank of talented scientists working in ill-funded, poorly equipped research institutions.

Background

At the turn of the century, Russia suffered severe political unrest in a society that was marked by extreme privilege and terrible poverty. Only a small percentage of Russians were educated in the elite state-sponsored schools, and those few intellectuals were, in turn, society's few professionals. The average income of a member of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences, for example, was almost 30 times higher than that of an industrial worker. And while many scientists enjoyed their privileged status in society, most still supported the idea of bringing down the oppressive tsarist monarchy. Of the many different democratic and socialist groups competing for power just before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, most scientists supported the more moderate parties who favored reform without extreme measures.

With the onset of World War I the provisional government that took power after the Bolshevik Revolution established several research institutes aimed at studying technology for military needs and the extraction of mineral resources necessary to manufacture and operate this technology. The Bolshevik administration vowed "knowledge and education for the masses" and then criticized the "bourgeois" or elite scientists and experts who were seen as anti-Soviet supporters merely because of their previous association with the monarchy. Many of these scientists found themselves defenseless in a confused political Russia, and were frequently arrested and even executed. A great exodus of terrified scientists followed, including the departure of some of Russia's "star" scientists, like aircraft engineer Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972), who fled to the United States, biologist V. Korenchevsky, who emigrated to Britain, and chemist G.B. Kistiakovsky, who came to the U.S. and served as scientific advisor to President Eisenhower.

Soon, Lenin and the leaders of the Bolsheviks realized that they were losing their greatest strength and that rapid industrialization of the country depended on scientists trained in the much-hated tsarist system of education. Communist ideology relied heavily on the plan that technology would bring the country to a greater social and economic success. Lenin recognized that the prolonged Russian Civil War from 1918-1921 depleted existing Russian technology, and demanded widespread industrial and economic development. Lenin admitted the need to keep scientists well-funded and in the political loop, "in spite of the fact that they are inevitably impregnated with bourgeois ideas and customs." Life for technical experts changed dramatically, with new scientific institutions opening up around the country, and a special decree granting scientists better living conditions in the new technocratic Soviet society. Lenin's hope was to prevent the exodus of more of Russia's experts, train a new group of revolutionary "red" scientists, and eventually demote the "bourgeois" elite.

Several governmental agencies were formed to oversee the burgeoning scientific community, and by 1922 at least 40 separate institutes were organized. The free exchange of ideas with the West was encouraged, and Lenin, especially, argued that in order to move successfully into a technocratic economy, the USSR would need America. "We will need America industrial goods," he wrote, "locomotives, automobiles, etc., more than any other country." Visits abroad were frequent, Russian scientific journals were in abundance, and Russian science was seen as an international leader, led by scientists such as Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and S.S. Chetverikov. The period was referred to as "The Golden Years" of Soviet science, but this intellectual freedom would soon come to an abrupt, bloody halt.

Impact

By 1928, when Joseph Stalin came to control the USSR, Soviet science was regarded with high esteem by the international scientific community. The natural sciences, in particular, excelled with groundbreaking Soviet discoveries in genetics and behavioral psychology. Nevertheless, Stalin was set on purging Communist Russia of any remnants of the "bourgeois" days of the tsar, and put science on a course for superindustrialization. In the Stalinist regime, science was expected to be rational, applicable, and practical and, once again, all "bourgeois" scientists were regarded as enemies of the state. Stalin went on to eliminate all those who fell under anti-Soviet suspicion by conducting mock trials and interrogations. Many well-known scientific experts were arrested and shot during this period, while the lesser-qualified party scientists took their places.

In order to jump start this move toward industrialization, Stalin imported large quantities of Western machinery and technical equipment. The United States, in particular, was much admired by the Soviet leaders, especially the assembly line and standardization labor methods used in steel mills and in Henry Ford's automotive factories. "Fordism" became the model with which Soviet leaders built up their vast industrial manufacturing centers. Tractor plants modeled after Ford's Detroit factories were built and Ford tractors from abroad were imported by the thousands. Foreign technical experts were brought in to live in and guide the construction of industrial sites, while Soviet officials further condemned the "impractical" sciences such as biology and theoretical physics. The Dnieper Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam of that era, was built in consultation with Colonel Hugh Hooper, the engineer who designed the Coolidge Dam in Washington. This pressure for purely pragmatic science almost eliminated branches of natural science, or forced these natural scientists to compromise their research to create practical, immediate applications in their field.

But while most natural sciences were foundering, the metallurgic sciences flourished. Once again, the U.S. design in ore-dressing plants, zinc and lead production, and smelter technology was frequently copied. An immense iron and steel complex "city" called Magnitogorsk especially reflected the extremes of this period of industrialization: a city modeled after a U.S. Steel plant in Gary, Indiana, the complex became the symbol for "gigantomania" that defined the industrial boom of the late 1920s and early 30s. Stalin erected huge skyscrapers, enormous dams, sprawling industrial complexes, and began construction on the largest blast furnace in the world at that time.

But many of these complexes suffered a high rate of industrial accidents despite the reliance on foreign experts to fill the holes left by the persecution of the bourgeois experts. Rather than admit his mistake and release the qualified, persecuted scientists, Stalin opened scientific prison camps, called sharshki and drew on the expertise of the "criminal" scientists. The influence of these bourgeois scientists was tolerated, briefly, while their knowledge was used for the explosive industrial growth. It was believed, in the Communist ideology, that after this initial reliance, the socialist science would lead the world in technological progress with its own experts.

A period referred to as the Great Terror began in 1936, when several million people were arrested and more than half a million executed in a purge of suspected "anti-Communists." While the technology established before this period—tractor plants, smelters, power stations—were unaffected by the disappearance of the thousands of experts in these fields, the development of all new technology halted. International connections were completely severed. Foreign experts left the country. Technology suffered, especially in areas where innovation is critical, like aviation and military technology.

These technical weaknesses soon became critical as World War II started in 1941. The USSR, thanks to its mass production capabilities, had large numbers of tanks and airplanes, but they were not equal to the 1941 standards of Western countries. Stalin once again turned to his prisons and the experts he had locked up in the Great Terror. Many aviation and engineering experts were released on temporary work leave and prison "institutes" were once again revived. In one of these prison research centers the leading aircraft experts developed high-tech military aircraft and jet-mounted weaponry. From 1941 to 1945 the average speed of a Russian fighter plane increased by 62 mi (100 km) an hour.

Lenin, and the Communist ideology, taught that capitalism limited the development of technology, science, and the productivity of labor. But when America unleashed the atomic bomb, Stalin was clearly embarrassed. In 1946 the beginning of the Cold War started, with Soviet science striving not just to compete with Western technology, but soundly surpass it. Soon, all branches of military-oriented science received the highest state priority. Financial resources for science skyrocketed, the average salary for scientists doubled, and living conditions were improved for specialists in these disciplines, even though most of the country was slogging in poverty.

The number of students attending higher technical schools and universities grew from 817,000 to 1,500,000 in one year. By 1949 the newest mission of Stalin's was clear: the Soviet Union would be a socialist leader through the prowess of its science. But, each area of research was expected to have a "socialist" focus, meaning that research should still have purpose and immediate application. A research center for atomic energy was built in Moscow, and the first nuclear explosion in the USSR was made in 1949, when Stalin celebrated his seventieth birthday. A special rocketry center was built in 1946 to test military rockets, large industrial plutonium reactors were constructed, and German engineers were brought to Russia to help develop new aircraft.

Russia certainly achieved great strides in aircraft, space, and nuclear sciences during the Cold War, but so many important "idealistic" sciences suffered that the whole of the Soviet science community was permanently weakened. Cybernetics, for example, was declared a "pseudo-science" and is blamed for Russia's lagging electronics and computer industry today. Genetics, once the example of the genius of the Russian scientific community, was taken out of the hands of Russia's famed genetics experts and reworked to become more applicable, eventually failing in its theories and research.

Even Russia's once admired, impressive industrial technology lost its innovative edge, as computerization took over complex industrial sites and progressive, advanced metals replaced steel as a stronger, more resilient material. While the Communist ideology had periods of scientific excellence in limited fields, namely technology, the short-sighted approach of focusing on only technology and only on applicable research caused the Soviet Union to lose what was once its strongest resource: science.

LOLLY MERRELL