Open AccessSoviet Science as a Social Project: Features and Stages of Construction (1917–1950s)
Author(s) -
L. N. Mazur,
AUTHOR_ID,
AUTHOR_ID
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
izvestiâ uralʹskogo federalʹnogo universiteta. seriâ 2. gumanitarnye nauki/izvestiâ uralʹskogo federalʹnogo universiteta. seriâ 2, gumanitarnye nauki
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2587-6929
pISSN - 2227-2283
DOI - 10.15826/izv2.2021.23.4.070
Subject(s) - bourgeoisie , state (computer science) , government (linguistics) , politics , sociology , monarchy , political science , natural (archaeology) , social science , law , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , algorithm , computer science , history
The concept of Soviet science was formed in many ways spontaneously. Initially, under the conditions of the Civil War, science was viewed by the Bolsheviks as a tool and a way to achieve political and military goals. But, as with other objects of social design — socialist economy, culture, education, etc. — they did not have clear ideas about socialist science. Only the opinion about the class character of bourgeois science and its role, subordinate to the interests of capital and the monarchy, was stable. Taking this factor into account, the attitude of the new government to various scientific areas was formed. The Bolsheviks had more confidence in the natural and technical sciences, the achievements of which were supposed to be “taken as they are passed on to us by the bourgeois heritage”. The social sciences and humanities were judged sharply critically as, on the whole, hostile to the socialist idea. The Soviet model of science finally took shape in the 1930s. It was distinguished by some specific features that largely determined its achievements and failures. These include a hierarchical, open-ended organisational structure that includes 3 sectors of science (departmental, academic and university). In addition, it is necessary to note such features of Soviet science as decentralisation, complete dependence on the state and the planning system. The tactics of state support for strategically important areas of science and the lack of alternative mechanisms for financing scientific research contributed to the rapid bureaucratisation of Soviet science, deformation of the structure of scientific knowledge (imbalance between the exact, natural, technical, social sciences and the humanities in terms of the pace and level of development) and the priority of applied research over fundamental. And one more feature is the strict ideological control of scientific knowledge, supplemented by repressions against “bourgeois” science and its representatives, as well as the prohibition (explicit and implicit) on direct contacts, which led to the isolation and low level of mobility of the scientific community.