The Soviet Science System

http://thepointmag.com/2014/politics/soviet-science-system

by lermontov • 11 years ago

70 46 11 years ago

mojuba• 11 years ago

Interesting article and some interesting insights into how marxism-leninism actually played well with the scientific method.

There was another pathology, as the author calls it, in the Soviet scientific system: pretty much like what it did to genetic science, some ignorant officials essentially outlawed computer science, or what was called cybernetics back then. I don't know much about the motivations and how exactly banning cybernetics was in line with marxism-leninism, but needless to say what a fatal mistake it was. Bringing back computer science later, I think in the 1970s didn't help much: the Soviets were already light years behind in the area. All the Soviet computer scientists and engineers could do at the time was to steal and copy. If anyone here remembers ДВК - that was an almost exact copy of PDP-11 and its OS. (My God, I think I can even remember its smell now.)

Bottom line being, all arguments regarding political and economic systems aside, you can't trust one person or a single "ideologized" organization on anything, ever. There should always be alternatives and eventual consensus. Kind of obvious today, isn't it.

tedks2• 11 years ago

you can't trust one person or a single "ideologized" organization on anything, ever

All organizations are ideologized; if you can't see the ideology, that just means you agree with it.

jszymborski• 11 years ago

I think he was going for the argument that your decisions should come from the integration and evaluation of different ideologies, rather than any one single ideology.

Then again, if you follow that too closely, it might become dogmatic itself :P so iunno. Epistemology is hard.

walterbell2• 11 years ago

All organizations are ideologized; if you can't see the ideology, that just means you agree with it.

Ditto for technology.

jkot2• 11 years ago

There are intersting talks about reverse engineering intel processors under microscope. We also reversed ram, floppy and some hdds.

Cybernetics was considered western science, and most scientists had west connection. Good example is Antonin Svoboda. He ran away from Czechoslovakia before nazis invaded, hiding antiaircraft missile computer plans in frame of bicycle. Then he returned, build Czech Cybernetic Institute, become director and emigrated when soviets invaded. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%C3%ADn_Svoboda

AnonNo15• 11 years ago

Actually the reverse happened in 70s - instead of pursuing indigenous R&D, it was decided to clone Western hardware and software instead. This really crippled Soviet computer science and engineering.

In 50s-60s Soviet computers were not that far behind, but late it was harder and harder to compete with West simply because of economy scale disadvantage. Unlike nukes and space exploration, computer technology was not receiving the funding to maintain parity.

Therefore it was decided that copying and cloning Western tech would be cheaper then trying to compete in yet another high-tech industry.

agumonkey• 11 years ago

Interesting how facing competition, following the others (between nations, or even companies) ideas is rarely a worthy plan for long term. It's depriving your brains of real pressure to invent.

gambiting• 11 years ago

And of course things were harmed by the party politics. A Polish engineer invented a computer which is now considered to be few years ahead of its time, and was ready to enter production,but then it was shut down because of a direct order from the party,as it would conflict with the party-backed Elwro company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-202

Edit: of course Poland was never part of the Soviet Union,but the political system was heavily influenced by orders from Russia.

pvg• 11 years ago

I think almost all new branches of 20th century Western-originating science suffered some degree of unhelpful ideological scrutiny at one point or another although most of these cases were not as damaging or as well-known as Lysenkoism.

The pure science itself perhaps had the capability to catch up and recover but the centrally planned, often military-dominated industrial system was profoundly awful at actually managing industry and innovating. Much of Soviet industry remained woefully behind its Western counterparts - in capacity, precision, quality assurance, material science, you name it. One can reasonably argue that a great deal of Soviet engineering design ingenuity in a number of fields was driven by the constraints of what they could realistically produce.

duckingtest• 11 years ago

Cybernetics were wrong because they began as efficiency optimization in the economy. It was wrong because it necessarily assumed shadow prices, which is incompatible with labor theory of value. The upper echelons were really that dumb.

There's a book about the whole optimization debacle, "The Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford.

bildung• 11 years ago

Cybernetics were wrong because they began as efficiency optimization in the economy. It was wrong because it necessarily assumed shadow prices, which is incompatible with labor theory of value.

No, it conflicted with party dogma, not with the labor theory of value. In what way do you think the existence of shadow prices conflict with LTV?

fit2rule2• 11 years ago

Even consensus is repressive, though. Sometimes you need an alternative to consensus: ideologized personality.

jpfr• 11 years ago

    But if you teach a whole nation a powerful philosophy of science, some of them
    might find it useful. Vladimir A. Fock (1898-1974) reported that his engagement
    with the ideology enabled him to devise a new set of harmonic coordinates for
    general relativity. Yakov I. Frenkel (1894-1952) developed his notion of “holes”
    and “collective excitations” in condensed-matter physics through extensive
    reflection on contemporary Soviet political thought.

Yeah. Right. You ever wondered why people suddenly agree with the political system they live in, when otherwise said system would send them on extra holidays in a Gulag for comitting thought-crimes?

walterbell2• 11 years ago

At least one Gulag scientist influenced TRIZ, which influenced Western industry, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrich_Altshuller

avmich4• 11 years ago

Well, Korolev also spent some months in GULAG. But I believe the point in article was not that people in system were "suddenly" agreeing with system - rather that system's concepts lead them to some discoveries.

jkot2• 11 years ago

Stalinism was the worst dissaster which happened to Russia since the napoleonic wars or even mongols. It is also responsible for one of the bigest genocide of all times (slavic peasants). I really have hard time to grasp why articles even debating this ideology are here.

hga• 11 years ago

Because "Commies Are Cool" (see the cult of Che), and their supporters imagine themselves as becoming commissars, not anonymous bodies in ditches.

avmich4• 11 years ago

Unfortunately yes, to some extent. Propaganda is a serious force, as latest events in Russia and Ukraine are showing.

throwaway3442• 11 years ago

I think that the interest here on HN would be similar for education in a long-lasting fascist (or whatever kind of brutal) state's scientific system. I really don't see the interest here as a moral statement on communism, but rather as just interest.

TazeTSchnitzel• 11 years ago

And the morality of the sort of political system the US has (I'd say "capitalism" but that's a little simplistic), is also not being judged when we examine the US scientific approach.

m0skit0• 11 years ago

Without Stalinism the USSR would have probably lost WW2, which in turn means Hitler would not have been defeated. Sad but true.

s_q_b3• 11 years ago

Meh, who knows what would have happened. If the Russian Revolution had played out differently, Russia could have become a socialist country more like modern European states, still broken the back of the Germans on the Eastern front, helped defeat Hitler, and we might have had a half century of free trade and economic growth. Accurately evaluating alternative history is next to impossible.

avmich4• 11 years ago

Stalin purged so many military commanders it's doubtful USSR wouldn't have advantages in WW2 without Stalin. The war would likely be fought very differently - or not fought at all, as Hitler wouldn't be so careless with his Barbarossa plan.

mantas• 11 years ago

If there was no Stalin, WW2 would have been totally different. Soviet Union helped Hitler a lot to rebuild Germany military power and prepare for WW2. In fact, they started WW2 as allies. Soviets were giving supplies to Germany till the moment Germans did U-turn and attacked USSR. Without Stalinism, were would probably be no need for WW2 at all. Or it would be a totally different event.

rdtsc• 11 years ago

It is also interesting that in the last decade or so Putin has been trying to historically redeem Stalin. "He was brutal this and that", but, "he did all these great things as well" kind of idea.

Maybe realizing he is also a dictator by redeeming one of the most brutal and evil dictators he is also legitimizing his own power.

the_af2• 11 years ago

Because debating things is what people do and should do. Also, the scientific system in the Soviet Union does not automatically equate to Stalinism.

On of the closing paragraphs more or less answers your question:

"To avert any misunderstanding: I am not defending the Soviet Science System; I am describing it. There was a great deal of shoddy work, rent-seeking and suffering within that system. But there was also extremely good work, and the latter was a product of the system that engendered the former. That’s the paradox that comes from looking at any science system: it wouldn’t be a system at all if it didn’t, in some sense, work."

s_q_b3• 11 years ago

If we want to avoid the nightmare of another superpower arising that behaves in that fashion, we would be wise to learn how it was able to amass so much power.

Also, just because part a system is bad doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from it. The Soviets had some truly amazing technological achievements, especially in physics, and they often did their work on a shoestring budget.

Learning and debating alternative systems is a good thing. Even if those systems were evil as a whole, there might be valuable insights somewhere within them.

fit2rule2• 11 years ago

Stalinism didn't go away - it still exists in the mindset of the global elite as a mechanism for power. Writing it off with prejudice would be a serious mistake; for all its failings of the human species, it certainly provided some small powerful groups with a recipe for mass control. This is even more important a subject today than it ever was.

othaiNgo4• 11 years ago

I disagree.

Without Stalin's political system we were not able to build our nuclear and fusion shield (not only the bomb itself, but rockets, plains and other delivery systems), antimissile systems and so on. The goal of that defence project demanded hyper concentration of human resources, and Stalin did this.

And if he didn't who can grant for shure that USA would not use their nukes against our country (or, may be some other country, which was in conflict with USA) as they did against Japan? The most people thanked Stalin for that safety he gave our nation, the minority had suffered.

Yes, there was oversacrifices and exaggerations, and that was cruel regime and highly militarized. But it was necessary to protect ourselves from the unfriendly West (the West openly hated communism since the beggining, even when it was only internal Russian affair). And in the end, it was Churchill, who declared Сold War, not Stalin.

And Putin has nothing in common with Stalin. You know, our elders say about our current political situation: if we would have Stalin nowadays the life would be far far better. Putin is not so strong, and smart, and firm and slefless, as Stalin was. For instance Putin have ended Russian Academy of Sciences So... You may not be afraid, we are not able to rebuild Union here in any sense.

mercurial2• 11 years ago

Yes, there was oversacrifices and exaggerations, and that was cruel regime and highly militarized. But it was necessary to protect ourselves from the unfriendly West (the West openly hated communism since the beggining, even when it was only internal Russian affair). And in the end, it was Churchill, who declared Сold War, not Stalin.

Come on. The large-scale purges, the public trials, the goulags... this was done to suppress not only internal dissent, but any independent thought. How many loyal communists, original bolsheviks, were executed or sent to die in the camps? This had nothing to do with "protecting the USSR from the West" (I'll note that Stalin seemed very willing to work with the West, in the person of Adolf Hitler, as long as he got something out of it).

Stalin was a mass murderer. You cannot brush his crimes under the carpet by talking about "exagerations", "sacrifices" and "necessity".

saiya-jin• 11 years ago

I disagree. Putin is building 21-century version of SSSR. He is in same delusional uber-ego dictator category as Stalin, just methods have matured, PR is better (well... he is still a shame to his country though), and he doesn't have the absolute power to unleash stalinist terror - it wouldn't work in same way as back then.

To us in Europe, Putin (and hence Russia) is by far biggest thread to our society and our values. Forget cartoonish muslim terrorists, they are there just to catch headlines to get more sponsors/recruits from Saudi wahhabists. Putin, on the other hand, longs for his good old days in KGB and the power structure of the world back then. My country (Czechoslovakia back then) was heading towards democracy in 60', and it was invaded in '68 with russian forces just to stop it. For next 21 years, my tiny little country had 5% more population in form of soviet soldiers permanently stationed there. This recent bitter lesson won't be forgotten so easily - russians cannot be trusted. Period. I am more glad with US powerhouse being counterbalanced with Chinese. You can call my opinions personal, but Poles, Hungarians etc. could tell their own stories.

I would even extrapolate and state that well-being of europe is, among other factors, linked to militarily weak russia. Once precious natural resources will go off (and eventually they will), there isn't much Russia has to offer to the world. If any non-russian disagrees, please go there living for few months, and let's talk after that.

stared• 11 years ago

Do you have similar excuses for Nazi Germany for its contribution to rocketry and nuclear power?

I do get why (especially in the West) people think better of Stalin than of Hitler, but its good to point out that the first had even more civilian victims.

I am not saying that one should make a ranking of genociders, but one should refrain from whitening anyone who have willingly caused millions of civilian deaths.

alricb2• 11 years ago

If you look at science and technology/engineering as a unified field, you can see that not everything conforms to the "American" model: the military is arguably just as important to American science/technology as it was to Soviet science (the Manhattan Project, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Air Force owned forging presses, ARPANet, the DoE, Boeing, the Dodge Brothers plant to manufacture recoil cylinders, etc.)

s_q_b3• 11 years ago

Don't forget the Valley's own government-sponsored roots: Navy money funded the Federal Telegraph Corporation and later Moffet Field, which begat Eitel-McCullough, a wartime manufacturer of radios and vacuum tubes. Varian Associates, another wartime manufacturer, was instrumental in getting Stanford Industrial Park built, where HP was founded.

NACA (later NASA) brought Lockheed to the area, and worked hand-in-glove with Fairchild as its only supplier of the transistors needed in the Space Race for years, which firmly centered the semiconductor revolution in the area.

Of course, this is to say nothing of the Federal research dollars which still constitute a massive portion of university research funding, including at Stanford itself.

And of course, to add to the countless examples outside the Bay area, there's the National Laboratory system.

If you look closely, the American and Soviet science systems don't appear all that different. The chief difference is that the Soviets preferred to keep everything under direct governmental control, while the United States prefers to use government contracts and grants to drive scientific progress through the private sector and university system.

That, and there's significantly less chance of being thrown in prison for espousing political views in the modern US.

avmich4• 11 years ago

You forgot separation of research and teaching.

darkmighty• 11 years ago

There's also the (former) elephant in the room that was Bell Labs: the huge R&D lab was owned by Ma Bell, essentially a government endorsed monopoly.

I think it's safe to say Bell Labs represented a large portion of the whole of US's technical and scientific output in the 20th century (reminder: they invented the transistor, information theory, lasers, radio astronomy, UNIX, ... ; it's mindblowing).

fiatmoney• 11 years ago

If you're interested in this topic, the quasi-novel Red Plenty is fantastic. Its primary characters are members of the Soviet scientific community, particularly the nascent computer scientists of the 60s-70s.

throwaway3442• 11 years ago

I totally agree with the recommedation of Red Plenty. It's really a lucid set of stories about the Soviet system. I can't say I really knew a lot going into it, but it doesn't fall into the trap of saying "damn commies" every few pages.

The scene with the Gosplan planner trying to solve the problem of allocation of resources is a particularly damning indictment of central planning.

alricb2• 11 years ago

Side note: "Tsar Peter I (also known as “the Great,” although the appropriateness of that moniker is one of the most debated questions of Russian history)"

I don't think very many people dispute Peter's moniker, except for total haters. Even if you think his influence was on the whole negative, you have to admit that it was very, very large and that the changes he made were profound (though they may have been continuations of movements started by his predecessors). He may not have been great in the sense of having a positive influence, but he was great like the Great Barrier Reef.

The Soviet Science System

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