Big Science in the Last Years of the Big Soviet Union

Author(s): Loren R. Graham

Source: Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 7, Science after '40 (1992), pp. 49-71
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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Big

in

Science
Big

the

Years

Last

Soviet

of

the

Union

By Loren R. Graham*
O THE EYE OF THE FOREIGN OBSERVER,one of the first characteristics of the science establishmentof the formerSoviet Union was its bigness
and the high degree of government centralization.'Not only was the Soviet science and technology community the largestin the world, but it was organizedin
distinctly differentways from those in other countries. The relative roles of the
academies of sciences, the universities, and the industrialresearchorganizations
were unusual when compared with those in other nations. Furthermore,Soviet
science and technologywere organizedin largerunits than commonly found elsewhere, and under the control of fewer influential individuals. To speak of "big
science"in the Soviet Union is then, not only a referenceto its size, but also to its
forms of administration.
When one looks at these unusual characteristicsof the organizationof Soviet
science, the followingquestions naturallyarise:How did the Soviet science establishment come to be so largeand monopolistic?How well did this unusualorganizational structure work? What effects did this different organization have on
Soviet effortsto cooperatewith Westernnations in science and technology?If the
Soviet science system did not workwell (as I will maintain),how awareof this failing are the science administratorswho have inherited it, and what plans do they
have to change their system?Although answeringthese questions will requireus
to go back in time as far as the Russian revolutionsof 1917, my examinationwill
carry forward to recent times, concentratingon the post-1940 period, as have
other authorsin this special issue of Osiris.Indeed, the last portions of the article
will focus on reforms of the science establishment under Mikhail Gorbachev,
viewing those reformsas attempted correctivesto the weaknessesinherentin the
earlier organizationof Soviet research.In the conclusion, an attempt is made to
answerthe question, What can we learn from the history of Soviet science that is
relevant to other nations?2
T

* Programin Science, Technology,and Society, E51-128, MassachusettsInstitute of Technology,

Cambridge,Massachusetts02139.
' This articledescribesSoviet scienceup until early 1991. Since then communismhas collapsedand
the Soviet Union has brokenup. The historicalbackgroundstill influences,however,the currentdebates over the future of science in Russia and the various republics.
2 Portions of this article drawupon my forthcomingbook and severalpreviousarticles:LorenR.
Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union:A Short History (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv.
Press, forthcoming);Graham,"SovietUnion," in Frameworkfor Interaction:TechnicalStructuresin
SelectedCountriesOutsidethe EuropeanCommunity,ed. HerbertI. Fusfeld(Rensselaer:Rensselaer
PolytechnicInstitute, 1987),pp. II.D. 1-II.D.44; Graham,"TheDevelopmentof SciencePolicyin the
Soviet Union," in Science Policies of IndustrializedNations, ed. T. Dixon Long and Christopher
OSIRIS, 2nd series, 1992, 7: 49-71

49

50

LOREN R. GRAHAM

I. JUST HOW BIG WAS SOVIETSCIENCE?

At the beginningof 1991the total numberof peopleofficiallyclassifiedin the Soviet

Union as scientific researchersand faculty was 1,520,000.3 Because of definitionalproblems,this numbercannotbe directlycomparedto similarstatisticsin
othercountries,but thereis generalagreementamongWesternspecialiststhatby the
early 1980s the Soviet Union had 10 to 30 percentmore scientistsand engineers
than the United States, dependingon the definitionof degreesand fields.4
These Soviet researchersweredistributedin threegiganticpyramids,which for
sake of convenience can be called the "universitysystem,"the "academyof sciences system,"and the "industrialand defense ministry system."Table 1 gives a
very approximatedescription of the organizationand sharesof researchpersonnel and budgetaryfunds of each of the three pyramids.5
From the standpointof Americanexperience,the most familiarpyramidof the
three is the universitysystem. The Soviet Union, like the United States,had large
universities,all supportedby the state in the Soviet Union and the majoritysimilarly supportedin the United States. The superficialsimilarityof the two systems
should not blind one, however,to the enormous differences.In the United States
the universities are the home of most of the fundamentalresearchconducted in
the country. In the Soviet Union the universities traditionallyhad a much narrowerpedagogicalrole, and the researchconducted in them was often of an applied character.6
The system headed by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was the most unusual in terms of Americanexperience.The Soviet Academy of Sciences was the
home of fundamental research.In the United States the National Academy of
Sciences and the National Academy of Engineeringare primarilyhonorificorganizations;they issue reportsperiodically,to be sure,but they are not the locus for
laboratoryresearchnor the place of employment for active researchers.The Soviet Academyof Sciences,on the otherhand, has been the place of employmentof
the most outstanding fundamentalresearchersin the country. They have spent
their lives in its service, and their places of residence, travel and vacation privileges, and health and social services were traditionallycontrolled by it. No surprise that AlexanderVucinich has called it an "empire of knowledge."7
The industrial and defense ministerial system was by far the largest of the
pyramids.It was primarilyconcernedwith appliedscience, althoughit performed
some fundamental work as well (just as the Academy of Sciences system perWright(New York:Praeger,1975);and Graham,ed., Scienceand theSovietSocial Order(Cambridge,
Mass. HarvardUniv. Press, 1990), introduction.
3 Dmitry I. Piskunov,"SovietFundamentalScience:State, Problems,and Perspectivesof Development," unpublishedmanuscript(Moscow:AnalyticalCenter for Problems of Socio-Economyand
Science-TechnologyDevelopment of the Academyof Sciences of the USSR, 1991), p. 2.
4 Louvan Nolting and MurrayFeshbach,"R and D Employmentin the USSR," Science, 1980,
207:493-503.
5 Drawn in part from Piskunov,"Soviet FundamentalScience"(cit. n. 3), pp. 2-3.
6 See MarkAdams, "Researchand the RussianUniversity,"in TheAcademicResearchEnterprise
Withinthe IndustrializedNations: ComparativePerspectives:Reportof a Symposium(Washington,
D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990), pp. 51-65.
7 AlexanderVucinich,Empire of Knowledge:The Academyof Sciences of the USSR (1917-1970)
(Berkeley/LosAngeles:Univ. CaliforniaPress, 1984).

BIGSCIENCE
IN THELASTYEARSOF THEBIGSOVIETUNION

51

Table 1. Organizationof ResearchPersonnelin the Soviet Union, ca 1990.

University system

Academy of Sciences
system

State Committee of Higher Academy of Sciences of

and Secondary EducaUSSR
tion of USSR
Union-republic ministries; Siberian Division of the
committees of higher
Academy in Novoand secondary education
sibirsk;other branches
and filials
Higher educational institu- Academies of sciences of
tions (vysshie uchebnye
union republics: 14
zavedeniia):universities Academies of Agricultural
and colleges, including
Sciences; Medical Scileading universities
ences; Pedagogical
(Moscow, Leningrad):
Sciences; Engineering
770
(new)
600,000 researchers*
125,000
7%of R&D budget
6.5%

Industrialand defense
system
Industrialministries;defense ministry

Industrialresearchinstitutes (otraslevye
instituty);t closed military ("postbox")research
institutes
800,000
87%

*Includesfaculty membersas well as researchers.

tE.g., institutes of steam turbines,coal mining, electronics.

formed some applied work). One should note that most researchers in this system
were not located in individual plants or "companies," but instead, like their colleagues in the academies of sciences, usually worked in centralized institutes in
large cities. In the period of most intense growth of the Soviet scientific establishment (1 960-1972) the number of these institutes increased from 4,196 to 5,307.8
After 1972 the number of institutes remained approximately stable, but the existing institutes continued to grow in size. The average institute in 1991 had a staff
of 270 researchers, but some of the most important had research staffs of several
thousands. The directors of these institutes were traditionally very powerful, even
autocratic, figures appointed from above, although, as we will see, under
Gorbachev an attempt was made to introduce democratic elections of directors.
Soviet science was "big" in several different ways: large in numbers of researchers, highly centralized in organization, and dominated by powerful leaders. The
system emphasized quantity over quality, seniority over creativity, military security over domestic welfare, and orthodoxy over freedom.
II. HOW DID SOVIET SCIENCE BECOME SO LARGE AND CENTRALIZED?

The Bolsheviks who took over Russia in 1917 were committed to the creation of a
modern industrialized state and were enthusiastic about science and technology.
Indeed, no group of governmental leaders in previous history ever placed science
and technology in such a prominent place on their agenda. It is true that the more
8 Piskunov,"Soviet FundamentalScience"(cit. n. 3), p. 2.

52

LOREN R. GRAHAM

radical revolutionarieswere suspicious of prerevolutionaryscientists and engineers, seeing them as membersof the despisedbourgeoisie(an attitudethat found
violent expressionlater,especiallywhen abetted by Stalin),but Lenin in the early
years gave strong supportto the technical specialists, and the Communist Party
promised from the start the patronageof science on an unprecedentedscale.
The goal of the new Soviet governmentwas to create a uniquely Soviet system
of science and industry,with new "Soviet"scientists and engineersand new forms
of researchorganizationsreplacingthose inheritedfrom the previous regime.Although this campaignhad many difficulties,on the whole it was successfulin the
sense that the governmentcreateda novel form of science and technology;on the
other hand, many of the unique qualities that emergedwere, we can now see, not
positive. Nonetheless, much progresswas made in science. In a period of sixty
years the Soviet Union made the transition from being a nation of minor significance in internationalscience to being a greatscientificcenter.By the 1960s Russian was a more importantscientificlanguagein a numberof fieldsthan Frenchor
German, a dramatic change from a half-centuryearlier.
The dominant role of the governmentin science was inheritedby Soviet Russia
from its tsaristpredecessor.When Russia emergedin the earlyeighteenthcentury
as a state in the Europeansystem, it possessed no significantcenters of scientific
studies; the responsibilityfor the creation of such institutions, startingwith the
Academyof Sciences in 1725, fell upon the imperialgovernment.In the next two
hundredyears,to the time of the Soviet reconstructionof the tsaristheritage,universities and industriesgrewin Russia, but the role of the centralgovernmentremained paramount.The importantscientists of prerevolutionaryRussia received
their salariesfrom the government,and the budgetsof their institutionsweresimilarly derived from the government.
At the very end of the empire, in the early twentieth century,a few important
exceptionsto the government'smonopoly over the administrationand supportof
researchand development began to emerge, supportedby industrialistsand private philanthropists.9Even a few private educational organizations appeared,
such as the Shaniavskii University and the Moscow Women's University. The
Ledentsov Society was a prerevolutionaryprivate philanthropic organization
that, allowed to develop freely, might well have become a foundation similar to
those emergingin WesternEuropeand North Americain the earlytwentiethcentury. The Moscow Scientific Research Institute Society, organized in 1914 by a
group of biologists with business support, was devoted to the raising of private
fundingfor research.One of its earlyventureswas the organizationof an Institute
of ExperimentalBiologyheadedby N. K. Kol'tsov,a very successfulinstitution in
the years immediately after the Revolution, albeit under differentfinancialand
administrativecontrol than that envisioned by its founders.'0
9The beginningsof private supportof science and technologyare discussedin M. S. Bastrakova,
"OrganizationalTendenciesof RussianScience at the Beginningof the TwentiethCentury"(in Russian), in Organizatsiianauchnoideiatel'nosti(Organizationof scientificactivity),ed. E. A. Beliaevet
al., (Moscow:Nauka, 1968), pp. 150-186.
10The Instituteof ExperimentalBiologywas an importantcenterin the pioneeringdevelopmentof
populationgenetics.See MarkAdams,"Science,Ideology,and Structure:The Kol'tsovInstitute,19001970,"in TheSocialContextof SovietScience,ed. LindaL. LubranoandSusanGrossSolomon(Boulder,
Col.:WestviewPress,1980),pp. 173-204;andAdams,"TheFoundingof PopulationGenetics:Contributions of the ChetverikovSchool, 1924-1934,"Journalof the Historyof Biology,1968, 1:23-39.

BIG SCIENCEIN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIETUNION

53

Private effortsto support researchwere cut off soon after the Revolution. The
tradition of state control, still strong even at the very end of the tsarist period,
passed intact to the new Soviet governmentin 1917 and characterizedSoviet science and technology up to the recent breakup.The elimination of the embryonic
private initiatives in science that had begunjust before the Revolution was a part
of the Soviet centralizationof the researchestablishment,a trend then carriedto
extreme lengths. While the Soviet government in the 1920s and the 1930s supported science and technologyon a scale not matchedby that of any othergovernment in the world, and thereby gave researcha tremendous boost, at the same
time it reduceddiversityand hinderedinitiative by creatinga system in which all
researchorganizations were parts of huge state bureaucracies.
For a long time the nongovernmentalgroups in science that emergedjust before the Russian Revolution, only to be eliminated after it, were known only to
historians-and to few of them. Under Gorbachev,however,reformersin science
have displayed new interest in those abortive efforts of long ago and have asked
the questions, WereRussian science and technologybeginningto move in decentralized and pluralistic directions just before 1917? If these developments had
continued, would Russian science and technology today be more similar in their
organizationalforms and administrativepractices to science and technology in
I Since many of the new reformersbelieve
WesternEuropeand North America?"
that the Soviet Union made a historic mistake in adoptinguniquely Soviet institutions for science, these questions have more than academic interest. But to try
to answerthem now would sidetrackus from our main story and analysis. First,
we must understand how Soviet science administratorsof the 1920s were convinced that the models for research organization that they adopted would be
much more effective than those existing in other countries.
The organizationalstructureof science and technology createdby early Soviet
administratorsand plannerswas based both on what they inheritedfrom the tsarist regime and on their vision of a socialist economy differentfrom and, in their
opinion, superior to the capitalist economies of the West. The flaws of Western
science and technology,they thought,included wastefulduplicationof researchas
a result of competition among secretive capitalist industries, pursuit of profit to
the detriment of public benefit, lack of centralizedplanning, and inadequate financial support from the government.'2
Perhapsthe most permanent reform of science which the Soviet government
enacted in the 1920s was the creation of a system of researchorganizationally
based on institutes.'3There are, of course, researchinstitutes in all scientific nations today, and there were quite a few even in the 1920s; one might doubt, therefore, that the Soviet idea of a researchinstitute is in any way extraordinary.To a
Westernscientist who has spent considerabletime in the Soviet Union, however,
" D. A. Aleksandrovand N. L. Krementsov,"AnExperimentalGuide to an UnknownLand:A PreliminaryOutline of a Social History of Soviet Sciencefrom 1917 to the 1950s"(in Russian), Voprosy
Istorii Estestvoznaniiai Tekhniki,1989, No. 4, pp. 667-680.
12 See, e.g., N. Finkel', "Capitalismand ResearchWork"(in Russian), Molodoi Bol'shevik,1931,
No. 14/15, pp. 22-30.
13 LorenR. Graham,"TheFormationof Soviet ResearchInstitutes:A Combinationof Revolutionary Innovationand InternationalBorrowing,"in Russianand SlavicHistory,ed. Don K. Rowneyand
G. EdwardOrchard(Columbus,Ohio: Slavica, 1977), pp. 49-75.

54

LOREN R. GRAHAM

it will be obvious that the term "scientific-research institute" (nauchnoissledovatel'skiiinstitut)had a stature and a meaning in the Soviet Union-and
still has in Russia-that it does not have in any Westerncountry.Almost all outstandingscientists and engineersin the Soviet Union in 1991 weremembersof an
institute or had connections with one. (The main exception was universityscientists, but faculty members without institute connections played a remarkably
small role in Soviet research).Of the several thousand researchinstitutes in the
Soviet Union the majorityfell under the jurisdiction of the industrialministries.
The most prestigious were under the Academy of Sciences, usually in the basic
sciences. In the entire academy system (includingthe republicacademies) there
were-and still are-about six hundredinstitutes. Certainstreetsin Moscow,St.
Petersburg,Novosibirsk, and Kiev are lined on both sides with institutes. In
Moscow alone, in the area of the city south of October Squareand extending to
Moscow University and beyond, are dozens of researchinstitutes.This geographical region probablycontains more scientific researchersthan any other area of
comparablesize in the world.
The Soviet plannersin the 1920s adopted the institute system as the basic organizational form for researchfor several reasons. First of all, they believed that
they were anticipating Western trends, especially as evidenced in Germany,
where the new institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaftprovided a model.
S. F. Ol'denburg,the permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences, maintained in 1926 that "if the eighteenthcenturywas the centuryof academies,while
the nineteenthcenturywas the centuryof universities,then the twentiethcentury
is becoming the century of researchinstitutes."'4
Second, by placing the most advanced researchin institutes ratherthan in the
universitiesthe early Soviet plannerssolved a political problem.Almost all of the
best scientists in the Soviet Union in the 1920s had been educatedbeforethe Revolution and were, at least in the minds of the leaders of the CommunistParty,of
dubious political loyalty. If these talented but untrustworthy scientists were
placed in institutes separatefrom the universities,they could continue their highlevel researchwithout infecting undergraduateswith their unorthodoxpolitical
ideas. The universities, on the other hand, would be convertedinto mass institutions wherethe instructorswere carefullywatchedand the spirit of socialism was
nurtured.If the quality of science in the universitiessufferedas a result, the loss
would be tolerable.The best science would be done elsewhere,in the institutes.
The fact that the early plannersand administratorsof Soviet science and technology extended the system of centralizedresearchinstitutes to industrialtechnology as well as fundamental science is important for understandingthe later
strengthsand weaknessesof Soviet research.'5The early industrialmanagersbelieved that Westerntechnology was hampered by competition among capitalist
companies that concealed their researchresults from their rivals. In the United
14 S. F O1'denburg,
"Impressionsof ScientificLife in Germany,France,and England"(in Russian),
NauchnyiRabotnik, 1927, No. 2, p. 89. See also Paul R. Josephson,"The loffe Physico-Technical
Institute and the Birth of Soviet Physics" (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
1986).
'5 As PaulJosephsonhas pointed out, earlySoviet sciencepolicy was a case of "centralizationin aspiration"but "dispersionin fact."See his "SciencePolicyin the Soviet Union, 1917-1927,"Minerva,
1988, 26:342-369.

BIG SCIENCEIN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIETUNION

55

States, for example, Soviet critics castigated the "wasteful"competition in research on topics like synthetic fibers of the laboratories of Dow, Du Pont,
Monsanto, and Union Carbide;these critics cited the "superior"example of the
Soviet Union, where one centralized synthetic-fiberresearchinstitute in a large
city would, they thought, make its results availableto the entire Soviet chemical
industry.16
This desire to have largecentralizedresearchinstitutes located in capital cities
ratherthan on plant sites coincided with the general Marxist penchant for centralized planningthat was so strong in the early decades of Soviet history. Many
years later it would become clearthat this prejudicefor centralizationharmedSoviet industrial research by creating unwieldy bureaucraciesand distancing research and industry from each other. Even in the 1920s, when the system was
being created, a few Soviet administratorsworried about this possibility. Iu. L.
Piatakov, for example, proposed in 1925 that research institutes be attached
directly to industrial enterprises.'7This suggestion was sharply opposed by the
leading Bolshevik F E. Dzerzhinskii, a police official and also an industrial administrator.Dzerzhinskii maintained:
In the attaching of institutes to factories or trusts I see a great danger,since this would
mean the restrictingof the scale of these institutes and their intellectualachievements....
It seems to me that these institutes must be independent.. . becausetheir goals and interests must not be tied to those of trustsand factories(but) ... must be connectedto those of
the whole country. Perhaps science will show that we need to abolish a whole series of
trusts. This requiresthe independence of institutes from factories.18

In this statement we see both Dzerzhinskii's belief in the superiorityof planning from above and also his suspicion that many of the private trusts being permitted to operatein the Soviet Union in the 1920s as a part of the New Economic
Policy (NEP) might soon be dismantled or nationalized (as they, in fact, were).
Dzerzhinskii's view prevailed, and on-site industrial researchremained weakly
developed in the Soviet Union. Comparedto other industrialnations, a strikingly
small percentageof Soviet researchscientists and engineershave been employed
directly in industry. Even as late as 1982, only 3 percent of Soviet researchers
with the degree of kandidat (roughly equivalent to the American Ph.D.) were
employed by industrial plants.19(In contrast, in 1975 in the United States 23.7
percent of all doctoral scientists and engineers were employed in business or
industry.)20

The system of industrial researchand development that emerged from these

early reforms proved very capable at some tasks, not so capable at others. The
centralized control permitted Soviet plannersto marshalresourcesquickly for a
16

Finkel', "Capitalismand ResearchWork"(cit. n. 12).

17 See G. A. Lakhtin,Organizatsiiasovetskoinauki:Istoriiai sovremennost'(Organization

of Soviet

science: History and today) (Moscow:Nauka, 1990), pp. 62-63.

18 Nauchnye dostizheniia v promyshlennostii rabota naucho-teknicheskogo
otdela VSNKhSSSR
(Scientific achievements in industry and the work of the Scientific-TechnicalSupreme Economic
Council of the USSR) (Moscow:VSNKh, 1925), pp. 41-42.
11V. Zhamin, "The Intensificationof Science"(in Russian),EkonomicheskieNauki, 1985, No. 4,
p. 34.
20 Characteristics
of DoctoralScientistsand Engineersin the UnitedStates, 1975(Washington,D.C.:
National Science FoundationReport 77-309, 1977), p. 33.

56

LOREN R. GRAHAM

few high-priority tasks, such as building hydroelectric power plants, creating

atomic weapons, or promoting a space program.The system proved much less
adept in providingindustrialresearchsupportacrossthe whole spectrumof hightechnology industry, especially for the consumer economy. The centralized approach favored in the formative years of the Soviet Union created a chasm
between industrial research and industrial production, with the industrial research institutes and the plants where productionwas actuallytaking place separated geographically,organizationally,and even philosophically.The researchers
working in the centralized institutes in the large cities gained a reputation for
being little interestedin productionat local sites. As later Soviet critics would say,
they simply "threwtheir published articles over the transom,"assuming that it
was the responsibilityof the industrialplants to put their ideas into practice.The
factory managers,worriedabout meeting output quotas set by the central planners, were reluctantto interruptproductionin orderto try out new ideas that existed only on paper. This failure to produce an intimate relationship between
researchand industrial production was the greatest weakness in Soviet science
and technology,and it was a by-productof an intentionallyradicaland novel organization of R and D.
The Soviet discussions in the 1920s over the properorganizationof scientific
researchand the relevanceof foreignmodels still shape debate in Russia today.It
is remarkablehow many of the issues about the organizationof researchthat were
reopened in the Soviet Union in later years, especially after the advent of
Gorbachevto power in 1985, have their roots in the decisions of the late 1920s
and early 1930s.21
Another such decision was the one to make the Academy of Sciences the leading centerof fundamentalresearch.It was in the Academythat the best of the new
institutes in the sciences would be placed. That this venerableinstitution, closely
linked in its origins to monarchicalgovernmentand long known as the "Imperial
Academy,"should win the centralplace in the organizationof science in a revolutionary state dedicated to proletarianrule seems to be a paradox.Why was it not
abolished by the militant revolutionaries,as was the Academie Royale des Sciences in France duringthat country'sgreat revolution?Radical critics in Russia
were awareof the revolutionaryprecedentin France,and some of them called for
the abolition of the Russian Academy.22
The need of governments, including revolutionary ones, for science had increased since the time of the French Revolution, and, consequently,the risks
involved in tampering with science were correspondinglygreater;Lenin, A. V.
Lunacharskii,and other leaders of the Communist Party who were concerned
with science and education were aware of these risks, and they frequently expressed their fears. Lenin, in particular,was highly skeptical of the proletarian
culturemovement'sbelief that science in the new era would be radicallydifferent
21 See, e.g., G. Khanin, "Why is Soviet Science on the Skids?" (in Russian), in Postizhenie:
Sotsiologiia,sotsial'naiapolitika,ekonomicheskajareforma(Understanding:Sociology,social policy,
economic reform),ed. F. M. Borodkinet al. (Moscow:Progress,1989), pp. 140-168.
22 See the discussion in M. S. Bastrakova,Stanovieniesovetskoisistemy organizatsiinauki (19171922) (The formationof the Soviet system of the organizationof science) (Moscow:Nauka, 1973),
pp. 97-99.

BIG SCIENCE IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIET UNION

57

from traditional science, and he repeatedlycalled for the preservationof established centers of scientific and technical expertise.23
There werealso ideologicaldifferencesbetweenthe Frenchand Russianrevolutions that had implications for the organizationof science. In his study of the illfated ParisianAcademy during the French Revolution Roger Hahn emphasized
that one of the major ideological criticisms of the Academy was based on "anticorporate bias" that issued from two sources: (1) belief in economic free trade
and analogous cultural liberalism which rejected self-propagatingand guildlike
academies;and (2) admirationof the Englishpattern of an "institutionallyopen
society organized around common-interest groups rather than hierarchic corporate structures."Thus the model for revolutionaryFrench science became the
societe libre, not the academy with its centralized structureinherited from the
monarchy.24

The leaders of revolutionary Russia had very differentbiases and models; to

them, the idea of a centralized academy was not ideologically repugnant,only
the particularpolitical views held by most of the members of the Russian Academy. The victorious revolutionaryleaders believed that Soviet Russia would become a centralized state in which the economy would be directed accordingto a
rational economic plan, not a state with a free market of the sort envisioned by
the French revolutionaries.The Soviet leaders valued science for the help that it
would give in the process of economic advancement, and they wished to have a
centralized scientific organization that could be easily linked to the economic
planning organs. To them, a "free association" of scientific institutions, proposed by several critics of the Russian Academy,would have been a reversionto
the decentralized model of science appropriatefor states with a capitalist economy based on laissez-faire economics, but hardly for the first socialist economy.
The question, then, was not whether a central organ should be created for Soviet
science, but which of the available candidates should be the central organ.25
In the 1920s several rivals to the old Academy appeared, including a newly
created "Communist Academy,"but these newcomers could not compete with
the old Academy in quality of technical advice to the government.26The leaders
23 A typical statementby Lenin was:"Wemust take all of culturewhich
capitalismleft us and build
socialism out of it. We must take all science, technology,all knowledge,art. Withoutthem we cannot
constructthe life of a communistsociety.And science,technology,and art are in the handsand heads
of the specialists."Quoted in S. A. Fediukin, VelikiiOktiabr'i intelligentsiia(GreatOctoberand the
intelligentsia)(Moscow:Nauka, 1972), p. 71. For Lenin'swarningaboutthe Academy,see "Fromthe
Reminiscencesof A. V. Lunacharskiiabout the Position of V. I. Lenin on Questionsof the Reformof
the Academy of Sciences in 1919," in Lenin and the Academyof Sciences (in Russian), ed. P. N.
Pospelov (Moscow:Nauka, 1969), pp. 62-63. For an interestingearlyworkon Lenin's attitudestoward the bourgeois specialists see S. Girinis, Lenin o spetsakh (Lenin on specialists) (Moscow:
MGSPS "Laborand the Book," 1924).
24 RogerHahn, TheAnatomyof a ScientificInstitution:The ParisAcademyof Sciences, 1666-1803
(Berkeley:Univ. CaliforniaPress, 1971), pp. 135-136.
25 It is truethat in the earlyyearsafterthe RussianRevolutionthe idea of a freeassociationwaspopular,but it soon yielded place to more centralizedplans. See, e.g., SheilaFitzpatrick,TheCommissariat of Enlightenment:Soviet Organizationof Educationand theArtsunderLunacharsky(Cambridge:
CambridgeUniv. Press, 1970), p. 75. For discussionsof the problemof coordinatingSoviet science
see G. I. Fed'kin,Pravovyevoprosyorganizatsiinauchnoirabotyv USSR(Legalquestionsin the organizationof scientificworkin the USSR) (Moscow:Nauka, 1958);and Lakhtin,Organizatsiiasovetskoi
nauki (cit. n. 17).
26 See Joel Shapiro,"AHistory of the CommunistAcademy, 1918-1936," (Ph.D. diss., Columbia
University, 1976).

58

LOREN R. GRAHAM

of the Academy of Sciences, especially A. P. Karpinskii, S. F Ol'denburg,V. I.

Vernadskii,and V. N. Ipat'ev,shrewdlyoutperformedall the expertsand administrators from rival organizationsin demonstratingthe usefulness of science to
the regime. They helped organize the electrificationprogram for the country,
sponsored geological surveys of valuable minerals and ores, studied energy
sources, and gave technical advice to industry and the military.
A belated assault on the Academy did come in 1929, but the demand voiced
by the attackerswas not so much for a totally new institution as for access to an
old institution by Marxist scholars and an integration of that institution's work
with the Soviet political and economic order.The old Academy of Sciences had
demonstrated its superiority over the new Communist Academy, which soon
expired.27

By the mid 1930s Soviet science and technologyhad takenon the basic organizational features that remained constant to the Gorbachev period, despite numerous subsequent small reforms. Above all three pyramids (academy, education, industry)was the State PlanningCommission (GOSPLAN)of the Council
of Ministers, which determinedthe overall budget of each of the pyramids.And
above the Council of Ministerswas the CommunistParty,actingthroughthe Central Committee or the Politburo.These highest organswere, in theory, responsible for the actual researchwork of the pyramids,but on all but high-priorityor
ideologically troubled topics (such as genetics) these central bodies did not usually interfere with research; the individual pyramid controlled its own work
within the budget assigned to it.
In the post-World War II period the Soviet science establishment became
even more devoted to "gigantomania"than it had previously. In Novosibirsk,
Pushchino, Dubna, Obninsk, and other centers outside Moscow, large "science
cities" were establishedwhere thousands of researchersworkedin close proximity. In the first decade or so after their initiation, these centers performedfairly
well, benefiting from their distance from the political influence of Moscow, but
soon they too were caught up in the enveloping bureaucracy.
III. HOW WELL DID THE SOVIET SCIENCE SYSTEM WORK?

When one considersthe enormouseffortthat the Soviet governmentmade to foster science and technology,one must concludethat the resultsweredisappointing.
No matter what criterion of excellence one chooses-number of Nobel Prizes
awarded, frequency of citation of Soviet research, number of inventions registered abroad, or honorary membership in foreign scientific societies-the
achievements of the world's largestcommunity of scientists was disproportionately small.28In the fields of naturalscience (physics, chemistry,physiology and
medicine) from 1901 through 1990 citizens of the United States received 145
Nobel Prizes and citizens of the USSR received 8. In all fields (includingliterature, economics, and peace), citizens of the United States have won 217 Nobel
awardsand citizens of the USSR 23. If one ranks the countries of the world in
27 Ibid.
28 Thane Gustafson,"WhyDoesn't Soviet Science Do Better Than It Does?"in Social Contextof
SovietScience,ed. Lubranoand Solomon,pp. 31-68; and Khanin,"SovietScienceon the Skids"(cit.
n. 21).

BIG SCIENCE IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIET UNION

59

terms of the number of their citizens who have received this award,the Soviet
Union ranks sixth, after the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany,and
Sweden.
If one looks at the sale of licenses for technology, an even worse picture
emerges. The United States, with all of its own troubles in competing with the
Japanese, sold annuallyapproximatelythirty times more licenses for technology
than the Soviet Union in recentyears.29A similarpictureemergesfrom a study of
honorarymembershipsin prestigiousscientific societies. In 1986 the Royal Society of London had 87 foreign members, of whom 6 were citizens of the Soviet
Union and 44 citizens of the United States. Duringthe next two years 3 of the Soviet members died, leaving only 3. The situation was slightly better among foreign membersof the National Academyof Sciences in the United States,in which
16 members were Soviets in 1986, out of a total of approximately250 foreign
associates.
Each criterion for comparing science in the Soviet Union with that in other
countries has, of course, its flaws.The Russian languageis still knownby few outside researchers,and consequently the achievements of Soviet researcherswere
more frequentlyoverlooked than those presented in more accessible languages.
But the conclusion is still inescapablethat Soviet science and technology did not
fulfill the grand goals that early Soviet plannersestablished. In recent years this
failure was openly recognizedin the Soviet Union itself, whereunder Gorbachev
the critics of the science establishment were far more outspoken than Western
specialists who write about Soviet science.30
Soviet science and technologyhave, of course,a stringof outstandingsuccesses.
The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to build an atomic power
plant, the first to launch an artificialsatellite, the first to launch a human being
into space, and the first to suggestthe now widely accepted Tokamakmodel for
nuclear fusion. In some areas of theoreticalphysics and mathematicsthe Soviet
Union has been a worldleader for decades, and it maintainedstrongtraditionsin
oceanography,seismology,metallurgy,magnetohydrodynamics,chemical catalysis, and a variety of other fields.
Many of the strengthsand weaknessesof Soviet science and technologycan be
explained in social terms. The strengthof mathematicsand theoreticalphysics, of
"blackboardscience," can be described, at least in part, as a naturalproduct of
talented researchersin a repressivepolitical atmosphereand a tightly controlled
economic one. Gifted young people gravitatedto fields where achievement was
possible despite the political and economic barriersexisting in the Soviet Union.
Conversely,the weaknessof industrialresearchand innovation was, againin part,
a result of the lack of economic stimulation and competition, and of the separation of industrialresearchfrom production. The cyclical pattern of advance and
retreatin Russiantechnologygoes farbackbefore the revolutionsof 1917 and has
been produced by a combination of talented native engineers, periodic foreign
stimulus, and an unsupportivedomestic environment.Breakthroughsin technol29

Khanin, "Soviet Science on the Skids,"p. 142.

See, e.g., ibid.;and "AResolutionof the Participantsof the Seminar-Conference
'Socio-Economic
Problemsof the Workersin ScientificInstitutionsof the Academyof Sciencesof the USSR' " (in Russian), Poisk, 1991, 97(11):1.
30

60

LOREN R. GRAHAM

ogy have not usuallybeen sustainedin the domestic and worldeconomies. On the
other hand, Soviet strengthsin "bigtechnology,"in areassuch as atomic weapons
and space technology, came from centralized governmental control over resources and personnel, a degree of control possessed by few other governments;
this ability to focus on a few high-priorityprojectshelped the Soviet government
in areas important to its security.
Many Soviet scientists were awarethat Soviet science was doing less well in recent years than twenty or thirty years ago. The last Soviet Nobel Prize in science
was awardedin 1978, and that was to Peter Kapitsa for work done before World
WarII. The previous prize was in 1964 to N. G. Basov and A. M. Prokhorovfor
work on lasers. The Soviet space program,long the glory of Soviet science, came
in the end under sharp criticism at home as a wasteful diversion of funds that
should have been devoted to improving living standards. The growing gap in
quality and speed between Soviet computersand those producedabroadwas beginning to affect adversely even those areas of science where Soviet researchers
were long on the cutting edge, such as theoreticalphysics and mathematics.The
generalcrisis in the Soviet economy of the last threeyearsmade it extremelydifficult to find the funds for expansion of the researchbudget.
These ominous signs are the reasonsthat duringthe last few years Soviet scientists called for radicalreformsof the organizationand fundingof researchand development. These reforms will be discussed in Section V of this article.
IV. EFFORTS OF WESTERN AND SOVIET SCIENTISTS TO COOPERATE

The history of scientific contacts between Westernnations and the Soviet Union
was a checkeredone. From the early 1930s until Stalin's death in 1953 the contacts werealmost nil, since Stalin fearedthat travelby Soviet scientistswould lead
to political unorthodoxyand even defection.31Furthermore,duringthe Cold War
many Westerngovernments(and particularlythat of the United States)restricted
contacts in an effortto prevent transferof valuabletechnology to their Communist rival. And just as Stalin fearedthe influenceof Westernpolitics on the Soviet
Union, so also many politicians in the Westerncountrieswerewaryof Marxism.
The firstreal breakthroughscame in the thaw of the late 1950s, duringthe rule
of Nikita Khrushchev.The "Lacy-ZarubinAgreement"betweenthe Soviet Union
and the United States, signed in 1957, marked the beginning of scientific exchanges between the two countries.32From that time to the present these exchangesnever entirely ceased, althoughthe level of interactionhas varied wildly.
Exploringthe factorsthat inhibited and promotedthese exchangesrevealsa great
deal about the politics of science in the late twentieth century.
A constant factor encumberingscientific contacts between the Soviet Union
and Westernnations was the asymmetryin the organizationof researchin the different countries and the assumptions, on both sides, about how scientific exII Before Stalin'scrackdown,however,relationsin some fields were developingnicely. See Paul R.
Josephson, "Physicsand Soviet-WesternRelations in the 1920s and 1930s,"Physics Today,1988,
41:54-61.
32 See, e.g., David D. Finley, "Soviet-U.S. Cooperationin Spaceand Medicine,"in Sectorsof Mutual Benefit in U.S.-Soviet Relations, ed. Nish Jamgotch,Jr. (Durham:Duke Univ. Press, 1985),
p. 140.

BIG SCIENCEIN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIETUNION

61

changes should be conducted. Most scientists and administratorsin Westernnations believed that visits by scientists from one countryto those in anothershould
be locally, not centrally,arranged.No one keeps track, for example, nor could
keep track, of the number of scientific visitors between the United States and
Great Britain or France. Different individuals, institutions, and foundations arrange such visits without coordination at the governmentallevel. Governments
do, of course, often provide money to support various exchangeprograms,such
as National Science Foundation and Fulbrightgrants, but once the money is
awarded,the arrangementsare usually made locally.
The Soviet government insisted that all exchanges be centrally controlled on
the basis of a governmentallystipulatedquota.33The Academyof Sciences of the
USSR actually administered the exchange visits of most Soviet scientists to the
West on the basis of intergovernmentalagreements.In order to mesh with this
system, the United States and other Westerngovernmentsset up similarcentrally
controlled exchange administrations.In the United States the leading organization administering exchanges in science and technology, working within the
frameworkof governmentalagreements,was the National Academy of Sciences
in Washington,D.C. This ill-matched system continues today, even though the
two academies are about as differentas can be imagined.Out of this asymmetrya
host of problemsarose concerningaccess to institutions. Furthermore,until quite
recentlythe Soviet Union wanted its scientists to be nominated by Soviet administratorsinstead of individually invited by Americanscientists. Most Soviet scientists were hosted by the National Academy in the United States even though
their logical hosts were American universities. Most American scientists came
from universities but were sent to the Soviet Academyof Sciences. Expectingthe
two different bureaucraciesto interact smoothly was like asking an eagle and a
bear to dance a minuet.
In addition to the problem of asymmetry of organization,three other factors
affected the degree of contact between Soviet scientists and their American
colleagues. While asymmetry of organization was nearly constant after the
1940s, these three other factorsvariedgreatlyover time. I categorizethem as diplomatic cordiality,political compatibility,and commensurabilityin science and
technology.
Diplomatic cordialityrefers to the state of internationalrelations between the
Soviet Union and the United States. During much of the past forty-fiveyears
these relations have been cool or even frigid, but significantvariations have occurred. For example, diplomatic relations improved greatly after the summit
meeting between Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in 1972, and a whole series of scientific exchangeagreementsfollowed,leadingto a markedexpansion of
33 For evaluationsof U.S.-Soviet scientificexchangessee CatherineP. Ailes and ArthurE.
Pardee,
Jr., Cooperationin Science and Technology:An Evaluationof the US-Soviet Agreement(Boulder,
Colo./London: Westview Press, 1986); Jamgotch, ed., Sectors of Mutual Benefit (cit. n. 32); Carl
Kaysen,ed., Reviewof U.S.-U.S.S.R.InteracademyExchangesand Relations(Washington,D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1977); RichardL. Garwin,ed., Reviewof the US-USSR Agreementon
Cooperationin Science and Technology(Washington,D.C.: National Academyof Sciences, 1977);
RobertE Byrnes,Soviet-American
AcademicExchanges,1958- 75(Bloomington:IndianaUniv. Press,
1976); Yakov M. Rabkin, Science Betweenthe Superpowers(New York:Priority Press, 1988); and
Loren R. Graham,"How Valuableare ScientificExchangeswith the Soviet Union?"Science, 1978,
201:383-390.

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LOREN R. GRAHAM

scientific contacts between the two countries. But with the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistanin 1979 and the subsequent suppressionof Andrei Sakharov,relations abruptly cooled. After new summit meetings in the late 1980s, Ronald
Reagan announced that "Mikhail Gorbachev is my friend," and contacts grew
again, more impressivelythan ever before. Indeed, after 1990 the State Department, which alwaysearlierkept statistics on the numbersof exchangees,gave up
keepingtrack. Too many scholarswere going in individually arrangedways,just
as has always been the case between the United States and Westerncountries.
Political compatibilityrefersto the similarity of the two differentpolitical systems of the United States and the Soviet Union. The contrast between the oneparty authoritarianSoviet system and the multipartydemocracyof the United
States was a serious impedimentto scientificexchanges.Thereweremoments, especially during the Soviet suppressionof dissidents and Jewish scientists in the
1970s, when American scientists refused to go to the Soviet Union even when
their government encouragedthem to do so under the bilateralexchange agreements. In the years 1976 to 1980 severalthousand Americanscientists, including
15 Nobelists and 180 members of the National Academy of Sciences, signed
pledges that they would not participate in the governmentally sanctioned exchange agreementsuntil the political situation in the Soviet Union improved.34
Since the advent of Gorbachev,this situation has dramaticallychanged.Although
the republics of the former Soviet Union are still not true democracies,the political compatibility between the United States and the republics has greatly
improved.
Commensurabilityof science and technologyrefersnot only to the similarityof
the state of developmentof science and technologyin the two countries,but to social demands placed on them. It recognizesthe impedimentsthat remain beyond
diplomatic and political barriers,within science and technologythemselves. Not
all areas in Soviet science and technology were sufficientlyinterestingto American scientists to persuadethem to participate in long-termexchanges.Very few
dissertation supervisorsin the leading science faculties in Americanuniversities
were willing to recommend that their best students spend a year in the Soviet
Union. (When I went to the Soviet Union in 1960/61 with a dozen or so American
doctoral students, the science majors were told by several Americanprofessors
that they were wasting one of their most valuable years;belying the prediction,
one of my fellow studentsthat year,Roald Hoffmann,laterwon the Nobel Prize in
chemistry.)Partof the Americanresistanceto going to the Soviet Union was simple prejudiceand ignorance,but many areasof science and technologyin the Soviet Union were not as advancedas in the United States. However,some areasof
Soviet science were always strong, mathematics and theoretical physics in the
early period of U.S.-Soviet science exchanges, for example;these were areas in
which Americanscould learn as well as teach. An official report of the National
Academy of Sciences in Washingtonin 1977 described Soviet researchon condensed mattertheory as "some of the most innovativeand importantworkin the
world" and Soviet researchin mathematics as "second to none."35
34 Linda Lubrano, "The Political Web of Scientific Cooperation," in Sectors of Mutual Benefit, ed.
Jamgotch (cit. n. 32), p. 62.
35 Kaysen, ed., Review of Exchanges (cit. n. 33), p. 104.

BIG SCIENCEIN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIETUNION

63

As time passed, the degree of commensurability improved, partly because

problems demandinginternationalcooperationemerged,such as the greenhouse
effect, nuclear power regulation, fusion energy,space research,ocean pollution,
preservationof migratoryspecies, and studies of the earth'scrust. Some of these
areas of potential cooperation were emphasized in the eleven bilateral agreements signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s, but
they were eliminated or downgradedduringthe revival of the Cold Warthat followed at the end of the decade. In the last few years they reemerged.The Soviet
Union became much more willing to cooperate with international science and
technology agencies than in earlieryears. A turning point here was the explosion
of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.36The Soviet authorities at first
tried to cover up the disaster but ultimately cooperated fully with the International Atomic Energy Association. Afterwards Soviet science and technology
were in deeper contact with foreign nations than ever before. And the need for
such contacts in orderto deal with global problemssuch as pollution has become
ever clearer.
V. LATE EFFORTS TO REFORM SOVIET SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Gorbachev's more generalpolitical and economic reforms,such as the policy of

glasnost' (openness), liberalization of political controls, and decentralizationof
economic activities wereaimed at Soviet society as a whole, ratherthan at science
and technology per se. Nonetheless, these broad reformswere part of an effortto
modernize Soviet society and to improve the workingconditions of creativepeople, especially scientists, engineers, and skilled laborers.37The release of the famous physicist-dissidentAndrei Sakharovfrom forced exile in the city of Gor'kii
was a striking example of glasnost' extended to the scientific sphere. Factory
workerswere allowed to participatein meaningfulelections of factory directors,
in recognitionthat highly skilled workersmust now be given more autonomythan
was necessaryduringthe basic drive to industrialize.And economic activities, including price formation, were decentralized,in hopes of fosteringthe energizing
and innovative effects of competition. Gurii Marchuk,presidentof the Academy
of Sciences, observedthat one of the effectsof these economic reformswas to provide feedback to researchersfrom industry, letting them know what kinds of
products and innovations were most needed.38Recognizing the need for such
feedback already implied criticism of centralized planning.
PrivateInitiatives in Science and Technology
Some reformsnot specificallyaimed at science and technologyhad effects in this
area, for example, the "Law on Individual Labor Activity," launched in May
36 Paul R. Josephson, "The Historical Roots of the Chernobyl Disaster,"Soviet Union/Union
Sovitique, 1986, 13(3):275-299.
37 For a generaltreatmentof recentattemptsto reformSoviet science, see HarleyD. Balzer,Soviet
Science on the Edge of Reform(Boulder,Colo.: WestviewPress, 1989).
38 G. I. Marchuk,"Reconstructionof the ScientificActivity of Institutionsof the Academyof Sciences in Lightof the Decisions of the Twenty-seventhCongressof the CommunistPartyof the Soviet
Union" (in Russian), VestnikAkademiiNauk SSSR, 1987, No. 1, p. 5.

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LOREN R. GRAHAM

1987, and the "Lawon the CooperativeSystem,"adopted in May 1988.39Under

these laws private citizens, operatingunder a system of registrationand control,
were allowed to engage in profitable small-scale trade and household services.
Most of these "cooperatives"had nothing to do with science or high technology;
they weresmall restaurants,repairshops, taxi services,and studios in the artsand
crafts. Soon, however,scientists and engineersbegan using them to provide hightech consultingservicesto local industries,to establishscientificsupplyhouses, to
create innovative software programmingcenters, and to build scientific instruments. Here was belated recognition by Soviet administratorsthat giant enterprises are often less creativethan individuals or small groups.By 1990 there were
more than 10,000 science and technology cooperatives in the Soviet Union involving about 250,000 people and handlingbusiness of approximately3.5 billion
rublesa year.40The growthof private initiative in the areaof science and technology was quite remarkable.The largestsingle area of activity of the new cooperatives was computers (both hardwareand softwareactivities), but the movement
rapidlyspreadthroughoutthe communication,transport,chemical,medical, and
power industries.
The workof the new science and technologycooperatives,even though impressive, was hamperedby both officialregulationsand public resentment.According
to the regulations, the cooperatives were basically moonlighting organizations
whose employees workedat regularjobs duringthe workday.Often the cooperatives were "attached"to official scientific-researchinstitutes and used the equipment of those institutes in the evenings and on the weekends. Many disputes
naturally arose between official administratorsand private entrepreneursover
compensation and diversion of resources.In some cases the cooperativeswere so
successful that they actually came to dominate their parent institutes; in other
cases the officialorganizationstried to absorbthe cooperatives.Some bureaucrats
tried to squelchthe cooperativeswith a multitude of regulations,includingpunitive taxation. Otherssimply levied shakedownpayments.Criminalorganizations
demanded protection money from the cooperatives.Ordinarycitizens, indoctrinated by yearsof socialist egalitarianism,often resentedthe enrichmentof the entrepreneursand wrote letters to the newspapersasking that the cooperativesbe
closed down. Thus by the early 1990s the situation of the science and technology
cooperativeswas very mixed. Still, one had the impressionthat they filledsuch an
obvious need that they would continue to grow unless throttled by an abrupt
change in official policy.
New Official OrganizationalForms
At the same time that private groups sprangup in Soviet science and technology
the officialadministratorscontinued to seek a more effectivesystem for stimulating innovations. Most of their suggestionshad two goals: to break down the extreme centralization of the old system, and to overcome the gap between
"9"Lawof the USSR on IndividualEnterprise"(in Russian),Pravda,21 Nov. 1981, pp. 1, 3; and
SharonL. Leiter,"Smallis Beautiful:The New Soviet Scientific-TechnicalCooperatives,"(Centerfor
Russian and East European Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1990), unpublished
paper.
40 Leiter,"Smallis Beautiful."

BIG SCIENCE IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIET UNION

65

academic researchand industrialdevelopment. In the middle and late 1980s the

favored organizationalform was "InterbranchScientific-TechnicalComplexes,"
known by the Russian acronym"MNTK."'41These conglomeratescombined both
researchand productionfacilities and wereusuallyunderthe control of institutes
of the Academy of Sciences, instead of productionministries.Discouragedby the
production ministries' disinclination to introduce innovations into their plants,
Gorbachev turned to the Academy of Sciences, which he considered more enlightened about modern technology and methods of management.
Within a few years about two dozen of the new MNTKs were created.They included complexes workingon biotechnology,machine tools, computers,robotics,
fiberoptics, chemical catalysis, lasers, welding, automation, and petrochemicals.
All had acronyms for titles, such as ROBOT,KATALIZATOR,
BIOGEN,and PEVM(personal computers).
One of the most impressive of the MNTKs was BIOGEN,founded by Academician Iurii Ovchinnikov at the Shemiakin Institute of Bio-organicChemistry of
the Academy of Sciences. BIOGENwas modeled in part on the form of a Western
corporation;indeed, there was a Westerncompany of the same name involved in
the same business. To avoid confusion, Shemiakin'sMNTK was known internationally as BIOTAN(Biological Technology of the Academy of Sciences).
MNTKs such as Ovchinnikov'srepresenteda radicaldeparturein the organization of Soviet science and technology.Never before had the Academyof Sciences
been put in charge of actual industrial production. Ovchinnikov was given his
own plant facility near Riga, a factorythat earlierhad belongedto the Ministryof
Chemical Technology. In addition to the factory and the Shemiakin Institute,
BIOGENincluded a researchfacility in Pushchino (outside Moscow), two special
constructionbureaus,and eighteen other "associated"organizations.42The accumulation of such a largenumberof organizations,includingproductionfacilities,
under one institute of the Academy of Sciences was a significantgrowth in the
powerand influenceof the Academyat the expense of the industrialministries.
Despite this promising start, by the beginningof the 1990s the movement toward MNTKs slowed. Ovchinnnikovdied prematurelyof leukemia, and his absence affected BIOGEN. More important, the private initiatives in science and
technology cooperatives drew away the creative energy of official organizations
like the Academy institutes. The industrial ministries continued to resist the
Academy's encroachmenton their prerogativesand managedto prevent it from
entirely taking over the MNTK movement. Furthermore,radicalcritics beganto
attack the Academy itself as an example of centralizedresearch.Thus criticized
both from the right (the bureaucratsof the centralizedindustrialministries) and
from the left (the reformerswho wanted a scientific establishmentlike those in
Western nations and therefore questioned the need for Academy institutes) the
MNTK movement with its principle of researchcomplexes dominated by Academy institutes lost some of its steam.
41 The MNTKs were established 12 Dec. 1985; see Pravda, 13 Dec. 1985. Gorbachevdiscussed
them at the 27th Congressof the CommunistPartyof the USSR.
42 Interviewof Iurii Ovchinnikovand other staff membersof ShemiakinInstitute by Loren Graham, for "Nova" (PBS), Moscow, 17 Nov. 1986.

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LOREN R. GRAHAM

Reformsin the Academyof Sciences

Under Gurii Marchuk,who was elected presidentof the Academy of Sciences in
October 1986, the Academy's presidium enacted several reforms, sometimes
under heavy pressure from the government or from younger researchers.43The
changeswere designedto focus the Academy more tightly on the most important
problemsof research(especiallywith practicalapplications),to reequipthe Academy with more modern instrumentsand computers,to revitalize the subsidiary
academies in the Soviet republics,to democratizethe system of choosing leading
administrators,to loosen controls on travel and access to foreign publications,
and to enforce retirementof older administrators.
An unprecedentedprotest against the senior administrationof the Academy
brokeout in the springof 1989.44 The demonstrationwas provokedby the Academy presidium's refusal to accept the voting results among its workersand to
nominate several reformers to the new Soviet legislature, including Andrei
Sakharovand Roald Sagdeev,the longtime head of the Academy's institute of
space research.Severalthousand Academy workersgatheredin the drivewaybefore the presidiumbuildingjust off Lenin Prospectin Moscow and jeered the decision, waving signs called for President Marchuk and the members of the
presidium to resign, and urging democratic reforms within the Academy structure. In reply,the presidiumrelentedunderthe pressureand nominated Sagdeev
and Sakharovto the legislature.The presidiumalso supportedgreaterdecentralization of the Academy's administrationand the election of institute directors.
Despite these reforms, many intellectuals in Gorbachev's Soviet Union increasinglysaw the Academy as a ratherconservativebureaucracy.A direct product of the 1989 protest was the formation of a "Union of CreativeScientists,"an
informal group that called for thoroughgoingreform throughoutSoviet science
and education and that also defended professionalrights.These reformersestablished their own newspaperand they often criticized the central Academy.
Some of the critics, such as MaksimFrank-Kamenetskii,saw the very idea of a
central Academy controlling so much of the country's best scientific talent as a
vestige of Stalinism and Stalin's command-administrativeeconomy.45Would it
not be better,these critics asked,if the Academyweremerelyan honorificsociety,
like the Royal Society in Englandand the National Academy of Sciences in the
United States? Under such a system scientists, even those who are members of
the Academy,would work elsewhere,in a dispersed system of universities, governmental laboratories,and industries.
The future of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR also got caught up in the
debates over nationalism. Many scientists, both in Russia and the other republics, called for the breakupof the entire "big"Academy of Sciences of the USSR
into its constituent parts, with each republichaving its own academyof sciences.
The significanceof this proposal was greatest for the Russian republic;only it
43 Marchuk,"Reconstruction"
(cit. n. 38). See VestnikakademiinaukSSSR, 1986, No. 11, pp. 3845; and VeraTolz, "Academyof SciencesCriticizedfor Lackof Democracy,"RadioLibertyReport,30
Jan. 1987.
44 Based on interviewsin Moscow by Loren Graham,Dec. 1990-Jan. 1991.
45 Maksim Frank-Kamenetskii,
interviewby LorenGraham,Columbus,Ohio, 26 Oct. 1990.

BIG SCIENCEIN THE LAST YEARS OF THE BIG SOVIETUNION

~ ~

67

The Presidium Building of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow.Photo

courtesy of the Institute of the History of Science and Technology,Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow.

among the fifteen republics of the old USSR did not already have its own academy, although most of the big Academy's institutes were within the Russian republic. Creatinga Russian Academyof Sciences (as distinct from the existing big
Soviet one) was a threat to the Soviet academy, since the new Russian academy
would want most of the institutes and other assets of the old Academy. Some
scientists suggested just renaming the big Academy the Russian one. Others
proposed making the Siberian department of the big Academy, located in
Novosibirsk, the core of a new Russian Academy, perhaps with the addition of
some of the best institutes in Moscow.
The demise of the Academyof Sciences of the USSR was determinedfirstby its
reaction to the attempted military coup of August 1991, and second by the
breakupof the Soviet Union at the end of that year.Duringthe severaldayswhen
it appearedthat the coup mightbe successful,the leadersof the big Academywere
silent, creating the opinion that they could easily live with the new right-wing
leaders.This behaviorconfirmedthe suspicions of the critics of the old Academy,
who had long associated it with conservative Communist Partyrule. Even more
important, of course, was the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself at the end of
1991. Now there was no centralgovernmentthat could supportthe big Academy.
Even before the end of the Soviet Union, ethnically Russian scientists formed
their own academy, which challenged the old central Academy for authority.
Many of the members of the new Russian Academy of Sciences were from the
provinces and considered the old Academy a closed elite of the capital cities. At
the end of 1991 a way out of the dilemma of having two rival academies fighting
for the loyalties of Russian scientists was found; a hybrid of the two disputing
academies was created by combining the approximately250 full membersof the
old academywith the 39 full membersof the new Russian academy.The resulting
synthesis was named the "RussianAcademy of Sciences,"and it became the heir

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LOREN R. GRAHAM

to almost all of the institutes and propertyof the old Academyof Sciences of the
USSR. Its new president was the applied mathematicianIurii Osipov, a science
advisor to the president of the Russian Republic, Boris Yeltsin.
As time goes on, the new RussianAcademyof Sciences seems to look more and
more like the old "big"Academy. The new academy has a slightly more democratic system of governancethan the old one, includingrepresentativesof the research institutes in its GeneralAssembly,but in most other regardsthe new and
the old academies are highly similar.The reformersand radicalswho called for a
majorreorganizationof Russian science that would shift the locus of fundamental researchfrom the academy system to the universitieswere unsuccessful.It is,
of course, still too early to knowjust what lasting organizationalchanges in science will be caused by the demise of the Soviet Union, but at the moment the system looks much like the old one, with the term Russian substituted for Soviet.
Changesin the Financingof Researchand Development
The traditional method of funding research in the Soviet Union was through
block funding of large institutes.46Every year each institute usually received an
incrementalincreasein its budget;that sum wouldthen be split up amongthe various departmentsof the institute. This method of fundinggave greatauthorityto
the institute director.Individual researcherswithin the institute were not free to
apply to outside organizationsfor funds.
Even under Gorbachev'spredecessorsthis system was not absolute.It was supplemented by contractsbetween institutes and various other governmentorganizations, civilian and military, for task-directedresearch. These contracts also
wereunder the control of the institute directors.Within the Academyof Sciences
of the USSR, the sum of such contractswas normallyrestrictedto 25 percent of
any institute'stotal budget;the purposeof this policy wasto preventthe Academy
from being too involved in applied ratherthan fundamentalresearch.This policy
did not normallyapplyto institutes and universitiesoutside the centralAcademy;
some of them became heavily dependent on industrial and military contracts.
One of the reformsof the Gorbachevera was to move towarda system of funding more like that of the National Science Foundationin the United States. Several central funding organizationswere established, and principal investigators
were encouragedto submit applications for peer review. This reform obviously
increasedthe authorityof individual researchersand diminished that of institute
directors,even though directorsstill possessed administrativereviewpowersover
the individual proposals (as is usually the case in the United States and other
countries).
In recent years self-financing,or khozraschet,was another prominent element
in Soviet policy for researchand development. The idea was that each institute
should pay its own way on the basis of the grantsit received, its normalstate budget, and contractswith industry.Self-financingwas aimed towardmaking Soviet
researchersmuch more responsive to the industrial marketand also to government priorities exercised through the central foundations.
Self-financingobviously is likelyto workmuch better in some areasthan in oth46

See Gustafson, "Soviet Science" (cit. n. 28); and Balzer, Soviet Science(cit. n. 37), pp. 180-186.

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69

ers. Institutes with clear conections to industry, such as those in computers and
automation, might be entirelyself-financing.Others,such as those in pure mathematics, theoretical physics, astronomy,and the humanities, may not find many
opportunitiesfor lucrativecontracts.The Soviet science establishmentwas working through these problems and opportunities. If the reform projects proceed
under the breakupand succeed,the resultwill be a growingsimilaritybetweenthe
funding of science and technology in the former Soviet Union and in Western
countries.
With the end of the Soviet Union and the concurrentfinancialcrisis, the situation of Russian science at the moment is bleak. Inflationhas severelyeroded salaries and budgets. Many scientists and engineers from the former Soviet Union
have tried to emigrateabroad,and severalthousandsare currentlyworkingin the
United States. The Americangovernmenthas offeredto help keep formerweapons scientists at workin Russia, in orderto discouragethem from sellingtheir expertise to third-worldcountries like Iraq, but the fates of rank-and-filescientists
and engineers in the former Soviet Union are uncertain.
Vestigesof CentralizedBigness
Centralized and technocratic approaches die hard, however, and the Soviet
Union frequentlyrevertedto the old pattern. In 1990 N. P. Laverov,chairmanof
the USSR State Committee on Science and Technology,announcedthe establishment of a "technopolis"in the city of Troitskwith the assistanceof an American
firm,Bechtel International.Accordingto a news releasefrom Bechtel,Troitskwas
to be convertedinto "a 21st century city of the future"with a conferencecenter,
international hotel, U.S.-style housing, and recreational facilities.47A Bechtel
spokesmanproudly observed that the Soviets had picked Bechtel to develop the
new science city because of its past experience in creating "regional megaprojects."Another such technopolis was being established in Zelenograd,about
45 kilometers from Moscow. These high-technologyconglomerations are patterned on companies in Silicon Valley in California and on Route 128 near
Boston.
This Soviet attempt to duplicate by government policy what grew up in the
United States on the basis of private initiative (although,of course, influencedby
governmentalpolicy) smacks of the old centralizedapproach,despite Soviet assurances that the new communities were to nurture entrepreneurialventures.
Laverov revealed the similarity of the new policy to older ones when he continued: "Actuallywe establishedtechnopolises of a sort much earlier.When we were
making breakthroughsin space exploration and nuclearpower,we established a
series of technopolises, near Moscow and in some other areas."Spaceexploration
and the early phase of nuclearpower,however,were effortsin which centralized
direction was much more appropriatethan in such fast-breakingand innovative
industries as computer technology. And as for nuclear power the record of the
centralized Soviet bureaucracy,which concealed a host of safety problems until
Chernobyl revealed them to the entire world, does not inspire confidence in
efforts that follow this pattern.
47

"Newsfrom Bechtel"(SanFrancisco:BechtelCorporationNews Release,5 April 1990),pp. 1-2.

70

LOREN R. GRAHAM

The role of the Americancompany Bechtel in the Soviet projectto build giant
"technopolises"also reveals that the United States may not necessarilyhelp the
Russians break out of their old technocratic habits. Americans, too, are technocratic. Offered a lucrative contract, Bechtel probably did not suggest that a
wiser approach than building a centralized science-and-technologycity was to
formulatesocial and economic policies that would let Soviet entrepreneursform
researchventures in any location where they think they will succeed. Largeconstructioncompanies like Bechtelare more similarto the old Soviet state construction agencies that broughtthe Soviet republicstheir present monotonous visage
and inefficientmodes of operation than either Americansor the former Soviets
usually realize.
VI. CONCLUSIONS

The evolution of the Soviet science establishmentduring the decades of Soviet

history is filled with meaning both for the former Soviet republicsand for other
nations. For the firsttime in history the leadersof a nation consciously set out to
devise and constructa system of researchand developmentthat would, they were
confident,be superiorto all others. This new system would avoid all the problems
of science in capitalist countries:secretive competition, subservienceof science
to the profit motive, lack of planning. The Bolshevik leader N. I. Bukharinannounced in London in 1931 at the historic Second InternationalCongressof the
History of Science: "It is not only a new economic system that has been born. A
new culture has been born. A new science has been born."48
This enthusiasm for a new vision of science and technologywas also sharedby
quite a few leftist writersand scientists in the West, such as J. G. Crowther,J. D.
Bernal, and Henry Sigerist.Crowtherwrote in 1936 in a book entitled SovietScience that the planningof science as envisioned in the Soviet Union representeda
new era, and that "The State PlanningCommission is the most original product
of the Bolshevik Revolution."49Bernalmaintainedin 1952 that "a new worldhas
come into being" in the Soviet Union; he further observed that in a capitalist
country "it would be absurdeven to think of planningscience, when production
itself remainssubjectto the whims of privateprofitand monopoly,which restricts
it except for military ends. But in a socialist state this restrictionis removed and
science falls naturallyinto its place as the normalmeans of improvingproductivSigeristwrote in 1937 that medical sciity in a continuous and progressiveway."50
after
the
Soviet
the
same
be
experiment,and that "I have come
ence would never
in
the
Soviet Union today is the begindone
what
is
being
to the conclusion that
ning of a new period in the history of medicine."'"
Today the science administratorsof the former Soviet Union are looking in
every direction for help in deconstructingthe unique researchand development
system that they earliercreated.The principalobject of their criticism before the
48
N. I. Bukharin, "Theory and Practice from the Standpoint of Dialectical Materialism," Science at
the Crossroads (London: Kniga, 1931), p. 23.
49 J. G. Crowther, Soviet Science (London/New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936), p. 15.
50 J. D. Bernal, Marx and Science (London: Laurence & Wishart, 1952), pp. 50-51.
51 Henry E. Sigerist, Socialized Medicine in the Soviet Union (New York: W. W. Norton, 1937),
p. 308.

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71

breakup was the "administrative-commandmethod," the idea of centralized

planningthat was so attractiveto Crowtherand Bernal.The main model to which
they have turned is the United States. In sharp contrast to their behavior in the
1920s and 1930s, when the United States representeda counterexamplefor the
organizationof research,they now come to Washington,New York,Boston, and
San Franciscoby the dozens, alone and in delegations,with questions such as the
following:How does one organize peer review?What authoritydoes a principal
investigatorhave vis-a-vis his departmenthead or laboratorydirector?What is
the differencebetween a private foundation and a governmentalone? What sorts
of ties have been established between American universities and private industries. How were the great centers of industrial research in Silicon Valley and
aroundRoute 128 in Boston established?If a computeris purchasedby a university on a researchgrant from a foundation, what happens to that computer after
the grant expires? (In 1991 a Soviet visitor and I spent a week at MIT and
Harvard trying to answer the latter question.)
A simple (and I think mistaken)reactionby Westernscience administratorsto
the dramatic shift in Soviet attitudes-and to the breakup in which they
culminated-would be the following:"Thereis one best way of organizingscientific research,and the Westernnations, particularlythe United States,have found
it. The Soviet effort to find a novel and better way was a tragic and pathetic
failure."If such a reactionwould be a grossexaggeration,as I believe it to be, what
can we conclude from the Soviet experience? I would draw two contrasting
conclusions. (1) The Soviet Union has taughtus that there are dramaticallybetter
and worse ways of organizingresearch.A relativisticvision of the organizationof
research and development is clearly inadequate. Science may be a social construction, but it can be socially constructedin strikinglymore and less effective
ways. Centralizedplanningdoes not workin the economy,and it does not workin
science. Diversity in organization, funding, and methodological approach are
essential for scientificcreativity.The need for political freedom is not a cliche but
a reality. (2) There is no one best way of organizingresearchand development.
The United States has certainlynot found that one best way,as evidenced by the
present debatesover Japaneseand Americanapproachesto industrialinnovation
and production.Constantimprovementis necessary.Unregulatedcapitalismcan
easily lead to abuses in science and technology,even thougha socialized economy
promises nothing better. Quite a few of the criticisms of Western science and
technology by socialists in the 1920s and 1930s continue to have merit today,
even though the solution they recommended has now proven manifestly
mistaken.
Expandingon these conclusions would call not for a few more pages in this article, but a whole book. I offer them in the hopes that they may lead to discussion
and debate.