Detente and Dissent Soviet Technical Intelligentsia

146 Book Review Supplement Nature Vol. 276 9 November 1978 per annum) would itself precipitate a who wishes to participate in the debate Communist Party to counter dissent by major social and economic upheaval. about man's future with (as the authors such means as the exercising of closer In a world deluged with books, many put it) "informed imagination". 0 control over the award of higher busy people have to content themselves degrees and promotion with the aim of with reading the reviews and not the preventing dissidents rising higher in books themselves. It would be a great the scientific hierarchy; he is, however, Lord Ashby is a Fellow of Clare College, mistake to read only the reviews of this Cambridge, and Chancellor of the Queen's sceptical of the effectiveness of such book. It is essential reading for anyone University, Belfast. measures. Thus, the Soviet government, as the Khrushchev. More Soviet scientists author points out, is in a dilemma. On have travelled abroad and more articles the one hand the future progress and Detente and have been published in foreign prestige of Soviet science, to which the journals; the maintenance of informal government attaches great value, de dissent contacts has become easier. This pends on international contacts-a increased contact has strengthened the simple instance is that, as a result of lengthy publication lags in Soviet Robert Lewis feeling among Soviet scientists that they, like scientists elsewhere, are par journals and of the inability of most ticipants in a universal scientific cul other scientists to read Russian, pub Soviet Science. By Z. A. Medvedev. ture which is independent of any lication abroad is likely to be needed in Pp. 262 (Norton: New York; 1978.) particular set of national values. This the vital matter in modern science of $10.95. degree of cultural autonomy, reinforced establishing priority. On the other hand by the high prestige which scientists the closer attachment of Soviet ACCORDING to the 'blurb' on its cover, have in Soviet society, has put them scientists to the international scientific Zhores Medvedev's latest book is in a special position. Indeed, the community and its norms and values increases their degree of cultural "a brief history of science in the Soviet author reports a conversation which Union with an emphasis on the inter he had with Kapitsa in 1967 when the autonomy and consequently the prob action between scientific and techno latter suggested that the function of lems of political control. The author logical developments and the political does not offer any firm prediction of goals of the Soviet government". the United States' Supreme Court and the British House of Lords as indepen the likely outcome of this clash of However, the potential purchaser should dent arbiters in constitutional problems values, but he does foresee the possi not be misled by this statement, for as seemed to he falling morally on the bility of future new waves of open the author himself admits in his intro Academy of Sciences of the USSR. dissent and that these could he stimu duction, this is not a book for those These special conditions surrounding lated rather than eliminated by who wish to have a short and reason Soviet science are seen as major fac attempts to control science and ably comprehensive account of the tors in the relatively high frequency scientists more closely. 0 development of science and science of political dissent amongst scientists. policy in the Soviet Union since 1917. Medvedev reviews the policies adopted Indeed the years between 19 I 7 and Robert Lewis is Lecturer in Economic by the Soviet government and the 1953 are summarily dealt with in five History at the University of Exeter. UK. short chapters and a little over fifty pages. Furthermore these chapters con (as will certainly be the case in that tain several errors. For example, the society) they will be punished for the author states that in the years 1922-28 Soviet edification of the others, so that they will appreciate that it is not in their own science was directed at the government interests to rob us any more. But with level by the People's Commissariat of technical the exception of these specialists, and Education, when, in fact, this com also the school teachers, we can very missariat was only one among a num well do without the rest of the 'edu intelligentsia cated'. For example, the current strong ber of government organs involved in influx into the Party of penpushers and science policy-making and was becom students brings all kinds of trouble in its ing less important in this field. These Julian Cooper wake, unless these gentlemen are kept initial chapters are padding which make within proper limits''. the manuscript of better length for a Technology and Society under Lenin Lenin, in the years preceding the Octo book and which the publishers pre and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet Tech ber Revolution, also found such sumably hope will increase its nical Intelligentsia, !917-1941. By 'gentlemen' troublesome, hut immedi marketability. Kendall E. Bailes. (Princeton Univer ately after the successful winning of The real heart of Medvedev's book is sity Press: Princeton, New Jersey, and power the Bolsheviks had to face up an essay on science in the USSR under London, 1978.) £20.10. to the problem of retaining the des Khrushchev and Brezhnev with particu perately needed skills of the technical lar emphasis on the two themes of THE role of engineers and other tech specialists, the overwhelming ma.iority detente and dissent. The author restates nical specialists in a society in transi of whom were unsympathetic or his view that detenre has not heen a tion between capitalism and socialism actively hostile to the Soviet power. In consequence of Soviet military weak is a question which, for understandable his pioneering study, Kendall Bailes, ness and is not a necessary condition reasons. received little attention in the associate professor of history at the for the continuing development of writings of Marx and Engels. In a University of California at Irvine, is Soviet military technology. On the rarely cited letter of 1890, however, concerned with the fate of these engin other hand he considers that it has had Engels wrote: eers and technicians and the contradic important consequences for Soviet "Of course we still have insufficient tory process by which a new technical scientists working in non-secret fields, technicians, agronomists, engineers, intelligentsia, in the main loyal to bringing an acceleration in the renewal chemists, architects, etc., but if the worst Soviet society, was formed. The comes to the worst we can buv them for of links between Soviet and world ourselves, just as the capitalists do, and relationships between the technical in science which had begun under if some of them turn out to be traitors telligentsia and other social groups are 10 Macmillan Journals Ltd ins .

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