Science and the Soviet Social Order Forthcoming as the introduction to Sci the Sovi ‘Cambridge, MA: Unviersity Press, 1990, Loren Graham (ed.). Loren Graham is Professor of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘Working Paper Number 6 Program in Science, Technology, and Society ‘Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘Science and the Soviet Social Order Loren Graham Science and technology have been among the most important influences on the social behavior and structure of the Soviet Union, changing that nation in ways that observers and scholars have not yet adequately appreciated. Discussions of how Soviet society responds to political and economic changes are commonplace, but analyses of the social implications of science and technology in the Soviet Union are rare, Hence, here I will emphasize the active and distinctive roles of science and technology in changing Soviet society. As forces of change, science and technology cannot, of course, be isolated from other factors, such as economics, politics and culture. An adequate understanding of the relationship of science and society in any nation must be based on an internationalist model in which causal arrows flow in both directions, not on a deterministic one in which changes come entirely, or even primarily, from science and technology. Obviously, some of the changes technology has brought to the Soviet Union are not different from those in all industrialized nations, such as the abbreviation of time and space by improved means of transportation, or the substitution of handicraft production by industrial manufacture. My focus here is not on these familiar results of the spread of science and technology. Instead, it is upon effects that may not be obvious at first glance and that may not have occurred in other nations in the same ways, The distinctive social consequences of science and technology in the Soviet Union fall into three broad categories: "Intellectual Attitudes,” “State Policies,” and “Internal Political Development." Here I will sketch out the broad strokes of development, looking at social changes tied to science and technology thatare best discerned by examining the entire period of the development of the Soviet Union since its origin in 1917. Historically, the most important effect of science and technology on the Soviet ‘Union has been to reduce the “exceptionalism” of that country, to make it more like other modem societies. However, the apogee of the influence of science and technology as a force toward convergence of Soviet and other societies may actually have passed. Cultural and nationalistic factors now seem to be gaining the upper hand. Ifso, it will be a paradox that although Gorbachev celebrates and promotes science and technology, their impact on Soviet society may actually be less under his ‘glassnost’ than under the repressive censorship and political controls imposed by his predecessors. In order to understand this curious development we need to examine some of the ways science and technology have already influenced Soviet society. Changing Intellectual Attitudes ‘Views of Society. The revolutionaries who established the Soviet regime believed that they were opening not only a new epoch in human history but also were creating a new intellectual world. According to Soviet Marxist theory, scholarship and learning were a part of the ideological superstructure of society deriving its characteristics from the economic base. Once the transformation to a socialist economy was accomplished, the whole world of scholarship would also be reformed, with Marxist approaches to social and natural reality supplanting capitalist ones. Early Soviet Marxist theorists derided the achievements of bourgeois scholars in Western countries and called for uniquely Soviet developments. From the first years of the regime, however, science presented a special problem. Revolution is based on discontinuity but science seems to rely on continuity. Marxist literature and art might be different from bourgeois forms, but would Soviet physicsor biology? It might be possible to dismiss all the unreliable pre-Revolutionary professors of philosophy or history in the universities and replace them with young Marxists favoring different interpretations, but was it possible to replace similarly politically-suspect mathematicians, physicists, and other technical specialists? Answering these questions praved to be far more difficult than a Western observer might guess. The most militant Soviet ideologists argued that the principle of Soviet uniqueness or exceptionalism extended to science itself. Even though Lenin defended the older “bourgeois technical specialists," especially engineers who could help with practical tasks, the idea of a revolution in science comparable to that in other areas of culture lived on for many years. ‘The concept of a distinct Soviet science was involved in a long debate among Soviet philosophers in the nineteen twenties, between two groups known as the “mechanists" and the “dialecticians."! However, the rejection of Western scientific theories as "bourgeois" did not become a political possibility until Stalin stoked the fires of ideological passions during the Cultural Revolution of the late twenties and early thirties. In the thirties and forties Stalin supported the rise of Trofim Lysenko, a poorly-educated agronomist who had some ideas about growing plants. Lysenko learned that if he described his biological theories as an ideologically-superior rival to the Mendelian genetics of the West he would receive praise from many journalists, politicians, and philosophers, Soon the theory of “two biologies," one Maraist and Soviet, the other bourgeois and Western, become known throughout Soviet society. Lysenko’s victory in 1948 marked the extreme point in the Soviet commitment to exceptionalism in science. This catastrophe for Soviet scholarship was not overcome until 1965, and some of its effects linger on even today. Most Soviet scientists, philosophers, and political leaders have learned the lesson of Lysenkoism, however, and they now remember the theory of “twosciences" with great distaste. Even Soviet Maraist theorists have surrendered their laim to a unique Marxist natural science, an event officially recognized in 1961 when the Party Program declared that science was becoming “a direct productive force," in other words, a part of the economic base. ‘The implications of this long and tortured transition are enormous, Science proved to be an element of continuity between Soviet and non-Soviet intellectual life. It reduced the exceptionalism of the Soviet Union and brought its intellectuals closer to the rest of the world and the rest of history. Temporally, a link was created between the pre-Revolutionary and the post-Revolutionary periods, since scientists educated before the Revolution could be celebrated for their contributions to international science even if their political views were unacceptable. Geographically, links were created between Western and Soviet natural scientists, who had grounds for believing that their subjects of study were less fraught with political difficulties that those of humanists or social scientists. ‘The Soviet recognition in the post-Lysenko period of the international character of natural science has allowed Soviet and Western scientists to cooperate much more fully in many joint projects, Not surprisingly, scientists on both sides have often used the allegedly apolitical character of science as a bridge to decidedly political questions, such as human rights and arms control. The psychological bridge was important, especially in the years of early contacts.> Itis ironic that Soviet Marxists have accepted the internationalism and universality of science at the same time that Western historians and sociologists of science have increasingly come to see science as a “social construction,” a body of thought heavily influenced by society.4 Taken to its extreme, this approach might look like a form of the Marxist superstructure theory, and one would be tempted to say that Soviet and Western analysts of science are exchanging places. The situationis, of course, not nearly so polarized. Most scholars studying science in all countries accept the fact that it is an international endeavor and that there exists "one physics” and "one biology’ in the world, not several. The degree to which social and cultural forces mediate science is, however, still an open question on which some of the most interesting Western work in the history and sociology of science is currently being done. Literature and Att, In the early years of the Soviet regime the leftist members of the Soviet cultural intelligentsia were often enthusiastic about the official promotion of a positive connection among the fields of science, technology, art, and literature. In paintings, films, plays, poetry, short stories, novels, and even music compositions, the metallic world of the machine and the clangorous environment of the factory were major motifs. One group of proletarian poets after the Revolution was known as "The Smithy’; its members wrote odes to the machine as a “friend and a deliverer."5 Aleksei Gastev, a promoter of industrial acceleration on the basis of time-and-motion studies of work habits, was also a poet who wrote verses celebrating machines and technology. Two of the most popular novels of the twenties were the technological communist utopias Red Star and Engineer Menni, written by Lenin’s erstwhile Marxist colleague Alexander Bogdanov.? Many other writers, artists, sculptors, and architects followed the same path, including Tatlin, who promoted "machine art,” Maiakovskii, who called his study a "word workshop," and the constructivist artist Krinskii, who produced drawings approvingly showing the conversion of churches into factories.8 In paintings, the image of the spume of black smoke coming from a smokestack did not evoke fear of pollution, which would come decades later, but instead the progressive march of technology into rural areas, the elimination of the “differences between city and countryside," that Marxist ideologists promoted, The village was seen by writers andartists sympathetic to the regime as a backward area to be transformed into a rural factory. Several composers and conductors went straight to industry itself in their search for proletarian inspiration, where they conducted “proletarian symphonies" in which the major sounds were steam whistles, drop-hammer clangs, turbine roars, and the grinding, cutting, whining, and banging noises of various types of machinery? In films of the twenties, the gears, lathes, wheels, and smokestacks of industry were often featured, just as in Charlie Chaplin's “Modern Times," but imbedded in the opposite message of the beneficence of technology. Dziga Vertov, a leading Soviet documentary director, wrote: Revealing the souls of machi enthusing ‘the worker with ats, lathe, the Sever wi hg engine we bring creative joy to every mechanical labor, sels mi It would be an exaggeration to maintain that all these trends have been reversed in recent years, since there are still many admirers of science and technology in the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, a striking shift has occurred in the most popular images of science and technology in cultural works. For the last several decades one of the most powerful trends have been the derevenshchikd (rural writers), authors who celebrate not the machine but the virtues of pre-technologicat life. In many of their writings an anti-technological theme is clearly visible. One of the best known of the derevenshchiki is V. Rasputin, whose novel Farewell to Matyora tells the story of an ancient Russian village which is submerged when the river is dammed in order to construct a hydroelectric power station.11 The flooding of the village with its old Orthodox church is used as a metaphor for the general destruction of rural values in the Soviet Union by onrushing technology. Rasputin has graphically demonstrated that this theme is intended as a political statement by becoming one of the most vocalopponents of "The Northern Rivers Project," a river diversion plan promoted by the Soviet government until widespread protest among the intelligentsia caused its shelving, at least temporarily.!2 In art, a corollary to the rural writers can be found in the paintings of Glazunov, who portrays old villages in a nostalgic style somewhat reminiscent of ‘Andrew Wyeth in the United States.13 A revealing contrast in attitudes toward technology by the cultural intelligentsia can be seen by recalling that although the early Soviet poet Maiakovskii called his study "a word workshop,” the later artist, Glazunov has made his studio into a religious and nationalistic retreat complete with icons, candles, and portraits of Nicholas II.14 In film, an example of the emergence of criticism of science and technology in Soviet culture is Tengiz Abuladze’s sensational work "Repentance," seen by many millions of Soviet citizens. Throughout much of the film a comparison is made of the scientific and religious approaches to human issues, with the advantage given to the religious. Although Krinskii in the twenties approvingly portrayed the use of old churches as industrial shops, Abuladze depicted a protest against the destructive effects of machines being used in an ancient church. In discussing the film with a Western reporter Abuladze remarked, "Be sure to notice the woman with a book on her head and a rat on top of it, She is the medieval symbol of overreaching science which is destroying us."45 In architecture, one of the most popular movements in the Soviet Union in recent years has been the restoration of pre-Revolutionary churches, village huts, tsarist castles, and the homes of nineteenth-century cultural figures in such areas as the old Arbat near downtown Moscow. In several instances the restorations have taken place over the objection of Soviet officials still clinging to the earlier modernization ethos, a message that has lost much of its popular attraction.‘This interest in the past goes far beyond the restoration of churches and old buildings or the praise of rural Russia in literature and painting. It is a powerful yearning for an older, more variegated, and more sensually-rich culture than the Soviet-style machine age permits. In the name of industrial strength and the scientific-technological revolution, Soviet citizens in the last two generations have been so harangued and coerced by calls for industrialization and acceleration that many of them have become immune. A constant sermon to modernize can be as deadening as a constant sermon to repent. A conflict between two styles of life is occurring in the Soviet Union, a clash between a pastoral tradition and a campaign for a technological future.!6 Although similar conflicts have occurred in other countries experiencing rapid industrialization, including the United States, the division is particularly deep in the Soviet Union.!7 The split is exacerbated by nostalgia and romantic recall of ancient Russia’s thousand-year-old history, by the denigration of much of this history by the Soviet government, and, finally, by the unrelenting demand of the Soviet regime to catch up with or surpass the economic power of its Western competitors. This combination of factors has never before existed in history in such a potent brew, and the reactions against technocratic culture by a substantial portion of the creative intelligentsia is particularly strong. Ethics. Many commentators on classical Marxism have noted that it does not provide an adequate treatment of ethical concerns. 18 According to Marx and Engels, the ethical systems of capitalist society are based on idealistic, ultimately religious, principles rather than on an analysis of objective reality. Marx believed that in a communist society the "is" and the “ought” would come together, as the sources of exploitation and greed disappeared. He did not, therefore, see reason for a separate and autonomous system of ethics, Many of his followers interpreted this stance to mean that anything that brought communism closer was moral.19The inadequacy of this approach becomes particularly clear in recent biomedicine and biotechnology. Soviet scientists, along with those in other countries, have in the last decade developed very powerful technical means of altering, prolonging, and reproducing life. What are the ethical rules that should hold here? If a biologist wishes to insert human DNA into the embryo of an ape and continue its development in the ape’s womb with the goal of producing a hybrid between an ape and a man, should the experiment be permitted? Or, if, like Pierre Soupart in the United States, he or she proposes to fertilize human embryos in the laboratory and then freeze and preserve them indefinitely, should the government fund the effort? 20 Is it permissible to ‘pull the plug" on life-support equipment for a terminally-ill patient, and, if so, when? What sorts of rules, if any, should govern surrogate motherhood? Is it permissible to apply genetic engineering to human beings, either to cure individual genetic deficiencies or to "improve" the human race in future generations? Can genetic principles and technologies be applied to produce better mathematicians, musicians, or athletes to excel in international competitions? These questions have in recent years moved from speculation to possible, and in some cases, existing realities. In Western societies answering these questions has been very difficult, just as in the Soviet Union, and many of them remain controversial. Western societies, however, are far ahead of the Soviet Union in developing systems for discussing and coping with these issues. The predominant approach in the West is to form "ethical advisory committees" or "institutional review boards" with broad public representation and membership, These committees typically include scientists, ethicists, community representatives, and religious leaders. 21 Often the latter three types of members have served as the "brakes" on the pace of application of biotechnology to human beings, resisting or slowing down the process until the ethical implications have become clearer. To scientists like Pierre Soupart, who lost his federal research grant10 because of such resistance, this retardation has sometimes been frustrating, but many of them recognize the necessity to proceed cautiously and to consult the public.22 Finding both institutional mechanisms and intellectual rationalizations for such a "braking process" has been difficult in the Soviet Union, Despite the request of some religious leaders to be involved, the official opposition to religion as a source of meritorious values has so far kept the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious groups off the memberships of the few “scientific councils" that have been formed to deal with these questions.23 At the same time, the lack of a developed ethical theory within Soviet Marxism has prevented the Marxist philosophers — some of whom are being consulted, although so far at a distance ~ from playing effective roles in these discussions. Perhaps recognizing the practical inadequacy of their ethical views, reformist Marxist philosophers such as 1. T. Frolov have joined with American biocthicists at the Hastings Institute in New York and the Kennedy Institute in Washington in international exchanges and discussions of these issues.24 In some instances, the Soviets seem simply to be adopting the guidelines of Western countries on biotechnology, worked out with considerable controversy and with the involvement of people unacceptable by Soviet standards, such as religious leaders. The Soviet Union adopted, for example, the guidelines of the U.S. National Institutes of Health on recombinant DNA research.5 In this sense, the Soviet Union is engaged in both "technology transfer” and “ethics transfer" with the West, a concept that would have shocked early Soviet Marxist philosophers, who believed that "bourgeois" ethics had nothing to offer the Soviet Union. Such borrowing of Western experience in the area of ethics will probably continue until the Soviet Union finds a way of creating truly representative bodies (including religious figures) to answer these crucial questions involving life, death, andi human values. Biotechnology is, then, a powerful example of how science and technology are influencing the Soviet Union, reducing its "exceptionalism" among other nations and creating forces calling for greater public representation. State Policies Foreign Policy and Nuclear War. The historian who takes the long view of the evolution of Soviet attitudes toward the rest of the world since 1917 will see, in my opinion, a fundamental shift in its underlying assumption, a transformation in which technology played an important role. The original assumption of Soviet foreign policy was that the antagonism between socialism and capitalism was so intense that cooperation between the two systems could only be episodic and for temporary strategic purposes. Eventually one of the two world systems would triumph, and Marxism feft no doubt about which one it would be. Beginning with Khrushchev, however, a different principle based on some degree of long-term cooperation began to emerge implicitly in the speeches of Soviet leaders. Gorbachev has now pronounced that principle explicitly and prominently. The new view is that the two systems must cooperate on common long-term problems, Itis striking how many of these problems have a technological component: avoiding nuclear war, reducing world pollution, controlling atomic energy from fission reactors and attempting to obtain it from fusion reactors, dealing with the green-house effect, combatting international health threats such as AIDS, and joining forces for expensive projects like space exploration and high-energy physics research.26 ‘The area where technology has had the greatest impact on Soviet attitudes toward the rest of the world has been on the question of the likelihood and consequences of major wars. Lenin's position on great wars was that they are inevitable among capitalist powers and that when they occur, socialists should try to convert them intoclass wars27 Barly Soviet leaders believed that international conflict would lead to the emergence of successful socialist revolutions. The Soviet Union was bora, after all, amidst the destruction and violence of World War I, and the entire East European bloc of socialist countries arose in the aftermath of World War IL. In its purest ideological form, the belief that war leads to revolution and positive social change did not mean that the Soviet Union should aim for war; on the contrary, the orthodox Leninist belief was that capitalist states would wage wars against each other, which the proletariat would convert into revolutionary struggles. Regardless of the phrasing of the ideological reasoning, however, early Soviet foreign policy saw conflict, both among nations and among classes, as the seedbed of positive social change. At the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Nikita Khrushchev noted that "There is a Maraist-Leninist principle which says that while imperialism exists, wars are inevitable,” but he went on to declare that this principle is not longer valid.28 Khrushchev believed that it was the advent of deliverable atomic weapons which required the revision of this Leninist principle. Even wars among capitalist states would likely involve socialist ones as well and therefore were to be avoided. In 1959 he emphasized the need for peaceful coexistence, and continued: It would be too late to discuss what peaceful coexistence means when the talking will be done by such frightful means of ion as atomic and hydrogen bombs, as ballistic rockets which are practically impossible to locate and which are capable of delivering nuclear watheads to any part of the globe. To disregard this is to shut one’s 533 one’s ears, and bury one’s head as the ostrich does when in Not believing in the inevitability of wars left plenty of room for their occurrence, however, and Khrushchev and his immediate successors continued to maintain that, horrible though modern war was, it was still possible for the Soviet Union not only to survive wars, but actually to win. In order to do so, it was necessary for the Soviet Union to be adequately armed; during Brezhnev's tenure as13 leader of the Soviet Union that country achieved rough parity with the United States in nuctear armaments. Gorbachev has now renounced the view that the Soviet Union could emerge victorious from a world war, and atomic weapons are the main reasons he cites for the change. In his book Perestroika he expressed his fear that nuclear war might break out even accidentally, and he continued, "Everyone seems to agree that there would be neither winners not losers in such a war, There would be no survivors. It isa mortal threat to all."39 And in his speech to the UN General Assembly on December 8 1988, he said that nuclear weapons had revealed the “absolute limits" to military power31 The skeptic may say at this point that the Soviet shifts over the years on the subject of war are more of rhetorie than of substance, and point to the recent Soviet support of conflicts in Africa, Latin America, and Afghanistan. But the important point to notice is that although the Soviet Union has continued on occasion to support tocal wars (just as has the United States), both by word and deed it has demonstrated its fear of major ones and its loss of hope that armed conflicts among capitalist nations would result in revolution. Avoiding miclear war requires cooperation between what the Soviet Union calls the “two major world orders,” as a series of agreements involving communications, major military maneuvers, arms testing, and arms control and verification now attest. Limited as these successes may seem, they clearly represent the beginning of the "new thinking" that is so much discussed at the moment in the Soviet Union. ‘That new thinking is now progressing into many other areas, such as cooperation on controlling threats to the enviroment and in scientific research. Just as in arms control, however, the two nations have a very long way to goin these areas. Many of the scientific exchange agreements that have existed between the USSR and the US4 in recent decades were so hobbled by bureaucratic regulations and so restricted by Soviet fears of free contact, as well as by American fears of technology drain, that their results were meager. With the advent of Gorbachev and glasnost’to the Soviet Union, this situation is changing. The prospects for fruitful work on common problems are brighter now than at any recent moment. In short, the advent of atomic weapons and the emergence of a large spectrum of scientific and technological issues requiring joint work have been important factors in moderating Soviet hostility to the rest of the world. While it would be a mistake to assume that science and technology have played exclusive roles in this growing moderation, their significance is unmistakable, Modernization. ‘The impact of science and technology can also been seen on Soviet modernization policies, Throughout most of Soviet history those policies have displayed a narrow focus on technical criteria and a neglect of social and economic ones. One reason for the neglect of social considerations in Soviet modernization Policies may well have been the predominance of people with narrow engineering educations in the top leadership. Between 1956 and 1986 the percentage of members of the Politburo, the most powerful political body in the USSR, who had received educations in technical specialties rose from 59% to the remarkable level of 89%.32 Although it is not possible to prove that their educational backgrounds influenced their management style and policy preferences, strong circumstantial evidence suggests that this is the case. For decades Soviet leaders emphasized enormous construction projects that were seriously flawed from the standpoint of investment choices, environmental considerations, and social costs. Many top administrators were former engineers who admired mammoth construction projects but who knew little about economtics and cost- benefit analysis, not to speak of sociotogical analysis, Even today, the profession of15 social work does not exist in the Soviet Union. One of the results is inadequate awareness of the effects of government priorities and policies on underprivileged éitizens.33 The large-scale Soviet construction projects of the past included the most ambitious programs in hydroelectric power and canal-building in the twentieth century, as well as the largest nuclear power plants ever built, Even more breath-taking Projects have been discussed, but not yet approved, such as the “Northern Rivers Project" mentioned earlier under which the direction of flow of several of Siberia’s largest rivers would be partially reversed in order to provided irrigation water for Central Asian agricultural regions. It has been called the largest civil engineering Project in history. Favored by Central Asian political leaders, it has been vehemently opposed by environmentalists, Russian nationalists, and by several leading economists, Soon after Gorbachev came to power, the Northern Rivers Project was shelved and many Western observers now consider it dead. However, recent articles report that Gorbachev has once again authorized feasibility studies of this gigantic project 3+ Soviet agricultural policies have also displayed a search for a technological fix for what is essentially an economic and social problem. The original preference for collectivized agriculture was based not only on the principle of socialist ownership of the land but also on a conviction that the full potential of modern agricultural machinery, such as tractors and combines, could not be fulfilled as long as the land was divided into small private plots. There was a certain justification for this belief, as the growth of the average size of farms all over the world in the last fifty years indicates, but it was too narrowly grounded on reliance on technology and not sufficiently attuned to the economic and psychological factors that make the difference between a hard-working private farmer and a listless state employee. When it became clear to Khrushchev in the late fifties and early sixties that Sovietagriculture was in deep trouble he reached once again for a technocratic solution: the extension of massive, mechanized state farms (which he called “agricultural cities") to virgin lands previously not cultivated. This program soon ran into trouble because it united flaws of the original technocratic vision of collectivized agriculture with the difficulties of raising crops on arid lands. Only in the last few years have Soviet leaders begun to recognize that all the agricultural machinery in the world will not solve the motivational problem that lies at the basis of their low productivity in agriculture 35 Politic Communication Techniques. Soviet authorities have traditionally feared the political effects of communication technology. In a recent conversation, Evgenii ‘Velikhov, the vice-president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in charge of computer science, admitted that personal computers have been subject to unusual restrictions in the Soviet Union, but he believed that situation is now changing.>6 In the past, he maintained, Soviet citizens were so politically immature, so vulnerable to Western Propaganda, that they needed to be protected by censorship. During those years foreign books, newspapers, and radio broadcasts were blocked by the Soviet censors, ‘This task was feasible because of the relatively primitive communications technologies involved. AC firs, similar restrictions were applied to personal computers. Now, Velikhov continued, crucial changes have occurred both in communications technologies and in Soviet society itself.37 "Two curves have crossed," he observed, "the curve of communications technology capability, and the curve of increasing political maturity of Soviet citizens." Communications technologies have developed so extensively, Velikhov observed, that to block the information flow would not be possible now even if the Soviet government wished to do so. Fortunately, at the7 same time, he optimistically observed, the maturity of the Soviet population has developed to the degree that the earlier controls are “no longer needed."38 Asa leading Gorbachevian reformer, Velikhov’s observation is more a part of his desired program than an established policy.39 Certainly not every Soviet politician or ideologist agrees with Velikhov that the time has come to drop all censorship controls.40 Andrei Sakharov warned during his visit to the United States in late 1988 that several proposed laws in the Soviet Union would once again tighten censorship, and even stated that one of them may be aimed at personal computers.41 Nevertheless, Velikhov’s observation nicely poses the dilemma that new communications technology presents to the Soviet leaders. Because of the ubiquitousness of technologies like personal computers, communications networks, fax machines, and satellite broadcasts, they probably cannot maintain the traditional Soviet censorship barriers. They may be able to hold on for a while longer, but one thing is clear: if they impose heavy restrictions on such technologies as personal computers they will retard the growth of computer literacy and technical innovation, and therefore cause their nation to fall further behind other advanced industrial states. Environment. Computers are not the only example of how science and technology are changing the internal political development of the Soviet Union. Science and technology are also deeply involved in the recent dramatic rise of interest groups in Soviet politics, groups made up of independent clubs and associations with their own political agendas. ‘These movements are quite different from each other, often centering on ethnic, religious, economic, and political problems.42 ‘The oldest, largest and most visible of them, however, was a response to technology, a protest against the damage to the environment caused by industry. It was the 1960s and 1970s campaign to save LakeBaikal, the largest body of fresh water in the world and one possessing many unique features, that galvanized environmentalists in the post-Stalin Soviet Union.43 In its gathering of public support against official policies, this early campaign was in many ways an antecedent of the glasnost’ of the late eighties. Defense of the environment was politically possible in Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s Soviet Union in a ‘way in which calls for political and religious freedom were not.44 The environmentalist movement served as a model for groups with other causes who emerged after Gorbachev declared glasnost’. ‘While many other groups have now emerged, the Soviet environmentalist ‘movement continues to be the largest and most successful of the new interest groups. ‘Within recent years environmentalist protests in the Soviet Union have resulted in the cancellation of construction plans for several nuclear power plants, improvement of pollution controls on lakes and rivers, the closing of a plant manufacturing synthetic additives for livestock feed, and the delay or shelving of plans for river diversion. ‘Many other protests have not been successful, but nonetheless are continuing. They include demonstrations against a chloropene rubber plant in Armenia and against a flood-protection dike around the harbor of Leningrad.45 And these are only the best- known of the protests; by now almost every large city in the Soviet Union and many small ones have witnessed environmentalist demonstrations or petition-gathering campaigns, To Americans or West Europeans these developments may not seem remarkable, but within the context of Soviet history they are momentous events, It is still not accurate to describe the Soviet Union as a pluralistic society, but these developments show how inadequate the old totalitarian model is for describing the Soviet Union today.9 Asthe Impact of Science Passing? Looking back over the various influences of science and technology on Soviet society which I have described, are there any general conctusions that we can draw? ‘One obvious conctusion is that science and technology have helped to make Soviet society more like the rest of the world, eroding the revolutionary and exceptional ethos in which the USSR was born. The eatly Soviets like Lenin who admitted that science and technology presented the Bolsheviks with a special challenge were right. How could they embrace these refined products of bourgeois civilization without being contaminated with the social and political values of that civilization? In subsequent decades we have seen alternating moments of acceptance and. ejection of some of those values, but the trend toward acceptance seems clear. Gorbachev recently asserted that he does not have “any intention to be hemmed in by our values.” That would result, he continued, “in intellectual impoverishment, for it ‘would mean rejecting a powerful source of development ~ the exchange of everything original that each nation has independently created."45 At least partially as a result of science and technology, Soviet leaders have permitted a relaxation of censorship controls; they tolerate more heterogeneity in politics; they no longer insist so strongly on their unique intellectual characteristics; they admit that they can learn something even about ethics from the West; and they have dramatically changed their views on the consequences of wars. With experience, they have also learned about the limitations of technocratic visions, and are paying more attention to the social and political consequences of science and technology. These are momentous shifts, and the role of science and technology in helping to bring them about has been underappreciated, Nevertheless, in none of the areas in which I discussed the influences of science and technology on Soviet attitudes and behaviors would it be accurate to say that theSoviet Union is now "just like other modern societies." The impact of science and technology on all societies, and certainly on the Soviet Union, is heavily mediated by the culture, politics, and economy of that particular society. Thus, although controls on communications technologies in the Soviet Union are currently much looser than they were a few years ago, there are no signs yet of dropping all controls. In literature and art, the earlier apotheosis of technology as a means of achieving socialism has been replaced not just by the ambiguity toward technology that is common in the West, but even by expressions of hostility towards it that can only be understood within the context of pre-Revolutionary Russian literary and religious traditions that are distinct from those of Westera societies. In scholarship, the desire to flee from the political interference of Stalinism has led many Soviet intellectuals to shun the discussions of science as a "social construction” that currently engage Western historians of science, placing themselves outside of an important debate. We see, then, that although the most obvious effect of science and technology on Soviet society has been to reduce its exceptionalism and bring it closer in its characteristics to Western societies, the results are still quite distinct from what we see in other societies. In each of the areas I have described, whether it be the emergence of interest groups in domestic politics or the evolution of attitudes toward international cooperation in foreign policy, the impact of science and technology on the Soviet ‘Union has not been unidirectional, resulting in behavior changes that can be understood outside of social context; instead, the relationship between science and Soviet society has been a complex interaction in which social and technical influences were intermingled. While science and technology have, on balance, helped make the Soviet Union more like the rest of the world, itis entirely possible that with the advent ofa Gorbachev we have already passed through the period of maximum development in this direction, The Stalinist regime of the forties and fifties and even the Brezhnev regime of the sixties and seventies were striking deviations from the predominant ‘economic and political patterns of other industrialized nations. In a basic sense, Stalinism was an irrational political and economic order; science and technology are based on rationality, and therefore they were corrosive elements within the Stalinist system, eating away at its most aberrant features. However, as the Soviet Union reduces it most irrational characteristics under Gorbachev, the potency of science and technology as transforming political and social factors is reduced. Other factors in Soviet society, such as cultural, religious and national traditions, are not emerging and playing larger roles. We are seeing this development already, with nationalistic movements within Russia itself gaining ascendancy over demonstrations for scientific freedom and basic human rights, Ttis therefore not at all certain that science and technology will continue to drive the Soviet Union unrelentingly toward a common pattern for all industrialized nations. The influence of the unique history and culture of that country is probably too pervasive for such a homogenization to occur. In order to understand what powerful influences science and technology have recently been on Soviet society and politics we should not rely on a model of universal technological determinism. Instead, we should see that at a certain moment in Soviet history ~ Stalinism and its aftermath — science and technology emerged as major factors in reducing the exceptionalisms of the Soviet Union. That period will not last forever, and may already be passing.Endnotes 1. David Joravsky, Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, Columbia University Press, New York, 1961. 2, Paul Josephson, "Science and Ideol in the Soviet Union: The Transformation ee ee eee eee vi Uncar/Uungu Sodehaue (VoL Part 2). 1981, pp. 159-185, Also see Program of the CPSU (1961), International Publishers, few York, 1963, p. 81. 3. My iation to Paul Doty, Harvard University, for conversations describing how early contacts between American and Soviet scientists on technical matters created a level of trust which enabled them to proceed subsequently to difficult Political subjects, such as arms control. 4. See, for example, Karin D. so CE ES eae abl cations To 1983, especially the chapters by Snes eating, Als, soz Everett chapters see Byer sh ead Richard Whi ), The Social Production of Mendelson, Peter Weingart, (eds.) ee Raladge BY Reidel Dordrcebt Holans, 77 5. Herman Ermolaev, , Soviet Literary Thenries 1947-1954: The Genesis of Socialist Realism, Octagon Books, New York, 1977, pp. 19 6. Kurt Jo! johansson, Aleksei Gastev. Proletarian Bard of the Machine Age, Almguist and Wiksell International, Stockholm, 1 7. Loren R. Graham and Richard Stites (eds.) (tr. Charles Rougle), Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1984. 8, Ermolaev, op. cit, and R. Fuelop-Millr, Geist und Gesicht des Bolschewismus, Vienna, 1926. oP a agony 198 1983, ue 75, ee inset anal Mille: the Mind and loo ene filler, am oe (tr. F, §. Flint and ee F. Tait), GP. ‘Putnam’s Sons, London and New York, 1927. 10. Richard Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema, 1917-1929, ‘Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, p. 11. Valentin Raspuun, Farewell io Mater. Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1979. Several of the fo aragraphs rely ye ea oe le of mine, "Adapting to New Tecnology: in'T. Anthony, Jones, David Powell, and Walter Connor (eds), Westview Press, forthe 12. Theodore Shabad, “Soviet, After Studies, Shelves Plan to Turn Siberian Rivers,’ (December 16, 983) p. 1, Rasputin has also begn active ox he ollution of Lake Baikal and other Siberian e1 roblems. See Valentin jronmental f tin, "Posluzhit’ otechestvu Sibiu,” Izvestiia (Nov. 3, 1985),p. 3.B 13. siiealenis Sojgukity, Ia Giazunew, lsat Kiudozhi Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, Moscow, oe Izobrazitel‘noe iskusstvo, 14, Iia Glazunov, Izdatel’stvo ‘Planeta’, Moscow, 1978, esp. pp. 190 ff. 1s. ‘Olga Carlisle, "From Russia With Scorn,” New York Times (November 29, 1987), 34. Neither my research assistant, Lisa Halustick, nor Ihave been able to [ocate the woman with the book and the rat fn the film; one wonders if subsequently deleted. 16. A Soviet debate in the late 190%, and early 1960s, often called Physicists vs Lyrticists,” was a nition of continuit re-evaluation. ‘science technology in i a ad ii Se Siu, "Field i iti” Koquomatsignorada (October y of artic on leme ate leratarnata gazsta in late 1959 and early 1900. 17, See Eric Hobsbawn, doi oun Si Bue Haun an Googe Rade 1750, Weidenfeld and Nic ‘London, 1968; Eric Hobsbawn e Rude, ‘Captain Swing, Las erg tp Mace wrence and Wishart, London, 1969; Maxine e Making of Politic 8 Press, New me 1964. 18. See Richard De George's in this volume and bis book Soviet Ethics and Morality, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1969. 19. nka, The Ethical Foundations of Marxism, Routle« and K ke Paul, Ea, 1 TP Philip T. Grier, eidel, cht, 1978, 20. "Test Tube Babies,” The Hastings Center Report (October 1978). Also, Loren R. Graham, “Koncerns Abou About Science and Pierre Soupar’s Proposal,” testimony presented to Ethics Advisory Board, Department of Health, tion and Welfare, Boston Getober 14, 1978 21, Loren R, Graham, "Science, Citizens, and the Policy- oy Making Process: US and Soviet Experiences," Environment (September 1984) 22. Ibid, 23, "Khristianskii vzgliad na ekologicheskuit: problemu," Zhurnal moskovskoi ‘pazttlatkh, (No. 41980), pp. ae Pr 24, Frolov is the Soviet coordinator of the project on biomedical ethics of the Subcommission on the History, Philosophy, and Social Study of Science and Technology, sponsored by the American Council of Learned Scoieties, the Social Sciences Research Council, and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The project includes meetings on biomedical ethies in both countries. (7), pp. ‘sonin Linda L. Lubrano mon (eds.) The Social ‘Weawiew Brose Bouldes 1 1980 pp. 205-240. ‘Eugene Skolnikoff, "The Technological Factor East/West Re Relations," fe ey for Institute for East/West Security Studies on the Future of European Security and Cooperation,” Finland, June 11- +r atamany tine expressed his. opinion that wars under capitalism are inevitable. See, for exam le, VL Lenin, Collected Works, Second evised Edition, Foreign :s Put ‘House, Moscow, Vol. 8, p. vl. p. 80; and Vol. 21, p. 39. ess frequently ci es Sete weag ac SR Yan See Vol. 21, p. 299. When Soviet Russia needed a breathing ei supported the Brest-Litovsk peace against the advice of his col 28. Quoted in David J, Dallin, in, Soviet Foresin Policy After Stal, J. B. Lippincott Co. Philadelphia, 1961, p. 323. John Lewis Gi bys mymaige tat the crm Cold Waris & misnomet forthe period after World War Ib emphasizing the stabi t telations. See tee ee War. University Press, Oxford-New York, 1 29. Nikita Khrushchev, For Victory in Peaceful Competition with Capitalism, E. P. Dutton Co,, Inc, New York, 1960, p. xv. 30. Mikhail Gorbachev, ‘ Harper and Row, New York, 1987, p. 11. 31.°V5 slenie M. S. Gorbache icheva OOS (December & 1988) p. 1 and New Vo isha tc 32. Thomas P. Barnet ve Consnot Rete the Saver Politburo Department of Govethment, Harvard University, unpublished 33. T. Anthony Jones, Walter Connor, and David Powell (es) Sos Soca Pubs Westview Press, forthcoming. 34, “Debating ihe Need for River Diversion,” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XXXVIIL, No. 7 (March 19, 1986), p. 1. An excellent analysis of the different motives and groups inthe coneovery over ivr diversions Robert G. Dars, I, “Environmentalism in the ition forthe the River ‘Diversion Projects," Soviet Eeannay Vol # Gly September 8) pp. 35. In Soviet newspaper and articles since Gorbachev, the dismeat has bson Seach regiiced ou Stet eee cares for it separately is often praised as the "master of the farm’ (khaziain na ferme). See, for example, "Khoziain na ferme,” Pravda (September 3, 1988), p. 1. 36. "How Good is Soviet Science?” produced by Marin Smith Productions, Ine, under the direction of Paula Apsell, WGBH, Boston.Fedureryiow Evgeail Velikhov, Presidium ofthe Academy of the Sciences of the cember 4, 1986. 2h ere Spang sa a pe this observation. But controls over Personal computers are still in effect, See S. Ushanov,“Sploshnaia kompin-terrorizati,” Ljueranummaia gaze (January 27, 1988), P. 39. Velikhov has of Personal the Velikhov has actively pushed for widespread use of Personal computers in as Academician A. Ershov has warned that the introduction of schools must be done with ul onidration fr aur stil se i ale veallies and uz gultural and socal traditions” A. Ershor, "EVM v Kasse” Pasuds (February 6, P. 4G. In a talk at Georgetown University on October 7, 1988, Aleksandr Chakovskii, editor-in-chief of. said that Glavlit (the sntnental sousoship bureau) st still has a censor: in his editorial office with a lis of items t that cannot be printed, officially called the Perechen’, ‘informally known as the “Talmud.* Sint aid most of the items were about military secrets, SOVSET message 1692, 41. Press conference, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambric Massachusetts, November 5, 1988. dee, 42 See. Anthony Joes, Wal Connor, and David Powel (ee) hony J tor S Sovies Social eee ete Noe 0 oa fa o Baikal,” ‘Pravda (February 381068 Pn Also, see Machall Gol Fa Ct Santa linia Stn inion, MIT ridge, 19 45. V, Umnoy, "Ts ." Komsomol'skaia pravda (. 27, 1988), p. 2. Also, gC Bl Kaley vi Sap Nw Atm Bay Fct of Bota Ove P ‘The New York Times (Ie 28, 1988) and Bill Keller, "No spe ee ely Osis in the Russian Wilderness," mber the resistance to a biotechnology plant in Kirishi, see, "The Ministry vs. the Pres 5s," Moscow News, No. 30 (July 24, iD os ‘Also see Protest by the Greens in irhuske and "Yerevan in Trouble: emical Attack Continues,” Glasnost: Anfonmation Bulletin, November 1987 (Nos. 7, 8, and 9) pp. 46-47. ium "In Gorbachev's Words: “To Preserve the Vitality of Civilization,” New York Times (December 8, 1988) p. A16.