Lysenkoites, Physicists, and Scientific Cultures: Approaching the Politics of Stalinist Science

430 Рецензии/Reviews Caleb WALL Lysenkoites, Physicists, and Scientific Cultures: Approaching the Politics of Stalinist Science Nils Roll-Hansen, The Lysenko Effect: The Politics of Science (Amherst , NY: Humanity Books, 2005). 335 pp. Index. ISBN: 1-59102-262-2. Alexei B. Kojevnikov, Stalin’s Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists (London : Imperial College Press, 2004). 360 pp. Bibliography, Name Index, Subject Index. ISBN: 1-86094-420-5. The historiographical debate surrounding the nature of Stalinist science is a crucial one for historians of the Soviet period. The central subject there – the role that politics played in science – remains pertinent today for policy makers and is equally important for historians of science. However, if the longstanding historiographical paradigm of “politicized science” is still on the agenda, the angle the old problems approached may be viewed as a different one, with a new hypothetical question at stake: why did such different outcomes occur from a similar set of political relationships with science? In my review, I would like to address this question and examine two recent English language histories that focus on the historiographical background and particularly on what may be called the institutional approach toward the subject. In addition, I will briefly remark on the methodological need for more research on the impact of Soviet science policy in the institutes away from Moscow, the center of political control. In my view, two key examples provide a useful way to frame the current debate. First, the case of Lysenko, a plant breeder seeming to exemplify the worst excesses of politicized pseudo-science during the Soviet regime. Second, postWWII physics, especially nuclear physics, as an example of the successes of Soviet science in its attempts to “catch up and overtake” the West. Of course, such a double focus does not presuppose overstating the homogeneity between these cases and downplaying the crucial differences in the mode of scientific operation and, consequently, the degree of ideological infiltration in both disciplines. Historiography: Politics and Science It is only recently that critical histories of Stalinist science have begun to appear, displacing and critiquing prior works that were largely informed by Cold War discourses. These texts either glorified “material progress” during this period or 431 Ab Imperio, 1/2006 and those colleagues who dared to deviate from the party line.2 Helena Sheehan emphasized that the aversion to “Bourgeois” science was so strong that many scientific publications attributed every important discovery to Soviet scientists at the time, as ridiculous as these official statements might be: “the formula E=MC2 [was] attributed to Lebyedyev and S. I. Vavilov… [in an] article on space and time, Einstein was not mentioned, but instead Butlerov and Fyodorov.”3 Yet more recent histories have stressed how the process of imbuing science with political ideology also went both ways, with party members and high ranking politicians seeking academic recognition (often on spurious grounds) of their contributions to academic research. Honorary degrees, questionable doctorates, and membership in the Academy of Sciences were all used by politicians to enhance their prestige and gain legitimacy for their policies during the Soviet period.4 Likewise, scientists themselves 1 As Krementsov wrote, it “profoundly affected the professional culture of Russian science as a whole: during the 1920s, a new lexicon and a new polemical style appeared in scholarly writings. References to Marxism and practicality began to permeate scientific literature, and scientific criticism acquired a militant, combative tone… scientific literature was first and foremost a ‘fight for materialism.’” See: Nikolai Kremenstov. Stalinist Science. Princeton, 1997. Pp. 24-25 2 Ibid. P. 46. 3 Helena Sheehan. Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History. Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1993. P. 233. 4 A.V. Iurevich. Academics in Politics // Russian Social Science Review. 2001. Vol. 42. Pp. 60-84. attacked the illiberalism of Stalinist science. Now we have a number of new academic works that discuss critically the mechanisms by which science and politics were so closely entwined. For instance, Nikolai Krementsov explained how science played a subservient role to politics in delivering material improvement. The move toward materialist science (against western bourgeois science) that is depicted in his work was apparently premised on a famous quote from Marx that...