Science in Communist Russia Under the Rule of Joseph Stalin

Following Professor Walker's lecture on scientists in the Soviet Union and how they were effected by the policies put in place by Joseph Stalin, I decided to write my second blog on scientists in Communist Russia from 1922 to 1953. Seeing that Stalin wasn't the most normal Russian male, mostly due to his ruthless-murderous side, the scientific community experienced an interesting three decades, including a plethera of requirements that allowed scientists to continue to be scientists. Nonetheless, Stalin was aware of the fact that science was necessary for rapid industrialization and progression in agricutlure and it was due to that mindset that the scientific community in the Soviet Union was ultimately able to illustrate progression.

When Stalin came into power around the year 1922, Stalin considered scientists, along with a number of other groups, to be enemies of his and of the Soviet Union as a whole, referring to members of the scientific community as "the scientist wreker". Once in power, Mr. Stalin began to remove qualified scientists that he "could not trust", placing un-qualified workers into positions of administration and academic responsibility. It immediately became blatant that Stalin did not care about individuals that were qualified, but was more concerned with placing "scientists" in charge who were of an acceptable social origin and carried the "correct" political views.

The next move that Stalin made against the scientific community was that he implemented a policy requiring that scientists focus on application rather than fundamental research. The research that scientists put forth was first and foremost negatively effected by the time tables they were forced to layout, illustrating their "thematic plans". This policy vastly effected the scientists in the Soviet Union, negatively of course, seeing that they were now forced to put forth their ideas and time tables that would illustrate exactly what they were working on and most importantly, how it would positively effect the Soviet Union. This policy made it incredibly hard for scientists to work naturally and freely. Gradually Soviet scientists lost their freedom of contact with the rest of the world (little contact due to their position as a communist nation), resulting in little movement and few possibilities for scientists in Russia.

Once Stalin implemented the policy in which scientists were forced to inform the government of their yearly plans, the relationship between Russian scientists and the government went south, ultimately leading to tension and a lack of trust between the scientists and the elite communists. Though Stalin was willing to spend great amounts of money on science, science under the rule of Stalin was a great struggle simply because Stalin and the government he controlled got in the way of scientists who wanted to modernize and establish stronger technology. Nonetheless, science was a great struggle during the three decades of Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union and the biggest factor that placed scientists at a disadvantage, making it hard for them to do their work to the fullest of their capabilities, was the fact that everyone was replaceable in the Soviet Union, especially scientists. Yet due to the strength and wills of Soviet scientists, the community as a whole was able to survive and even accomplish much during the rule of Joseph Stalin ultimately allowing scientists to positively effect the nation of the Soviet Union to the best of their abilities, though they clearly were held back by the psychotic Joseph Stalin.