Repression of science in the Soviet Union
Mass repression in the Soviet Union |
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Economic repression |
Political repression |
Ideological repression |
Ethnic repression |
|
Many
The consequences of ideologically motivated persecution had dramatic effects on many fields of
Examples
Biology
In the mid-1930s, the
In 1950, the Soviet government organized the Joint Scientific Session of the
Cybernetics
Cybernetics was also outlawed as bourgeois pseudoscience during Stalin's reign. Norbert Wiener's 1948 book Cybernetics was condemned and translated only in 1958. A 1954 edition of the Brief Philosophical Dictionary condemned cybernetics for "mechanistically equating processes in live nature, society and in technical systems, and thus standing against materialistic dialectics and modern scientific physiology developed by Ivan Pavlov".[12] (However this article was removed from the 1955 reprint of the dictionary.) After an initial period of doubts, Soviet cybernetics took root, but this early attitude hampered the development of computing in the Soviet Union.
History
Soviet
Since the late 1930s, Soviet historiography treated the
Many works of Western historians were forbidden or
Linguistics
At the beginning of Stalin's rule, the dominant figure in Soviet linguistics was
Pedology
Physics
In the late 1940s, some areas of physics, especially
Sociology
After the Russian Revolution, sociology was gradually "politicized, Bolshevisized and eventually, Stalinized".[27] In 1920s a position has formed in the Soviet Union that historical materialism is in fact Marxist sociology, and the major discussion was whether to use the terms "sociology" and "historical materialism" synonymously or to abandon the term "sociology" altogether and consider it to be an anti-Marxist bourgeois science.[28] From 1930s to 1950s, the independent discipline of sociology virtually ceased to exist in the Soviet Union.[27] Even in the era where it was allowed to be practiced, and not replaced by Marxist philosophy, it was always dominated by Marxist thought; hence sociology in the Soviet Union and the entire Eastern Bloc represented, to a significant extent, only one branch of sociology: Marxist sociology.[27] With the death of Joseph Stalin and the 20th Party Congress in 1956, restrictions on sociological research were somewhat eased, and finally, after the 23rd Party Congress in 1966, sociology in Soviet Union was once again officially recognized as an acceptable branch of science.[29]
Statistics
The quality (accuracy and reliability) of data published in the Soviet Union and used in historical research is another issue raised by various
As with all Soviet historiography, reliability of Soviet statistical data varied from period to period.
While on occasion statistical data useful in historical research might have been completely invented by the Soviet authorities,
Theme in literature
- Vladimir Dudintsev, The White Robes (1987; a 1988 USSR State Prize), a fictionalized version of the devastation which Lysenko wreaked on Soviet genetic study
See also
- Academic freedom
- Antiscience
- Anti-intellectualism
- Bourgeois pseudoscience
- Censorship in the Soviet Union
- Deutsche Physik
- First Department
- Historical negationism
- Political correctness
- Politicization of science
- Science and technology in the Soviet Union
- Soviet historiography
- Alexander Veselovsky, a case of suppressed literary research
- Stalin and the Scientists
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-28789-0
- ^ Loren R. Graham, Science and philosophy in the Soviet Union. New York, 1972 [ISBN missing]
- ISBN 978-0-415-27122-6
- ^ PMID 34107688.
- ^ Hudson, P. S., and R. H. Richens. The New Genetics in the Soviet Union. Cambridge, UK: English School of Agriculture, 1946.
- ^ Isis, Volume 37. History of Science Society, Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences. 1947. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
The fact that Mendel was a priest has been similarly used to discredit his ideas.
- ^ Eugenics: Galton and After. Duckworth. 1952. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
Was not Mendel a priest ? If, as the reactionaries maintain, genetic processes are subject to the laws of chance ...
- ^ George Aiken Taylor (1972). The Presbyterian Journal, Volume 31. Southern Presbyterian Journal Co. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
Mendel, of course, must be discredited, in Communist thought, because he was a product of the West and of the Church.
- ^ The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, Volumes 23–27. Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy. 1945. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
He trenchantly criticises Lysenko's vilification of the work of Mendel and Morgan as "fascist, bourgeois-capitalistic, and inspired by clerics" (that Mendel was a priest is taken as sufficient to discredit his experiments).
- ^ Gregor Mendel: And the Roots of Genetics, Edward Edelson, p. 14. "Lysenko won the support of Joseph Stalin, the ruthless Soviet dictator, and Mendel's rules were officially outlawed in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Countries that it controlled at that time. Under Communism, the Mendel Museum in his monastery was closed."
- ^ Windholz G (1997) 1950 Joint Scientific Session: Pavlovians as the accusers and the accused. J Hist Behav Sci 33: 61–81.
- ^ «Кибернетика», Краткий философский словарь под редакцией М. Розенталя и П. Юдина (издание 4, дополненное и исправленное, Государственное издательство политической литературы, 1954.
- ^ It is not the history of the Soviet Union. See definitions of historiography for more details.
- ^ John L. H. Keep: A History of the Soviet Union 1945–1991: Last of the Empires, pap. 30–31
- ISBN 978-0-415-28592-6. See Chapters 8 Aspects and variations of Soviet history and 10 History in profile: Poland.
- JSTOR 150540.
- ISSN 0271-5309. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
- ^ Montefiore. p. 638, Phoenix, Reprinted paperback.
- ^ Joseph V. Stalin (1950-06-20). "Concerning Marxism in Linguistics", Pravda. Available online as Marxism and Problems of Linguistics including other articles and letters also published in Pravda soon after February 8 and July 4, 1950.
- ^ Olival Freire Jr.: Marxism and the Quantum Controversy: Responding to Max Jammer's Question Archived 2012-11-14 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Péter Szegedi Cold War and Interpretations in Quantum Mechanics
- ^ Ethan Pollock (2006). Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars. Princeton University Press. Archived from the original on 2010-07-02.
- ^ Josephson, P.R. (2005). Totalitarian Science and Technology. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books.
- ^ Graham, L.R. (1991). Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union. Columbia University Press.
- ^
- ^ Романова Александра Владимировна, Развитие социологии в СССР
- ^ Elizabeth Ann Weinberg, The Development of Sociology in the Soviet Union, p.11
- ^
- ^ ISBN 0-393-04818-7, page 101
- ^ and following chapters
- ^ a b c d e f Nikolai M. Dronin, Edward G. Bellinger, Climate Dependence And Food Problems In Russia, 1900–1990, Central European University Press, 2005,
- ^
- Я. В. Васильков, М. Ю. Сорокина (eds.), Люди и судьбы. Биобиблиографический словарь востоковедов жертв политического террора в советский период (1917–1991) ("People and Destiny. Bio-Bibliographic Dictionary of Orientalists – Victims of the political terror during the Soviet period (1917–1991)"), Петербургское Востоковедение (2003). online edition