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Article ID: CBB001214334

Science as Co-Producer of Soviet Polity (2012)

Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
Volume: 22, no. 3
Issue: 3
Pages: 161-180

Publication Date: 2012
Edition Details: Lead article in a special issue, “Science and Soviet Political Authorities: Conflict, Cooperation, and Incongruence”
Language: English

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Science and politics Science and culture Authority of science Science and government Development of science; change in science 20th century, early Soviet Union

The cultural authority of science reached its peak during the period of high modernity. Various countries and societies partook in this trend, but it found its ultimate expression within the communist, Soviet-type polity. This article discusses the cultural underpinnings of this characteristic feature of Soviet society and examines one of its major ramifications, the key role of scientific actors in creating and shaping the basic features of Soviet civilization. Examples illustrate this role in different time periods: from building the foundations of the Soviet state in the 1920s, through determining the major vectors of Stalinist economic expansion and industrialization, to designing some key priorities of post-Stalin reforms and the later perestroika. Different types of actors drew their power and inspiration from the cultural authority of science- "bourgeois specialists," amateur enthusiasts, engineers-turned-politicians, and nuclear physicists. Some of the important legacies they left behind continue to persist today, even if often misattributed, so that a historical analysis is required to uncover their original roots.

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Description Contents:

Includes Series Articles

Article Gerovitch, Slava (2012) Parallel Worlds: Formal Structures and Informal Mechanisms of Postwar Soviet Mathematics. Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan (pp. 181-200). unapi

Article Hiroshi 浩 Ichikawa 市川 (2012) Soviet Physicists during the War: Jealousy, Discord and the Ideological Dispute. Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan (pp. 215-226). unapi

Article Saito, Hirofumi (2012) The Institute of Genetics Frm 1939 to 1940: Reconsidering Lysenko's Intervention in Soviet Genetics. Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan (pp. 227-236). unapi

Article Kanayama, Koji (2012) Between Ideology and Science: Dialectics of Dispute on Physics in 1920s--1930s Soviet Russia. Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan (pp. 201-214). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001214334/

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