20 - Science, technology and modernity

Summary

Introduction

Science and technology occupy a central place in the history of all modern states, but their role is particularly significant in twentieth-century Russia. The Soviet Union had at one time a greater number of scientists and engineers than any other country in the world. It made a massive effort to overtake the West in the development of technology. And most important, science and technology were integral to the Soviet claim to offer a vision of modernity that was superior to that of Western capitalism. Not only would science and technology flourish in the Soviet Union, according to this claim; the Soviet system was itself consciously constructed on the basis of a scientific theory and would be guided by that theory in its future development. The Soviet Union presented itself as the true heir to the Enlightenment project of applying reason to human affairs.

Before the revolution (1901–17)

Science (nauka) in Russia was linked with modernisation from the very beginning. Peter the Great imported natural science from Europe in the early eighteenth century as part of his effort to transform Russia into a Great Power. He established the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1724, before there were universities in Russia. For a century and a half, most of the Academy’s members were from outside Russia, and many Russians regarded science as alien to Russian culture. In the second half of the nineteenth century a more or less cohesive scientific community began to emerge, bound together by learned societies and scientific congresses.