Books
Limits still tight on Soviet scientists The Soviet Union has the largest scientific establishment in the world, and its military technology is growing by leaps and bounds. For these reasons alone, Zhores A. Medvedev's "Soviet Science'' could be a valuable primer for those unaware of the basic facts relating to the development of Soviet science. Moreover, as a former leading advocate of human rights and scientific freedom in the U.S.S.R. and a noted biochemist—involuntarily exiled in 1973 and now doing research in the U.K.—Medvedev is highly qualified to write on this subject. However, in some respects this is a disappointing and fragmented book. For example, the "brief history" of Soviet science up to the end of World War II is dealt with not merely briefly in 40 pages, but peremptorily. It reads as if someone said, "Let's throw this introductory section in, and we can call it a history." Thus, the "new economic policy" of 1921 is mentioned, without explaining that it became a significant trap for many—especially members of the intelligentsia—who benefited by taking advantage of this temporary shift toward capitalism, but then became victims of the system when the policy was revoked. The "shakhty affair" of 1928, involving the trial and execution of engineers, is mentioned without putting it into its proper historical context. Indeed, some of this section is embarrassing: Part consists of a list of scientific "firsts" which could be mistaken for a fragment of Soviet propaganda. Without appropriate background and analysis, it is almost meaningless, hardly history. Not what we expect from a respected dissident. In his treatment of the Khrushchev period and its waning—an era with which the author had dramatic personal experience—the level of critical analysis rises. But here, there is a lack of intensity. One misses the directness of two other Medvedev works, "The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko," and "The Medvedev Papers." The muted tone might be excusable if the new work could truly be classified as a history, but it is not; it is an essay interspersed with personal anecdotes. As such, it still retains in46
C&ENSept. 24, 1979
Despite a more open policy toward contacts with the West, political restrictions continue to hurt Soviet science "Soviet Science" by Zhores A. Medvedev, W. W. Norton, New York, 1978,262 pages plus xii, $10.95 Reviewed by Jack S. Cohen, a physical chemist at the National Institutes of Health, who served as national cochairman in 1975-77 of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, an organization working to support the rights of beleaguered scientists in the U.S.S.R. and other countries
terest and value, but every time the author refers to his earlier works and those of his historian brother Roy, one yearns for something more substantial. Finally, in the major portion of the book dealing with the period from Khrushchev to the current era of "détente," the author comes to grips with the real subject. He describes the "scientific duplication" policy of Khrushchev, which was based on the assumption that copying western science would enable Soviet science to catch up. Failure of this policy led, of necessity, to a more open and realistic policy towards western science. However, while others attribute this change to the relative weakness of the Soviet Union, or its inability to catch up in many scientific areas, Medvedev attributes the change to the Soviet Union's comparative military strength and greater self-confidence. Whatever the basic reasons, he has many interesting things to say, for example, about the stultifying effects on Soviet science of restricted foreign travel, severe limitations on revelation of research data to foreign scientists, the absence of English as a means of internal publication, long
delays in publication of papers by Soviet journals (about twice as long as in the West), and the antiquated and carefully controlled system of academic qualification. It is important for liberal western scientists to realize that despite reforms in Soviet practices in the wake of wider contacts with the West, there has been an increase in government restrictions over scientists. For example, Medvedev notes that "major reforms have been introduced to increase state and political control over scientific qualification awards," and that "research workers are now given much more scientific freedom, while political freedom remains extremely limited." Furthermore, foreign travel privileges, award of degrees, and job opportunities are used as rewards for those who toe the line, and denied to those who do not. There are two areas in which I take issue with Medvedev's interpretations. He castigates Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov for choosing "individualistic methods and publicity" in their dissident activities. But his suggestion that "it would have been possible to create more real and serious opposition . . . uniting for common aims" flies in the face of reality. There is nothing more difficult and dangerous in the Soviet Union than "uniting" to form even a loose organization, as the Human Rights and Helsinki Watch Committees have found to their cost. Moreover, it is precisely the publicity in the West gained by Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, and other dissidents—including Medvedev himself—which provides political leverage and protection. And finally, there always will be differing views among such individualistic dissidents as those mentioned above. In this area, it is clear, Medvedev is pushing his own socialist interpretations. (He apparently still believes in a Marxist system, and his criticisms seem aimed mainly at reforming and correcting abuses and defects in the Soviet system.) In his treatment of dissident Jewish scientists, elsewhere known as "refuseniks" (those refused exit visas to emigrate), Medvedev is somewhat disingenuous. On one page, while discussing former refuseniks now
living outside the U.S.S.R., he states that "these experts often suffer frus tration, disappointment, and home sickness," without giving any statis tics. I know a few such "experts" who would strongly dispute this charac terization. Then, on the next page, he declares "the problems of emigration . . . [are] outside the province of this work," but he later includes a brief discussion of this problem. What is noteworthy about this discussion is the absence of any indi cation of the numbers involved (at least several hundred refusenik sci entists at any one time, far more sci entists than in any other dissident group). Nor is there any mention of the famous weekly Sunday seminars organized by refusenik scientists in Moscow to help maintain scientific viability, or of the internal and ex ternal impact of such seminars in Moscow and other cities. Internally, existence of the semi nars is undoubtedly known to most Soviet scientists, some of whom have confided to western colleagues that they themselves would like to meet in a similar fashion with fellow scientists without the strict requirement of government sanction. Externally, the seminars have helped to focus the attention of foreign scientists on the plight of refusenik scientists and on the nature of science in general in the U.S.S.R. I took part in one of the first of these unofficial seminars, while at tending the International Biophysics Congress in Moscow in 1972. Medvedev records his own attendance at this congress but does not note the many other Soviet scientists who were in Moscow at that time, but who were unable to attend this or other inter national conferences. Such names are conspicuous by their absence from his book: for example, Alexander Voronel, Mark Azbel, Benjamin Levich, Alexander Lerner (who is still refused an emigration visa), and more re cently Anatoly Scharansky and Yuri Orlov. Are these names not part of the history of Soviet science? Furthermore, in Medvedev's dis cussion of scientific exchange with the U.S., very little attention is given to its relation to the dissidents—a major preoccupation among many western scientists. Medvedev believes that, in the long term, growing internal pres sure by scientists and intellectuals for reform will help to liberalize Soviet society. He also believes that ex changes and contacts with the West are very important to further this process. Therefore, it is not surprising that he is against "boycotts" by western scientists of scientific con tacts with the U.S.S.R. However, he fails to mention the
strategy of limited boycotts, which have been used successfully in spe cific instances for several years. For example, the threat of a possible conference boycott by western com puter scientists moved Soviet au thorities to allow Lerner's participa tion in an international conference in Tbilisi in 1975. The appendixes in this book are perhaps symptomatic of its overall lack of coherence. The discussion of genetics since Trofim Lysenko, par ticularly the work of Nikolay Dubi nin, is fascinating; yet it is puzzling why it is not an integral part of the text. Similarly puzzling is the ap pendix on the Ural nuclear disaster of 1957, which is the subject of a sepa rate book recently published by Medvedev, "Nuclear Disaster in the Urals." We shall no doubt be seeing more books by Medvedev and other dissi dent Soviet scientists, particularly since, as Medvedev states, "science in the U.S.S.R. is still the main source of dissent and will remain so in spite of all these measures [against dissi dents], just because a critical mind is essential for all experimentation and research." We must still await an adequate history of Soviet science from one of them. D
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