Technocratic ideas appear to have been more widespread in the scientific community than liberal ideas, but the two approaches rested on a set of shared assumptions. They embodied the belief that politics ought to be, in some sense, scientific, and that the scientific-technical revolution presented new challenges that called for new responses. They reflected the conviction that change was necessary and the hope that it might be possible. There were doubtless many scientists - perhaps the great majority - who did not share these assumptions, either because they were not interested in politics or because they did not want change or were sceptical of its possibility. But some scientists believed that, having regained intellectual freedom in the natural sciences, they could seek change in the wider system. This optimism sprang in part from faith in science and technology, in part from the hope that de-Stalinisation would lead to economic and political reform. When signs appeared that Stalin might be rehabilitated at the Twenty-Third Party Congress in i966, leading scientists wrote to the Central Committee to oppose such a move.[413] Some scientists signed collective letters of protest at the repression of civil rights.[414] Civic engagement of this kind was, for many, a continuation of the struggle for intellectual freedom in the natural sciences.
The post-Stalin years were the period of greatest optimism about science as a force for change, but in 1968 these hopes were dashed.[415] Alarmed by growing political activism among scientists, the party took steps to make it clear that the intellectual freedom that existed in the natural sciences did not extend to politics. M. V Keldysh, president of the Academy of Sciences, warned dissident scientists not to believe that their status as scientists would protect them. 'These individuals ... must remember that it is not they who define our science,' he said. 'The development of science will proceed in any event.'[416] This warning foreshadowed the crushing of the Czechoslovak reform movement in August. That was a huge blow to hopes of reform in the Soviet Union itself because it showed how fearful the regime was of democratic change.[417]
In a speech to the Central Committee in December 1969, Brezhnev made it clear that technocratic proposals for reform should not encroach on the party's prerogatives. In an obvious reference to cybernetics, he said that 'systems of information and control created by specialists' were only auxiliary means for solving administrative tasks. Policy-making was the prerogative of the party and the state. 'Problems of management are in the first instance political, not technical, problems,' he said.[418] The party leadership made clear its opposition to the idea that politics could be made more scientific by either democratic or technocratic reform.
Disenchantment, 1968-91
By the end of the 1960s the Soviet Union had the largest R&D effort in the world, employing about two million people, of whom almost half had higher degrees. The USSR Academy of Sciences had grown into a huge complex, employing 30,000 scientists and researchers. Each union republic, apart from the Russian Federation, had its own Academy of Sciences, most of them estab- lishedinthe 1940s and 1950s, although the Ukrainian and Belorussian academies were older.[419] The universities, which were primarily devoted to teaching, had institutes and laboratories too. The largest element in the R&D effort was the network of institutes and laboratories attached to the industrial ministries and enterprises; most of these worked on military technology. Across the country there were over fifty science cities including ten nuclear cities. Many of these, including all the nuclear cities, were 'closed' and did not appear on Soviet maps.[420]
In some branches of science, most notably in mathematics and physics, Soviet scientists occupied a leading position in the world.[421] But the Soviet Union lagged in technology and, far from closing the technology gap, it was falling further behind in important areas such as computers and electronics.[422]The Brezhnev leadership imported foreign technology and created 'science- production associations' to stimulate technological innovation at home, but these measures did not yield appreciable results.[423] It had been possible in the 1930s to explain Soviet technological backwardness by reference to the backwardness of tsarist Russia; and in the 1950s and 1960s the destruction caused by the Second World War offered an explanation for the continuing lag. These explanations became less plausible with the passage oftime. It was increasingly clear that technological progress required more than the cautious reforms adopted under Brezhnev.
Military power was the one area in which the Soviet Union achieved its goal of catching up with, and perhaps even overtaking, the advanced capitalist countries. It attained strategic parity with the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and continued to develop and deploy new and more advanced strategic weapons systems.117 The Brezhnev leadership was reluctant to interfere with an economic system that had made it possible to secure what it regarded as an achievement of historic significance. But even in military technology the Soviet Union became concerned about its capacity to compete with the United States. The American strategy of exploiting new electronic technologies for defence worried the General Staff.118 Ronald Reagan's 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative was also a challenge. Most Soviet specialists understood that, even if the United States deployed a ballistic missile defence system, the Soviet Union would be able to retain its deterrent capability by developing counter- measures. Nevertheless, the American initiatives faced the Soviet Union with the prospect of a new round of intense technological competition.119
The party intensified its campaign against dissident scientists after 1968. Regulations were introduced to allow dissertations to be rejected, and higher degrees withdrawn, on grounds of'anti-patriotic and anti-moral behaviour'.120 A fierce campaign was launched against Andrei Sakharov, who was nevertheless allowed to live in Moscow until 1980 when he was exiled to Gor'kii.121 The idea of appealing to science as the inspiration for liberal or technocratic reform now seemed hopeless. Much of the technocratic rhetoric remained, but it was so wrapped up in Marxist-Leninist language that it lost the reformist edge it had had before 1968.122
413
Andrei Sakharov
415
Paul R. Josephson,
418
'Vystuplenie General'nogo Sekretaria TsK KPSS tov. Brezhneva L. I. na Plenume TsK KPSS, 15 Dec. 1969, RGANI f. 2, op. 3, d. 168, p. 45.
420
Glenn E. Schweitzer,
422
This was the general conclusion of the most detailed Western study of Soviet technology. See R. Amann, J. Cooper and R. Davies (eds.),
423
Philip Hanson, 'The Soviet System as a Recipient of Foreign Technology', and Julian Cooper, 'Innovation for Innovation in Soviet Industry', in Amann and Cooper,