Stalinist scientists

Alexander Genis: Today's release ACh will open the book review of Marina Efimova, who will present a new book by the American historian “Stalin and scientists. Triumph and tragedy”.

Marina Efimova: The history of relations between the Stalinist regime and Russian scientists is one of the most incredible relations between the authorities and science in the entire world history. American historian Simon INGS in the book Stalin and Scientists writes about this phenomenon:

Announcer: "For the entire intellectual world, the state of Soviet science under Stalin was both a subject of admiration, a laughing stock and a source of horror."

Marina Efimova: The problem of science in young Soviet society, which goes to communism, was determined by Lenin - briefly and peremptorily: “Communism,” he wrote, “not to build without the foundation of knowledge, technology and culture. These areas are the property of bourgeois specialists. Most of them do not accept Soviet power, but without them not to build communism. ”

Trying to understand the psychology of both Soviet leaders (Lenin and Stalin) in their relation to science and scientists, the INGS defines their features:

Announcer: “Lenin was an intellectual, he felt equally free both in the Kremlin and in the library of the British Museum. Stalin was an incredible book - his library totaled thousands of volumes that he not only read, but supplied comments. Both leaders considered themselves the main spokesmen and guardians of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, which gave them, in their opinion, the right to make decisions in all areas of life of the new state, including science and art. ”

Marina Efimova: The difference in the approach of the two leaders to science was explained, among other things, by the difference in characters - by various proportions of ideological obsession and common sense. Both, both Lenin and Stalin, put forward the applied significance of science, but under Lenin, science was supervised by Lunacharsky and Bonch -Bruevich, and under Stalin - Zhdanov and Beria. Under Lenin, many branches of science were in the corral, under Stalin, many branches of science migrated to bars, where Zhdanov and Beria were more handy to manage them.

Before the war, it was apparently playing a significant role in relation to Stalin to scientists to scientists. to people with a sense of dignity; to those who allowed themselves to disagree; To talents recognized abroad. Many memoirs noted that to humiliate, intimidate and break proud and independent person gave the “luminaries of all sciences” special pleasure. Stalin liked people out of nowhere, excellent students of Soviet education, enthusiasts of scientific amateur performances, who were convinced of science with instructions of Marx, Lenin, Stalin. His favorite became Agron Trofim Lysenko. Summarizing the story of Lysenko, a reviewer of the book Stalin and Scientists Simon Montefiore writes to Nytims:

Announcer: “Lysenko, a half -educated upstart, in 1928, in the midst of hunger caused by Stalinist collectivization, suggested that Stalin loved - a simple and new method of increasing yields: ovation. He promoted this idea to the practice of agriculture all the 1930s. His works were advertised, he became a “hero from the people” and was promoted to academics. At the same time, the process of ovarization was known since 1854, its use in greenhouses was supported by such well -known scientists as the geneticist Vavilov and Botanik Maximov, but the ovarization did not increase productivity. Academician Maksimov wrote a careful warning to the government - not to lay big hopes. And Vavilov asked Stalin's audience to draw his attention to the creation of hybrid varieties of cereals, indeed, raising productivity. Stalin accepted him, but began with mockery: “Ah,” he said, “you are the same Vavilov, who is busy with flowers, leaflets and other stupid things, instead of helping agriculture, like academician Lysenko.” The matter was not limited to mockery. In 1940, Vavilov was arrested and in 1943 died in prison. Lysenko from all the stands called classical genetics fascist theory. "

Marina Efimova: Simon Ings called the book: “Stalin and scientists. The history of the triumph and tragedy ”, but it also describes the tragicomic episodes of this story - for example, at the Moscow Conference of breeders in the 1930s, where delegates of Western science were also present.

Announcer: “The evil and cunning Trofim Lysenko was at the same time childishly naive. For example, he submitted a report at the conference, which, in its scientific level, barely reached the work of a sortone year. The essence of the report is briefly described by the joke of the geneticist Nikolai Koltsov, who said: "Lysenko thinks that the right feed can turn the cockroach into a horse." At the conference, the scientific revelations of Lysenko caused explosions of uncontrollable laughter in the hall. ”

Marina Efimova: The joke of Koltsova was not in vain. After the arrest of Vavilov, he was dragged on interrogations, and he died of a heart attack, and his wife was poisoned after his death. But in science there was a memory of this scientist: the theory of cell organization, the “Koltsov principle”.

Lysenko was removed from high posts only in 1965. Classical genetics was recognized by science after the shift of Khrushchev (in 1964). And before that, atomic physicists hid the laboratory of genetic research under the roofs of their closed institutions.

Another sinister figure among the Stalinist pets was the cytologist Olga Lepeshinskaya. In Wikipedia, it is called "the author of the theory of" neoplasms of cells from the understructural living matter "." The INGS accuses Lepeshinskaya of fake: supposedly she "shot the process of cell decomposition, and then scrolled the film in the reverse order." Russian sources are not said about such direct fraud, but it is said that before Stalin Lysenko, they managed to stroke the Stalin Lysenko with several other scientists, including Joseph Rappoport, who committed suicide in the midst of persecution. The theory of Lepeshinskaya was taught in the 1950s not only in schools (where I also taught her inattentively), but even at universities.

The most fantastic relations of Stalin (and his overseers over science) were not with the scientists whose works the power neglected, but with those in whom she desperately needed. First of all, with a brilliant galaxy of designers and atomic physicists. The best aviation designer Andrei Tupolev was put in 1937 and created under his leadership the secret design bureau of the Central Design Bureau-29 (in the expansion of the Tupolev Sharaga). In this and similar shara, the pre-war and war years were created: I-5 fighters Grigorovich and Polikarpov, artillery systems of Blagonravov and Pobedonostsev, tanks of Kotin and Kosociation (including the legendary T-34), P-2-2 and Tu-2 Petlyakov and Tupoleva, and much more.

The announcer: “The designer Korolev-the founder of the Soviet cosmonautics-was arrested in 1938, included in the execution lists, replaced the execution for 10 years, sent Kolyma to the gold mines, pulled out of there to the Tupolev Sharaga and, after the development of the missile interceptor, was made by the head of the design group of missile systems. He was released in 1944 and in 1950 was appointed chief designer of the missile industry of the Soviet Union. The inventor of Leo Thermal, who lived in America, was forcibly taken to Moscow in 1938, in 1939 was arrested and placed in Sharaga, where, on the instructions of Beria, he created an eavesdropping and encryption device described in Solzhenitsyn’s novel “The First”.

Marina Efimova: It is worth recalling that Koroleva was appointed “general designer” in 1950, and rehabilitated in 1957. And this is still quickly compared to the fate of the Nobel laureate of the physicist Lev Landau, rehabilitated in 1990, 22 years after death.

The Great Stalinsky Physicists have two common features: they were all students of the Leningrad physicist Abram Fedorovich Ioffe and almost everyone managed to work abroad-some under the guidance of Rutherford, some-Niels Bor. This was saved by Landau Landau - he was released from the camp after Bor’s letter and under the personal guarantee of Peter Kapitsa - then the head of the Institute of Physical Problems. In general, the practice of moving scientists from mud to the riches and back - was typical in Stalin's times. INGS writes:

Announcer: “Physicists of Peter Kapitsa, Julia Khariton, Igor Kurchatov was suffering, scared and punished, then showered with generots. This gross and simple tactics of Knut and Gingerbread forced Peter Kapitsa to write to Stalin a delightfully aristocratic letter in which he asked to remind the “Comrade Beria” that we should treat scientists “with appropriate respect”. Beria, having learned about the letter, promised to take revenge on the arrogant scientist, but Stalin seemed to say: “Just dare to touch him!”

Marina Efimova: As the Russian proverb says: "Crazy, psycho, but the soap does not eat."

Describing his book, Simon Ings writes: “In addition to the history of terror, crimes and cruelty, it is also the story of many examples of courage, powerful imagination and scientific genius surviving in captivity.” However, the reviewer Montephior notes that the INGS failed to explain why the Soviet scientists in captivity achieved such brilliant results. Indeed, what made them perform miracles in prison cells? Fear for loved ones? The hopelessness of the situation? Or talent sprouts through all obstacles besides the will, like grass in the fire? Perhaps the fact is that they worked during the war. They knew that the fruits of their genius serve as a warring people, whose suffering meant more to them than their own.