As a Shakespeare enthusiast since my school days,
I have been impressed by the immense popularity of
England's greatest dramatist throughout the U.
I have been impressed by the immense popularity of
England's greatest dramatist throughout the U.
Soviet Union - 1952 - Soviet Civilization
The climate of Central Asia will be
of a less pronounced continental character, and the sharp
annual and diurnal extremes of temperature character-
istic of this region will become a thing of the past. Over
a large part of Siberia the atmosphere will become more
humid, and the winters milder. It will be possible to
carry agriculture into latitudes where it is now precluded
owing to the severe climate. "18
Engineers and scientists have thoroughly discussed
and debated the Davydov plan. Specialized groups show-
ing a particular interest in it have been the Moscow
Institute of Electrical Engineering, the U. S. S. R. Academy
of Sciences' Institute for the Study of Productive Forces,
the Power Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences,
the Ail-Union Forestry Society, the Water Conservation
Board of the U. S. S. R. Ministry of Agriculture, the Scien-
tific Council of the Ministry of Fisheries and the Science
and Technology Council of the Ministry of Electric
Power Stations. In 1951 the Government officially ap-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
proved the proposal and allocated funds for further
preparatory and research work. Several score engineers
are now drawing up and elaborating final blueprints
under the direction of Mr. Davydov. The detailed plan-
ning and execution of the whole Ob-Yenisei Project will
take at least fifteen years.
The Fifteen-Year Agricultural Plan, the various new
dams and canals, and the remarkable Davydov project
bring out the extraordinary scale and far-sightedness of
socialist planning more effectively than any recitation
of statistics on industrial and agricultural production.
The Soviets are literally re-making nature throughout
an area as large as continental United States. They are
changing the course of mighty rivers, creating new rivers,
constructing inland seas, digging through hundreds of
miles of earth and rock, building a vast network of water-
ways, bringing electric power to thousands of economic
enterprises and millions of people, irrigating enormous
areas of land, making centuries-old deserts bloom, increas-
ing the rainfall, eliminating drought, permanently alter-
ing the climate of entire nations within the Soviet con-
federation. These tremendous programs are beyond any-
thing Goethe's aspiring Faust ever imagined and remind
one of a science novel by H. G. Wells.
The tree-growing plan, involving the planting of
billions upon billions of new trees, will not achieve its
full effects for fifty years, nor the Ob-Yenisei Project fdr
twenty-five. Truly the Soviet planners are much con-
cerned with the welfare of unborn generations and with
ensuring them the economic foundations of an abundant
life. In most countries the kind of schemes which Soviet
engineers and social scientists are continually suggesting
would be dismissed as irresponsible dreams; in Soviet
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? ECONOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
Russia these "dreams," in essence rational as well as
imaginative, go speedily into effect and become the reality
of the future.
5. Cultural Advances
One does not have to be a Marxist or a Communist
to accept the view that every great culture in the history
of mankind has had an economic or material base. Eco-
nomic foundations have of course always been necessary
for the production of the requisite cultural goods and
tools, such as schoolhouses, books, library buildings,
scientific instruments, musical instruments, paints and
other artistic media; to provide artists, teachers, writers
and other cultural workers with their living essentials;
and to make possible leisure in which to appreciate,
criticize and stimulate cultural productions.
A prime Soviet aim from the start has been to develop
an outstanding new culture on the economic foundations
of socialism; to preserve the splendid artistic and literary
achievements of the Russian past; and to extend the
opportunity for cultural appreciation and creation to the
entire population. There is no sharp separation between
material and cultural output, since these two facets of
civilization go hand in hand. The development of ma-
chine processes and scientific techniques so central in a
modern economy require a continuing expansion of
general education and scientific training; while educa-
tional and scientific expansion need a steady flow from
the factories of material equipment of all kinds.
The primary requisites for the cultural progress of
a whole people are literacy and education. Since only 30
percent of the Tsar's subjects were literate, the great
majority could not know the works of Chekov, Pushkin
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
and Leo Tolstoy. One of the first steps the new Gov-
ernment took was to organize a far-reaching campaign
against adult illiteracy. In the tense years of civil war and
foreign intervention following the Revolution thousands
of individuals contributed their time without pay to
teach reading, writing and the elements of arithmetic.
They organized classes in apartment houses and at places
of work. And tens of millions of Soviet citizens became
able for the first time to read newspapers, magazines
and books.
Simultaneously the educational system was reorgan-
ized. Even during the Civil War period they were able to
increase the school population to 10,000,000, 25 per-
cent beyond the highest school figure of Tsarist times.
Teachers kept schools open, and set up new ones, despite
cold, hunger and an appalling lack of schoolhouses, books,
pencils, and even paper. The paper shortage was partly
solved by such means as using the reverse sides of the
mounds of petty documentary records stored in local
government offices for decades. Professors gave lectures
before the workers' clubs that were being established
everywhere. This not only stimulated latent interests
and talents among the people, but also brought many
scholars and men of science out of their academic isola-
tion, compelling them to simplify and freshen their lan-
guage, to think in terms of the popular application of
knowledge.
Economic recovery from World War I gradually
enabled the Soviet Union to produce paper, publish
books, erect theatres, movie halls, clubrooms and labora-
tories, and manufacture scientific instruments and other
such equipment to extend cultural facilities beyond the
bare necessities. By 1930 the nation's economy was strong
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
enough to bear the considerable burden of free, uni-
versal, compulsory elementary education, established
in that year. Tens of thousands of new schools were
built and hundreds of institutes for the training of teach-
ers. Textbooks were printed by the tens of millions.
During these same years the growing collectivization of
agriculture shortened the working day of the peasant so
that he had more time for reading and other cultural
activities; and he could let his children remain at school
instead of taking them out at an early age to work on
the farm.
The First Five-Year Plan saw school attendance grow
by almost 9,500,000, practically doubling. College enroll-
ment nearly trebled as the Government opened wide the
gates to workers and peasants, who had been all but
excluded under the old regime. The parallel systems of
compulsory education for children and voluntary educa-
tion for adults brought literacy up to 80 percent in 1939.
By that time 50,000,000 adults had been to school and
had acquired a taste for reading reflected in a fourteen-
fold rise in newspaper circulation and an eight fold in-
crease in book publishing as compared with 1913. In
1939-41, however, the illiteracy ratio rose as a result of
Soviet annexations in the west which brought 23,000,000
new people into the U. S. S. R. *
World War II took 15,000,000 children out of school
in the areas under German occupation; and millions
more interrupted their schooling as they went to work
for the defense effort or as the authorities requisitioned
schools for hospitals and other emergency uses. In 1944
the Government reduced the age for entering school
from eight to seven, and the first-grade enrollment dou-
? See pp. 309-312.
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? SOVIET CrVlLlZATIOH
bled that year, with 2,000,000 additional pupils. Five
years later, in 1949, the authorities decreed the extension
of free universal, compulsory education of seven years'
duration from the cities and industrial settlements to
the rural districts, where previously only four years had
been required. This new development was completed
by the end of the Fourth Five-Year Plan in 1950. It sent
school attendance up by 5,200,000, necessitating the
building of many thousands of new schools.
During the period of the Plan the number of students
throughout the country in elementary, seven-year and
secondary schools, technical schools and other secondary
establishments increased altogether by 8,000,000 and
reached the total figure of 37,000,000. College and uni-
versity enrollment climbed to 840,000 plus 470,000 in
correspondence courses. After the war the elimination
of illiteracy was resumed in the western borderlands.
And in 1950, without fanfare, the Soviet Union brought
to an end its great literacy campaigns, with adult illiteracy
virtually wiped out in every part of the country.
The regime was only eight weeks old when, with
civil war in the immediate offing, it established by sta-
tute a State Publishing House, the main purpose of which
was to issue cheap editions of the great Russian authors
whose works, under this law, were to become available
to all of the people. That aim has been pursued con-
sistently. When Albert Rhys Williams, noted American
authority on the U. S. S. R. , wanted to express what was
going on in this field, he wrote an article called "Billions
of Books. " "Bookstalls and bookstands," he said, "are as
numerous in the Soviet Union as are soda fountains in
the United States. The problem is no longer that of
awakening an interest in books, but rather of finding
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? ECONOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
some way to satisfy the truly insatiable demand. "19
On the eve of the Second World War there were six
times as many libraries, with eighteen times as many
books, as in 1913. The Nazis destroyed 43,000 libraries
with their 100,000,000 books. Yet at the end of the
Fourth Five-Year Plan there were 15 percent more public
libraries and clubhouses than in 1940. Book publishing
of all types was 84 percent higher than pre-war and six-
teen times higher than in 1913. The year 1951 saw the
number of libraries maintained by the State and public
organizations rise to 350,000, containing more than 700,-
000,000 books.
By the end of 1951 many millions of copies had been
issued of all the chief Russian classics in the novel, the
drama and poetry. For instance, the various works of
Alexander Pushkin had been published beyond a total
of 57,000,000, of Maxim Gorky beyond 59,000,000 and
of Leo Tolstoy beyond 42,000,000. Even in the rather
abstract sphere of philosophy the Soviets print editions
ranging in number from 10,000 to 150,000, including
translations of the outstanding classics from Plato and
Aristotle to the nineteenth century.
It is enlightening to compare publishing figures for
the first twenty years of the Soviet regime with the last
twenty years of Tsarist rule. Precise data are available
as of October, 1947, and are as follows:
Copies
Copies
Author
1888-1917
1918-1947
Chekhov, Anton O.
Gogol, Nikolai V.
Gorky, Maxim
Griboedov, Alexander S.
627,000
5,813,000
1,083,000
619,000
18,386,000
10,526,000
44,504,000
1,173,000
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
Copies
Copies
Author
1888-1917
1918-1947
Herzen, Alexander I.
167,000
1,810,000
Lermontov, Mikhail Y.
4,036,000
9,740,000
Nekrasov, Nikolai A.
254,000
9,648,000
Ostrovsky, Alexander N.
254,000
3,350,000
Pushkin, Alexander S.
10,711,000
35,429,000
Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail
E. 231,000
7,884,000
Tolstoy, Leo N.
10,784,000
26,459,000
Turgenev, Ivan S.
?
12,432,000
Soviet publishers have also issued by the millions the
translated work of foreign authors. Victor Hugo heads
the list with more than 6,600,000 copies; Guy de
Maupassant is next with more than 4,000,000; while
Balzac, Barbusse, Dickens, Rolland and Zola total over
2,000,000 each. An official survey by the Soviet Book
Chamber in 1951 showed that books by 210 American
authors have appeared in the Soviet Union since 1918.
These added up to 44,400,000 copies, translated into no
less than fifty of the languages used in the U. S. S. R.
Jack London came first with 12,259,000 copies; Mark
Twain second with 4,267,000; Ernest Thompson Seton
third with more than 2,300,000; O. Henry fourth with
1,649,000; and Theodore Dreiser fifth with 1,445,000.
The Soviet people often celebrate the birthdays or
other anniversaries of famous world writers. Thus in Feb-
ruary, 1952, the Russian press and literary journals made
a great deal of the 150th anniversary of Victor Hugo's
birth. Publishers were getting ready for the press a two-
volume edition of his selected works to be issued in 90,000
copies; and a special subscription edition of his complete
works in 150,000 copies. Soviet readers and critics see
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
in Hugo a powerful defender of the disinherited and
oppressed, and one who fought passionately for democ-
racy and the liberation of the masses. In 1952 the Soviet
Union also celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth
of Leonardo da Vinci.
In all of the arts progress similar to that in education
and literature has taken place. Lenin himself set the tone
when he said: "Art belongs to the people. It ought to
extend with deep roots into the very thick of the broad
toiling masses. It ought to be intelligible to these masses
and loved by them. And it ought to unify the freedom,
thought and will of these masses, and elevate them. It
ought to arouse and develop artists among them. "20 Up
till 1917 the fine arts (as distinct from the folk arts) were
the private property of a small minority at the top. The
overwhelming majority of the people did not have the
money to buy tickets for performances of drama, ballet,
opera and music. Now all this is changed. And in no
country on earth do a larger proportion of the population
share in the enjoyment of all the arts than in Soviet
Russia.
Not only do huge audiences attend professional pro-
ductions everywhere, but amateur art circles flourish by
the scores of thousands. The wide network of amateur
groups are mainly sponsored and equipped by the trade
unions, which make available to them their 8,000 club-
houses and 80,000 recreation rooms. In 1951 there
entered the national elimination contests 102,000 amateur
groups with over 2,000,000 members. Included were
14,000 symphony orchestras, brass bands and string en-
sembles, 12,000 dance groups, 25,000 choral groups and
40,000 drama groups.
During my two trips to the Soviet Union, in 1932
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
and 1938, I went frequently to the theatre, ballet and
opera and was always struck by the first-rate quality of the
performances, including presentations of Shakespeare's
plays.
As a Shakespeare enthusiast since my school days,
I have been impressed by the immense popularity of
England's greatest dramatist throughout the U. S. S. R.
Shakespeare festivals are a common occurrence there and
Shakespeare's plays have been published in hundreds of
thousands of copies in at least twenty languages. A special
section of the All-Russian Theatrical Society concerns
itself entirely with Shakespeare and the Western Euro-
pean Theatre. This section organizes scholarly research
and lectures on Shakespeare, and arranges an annual
conference on his work every year in April, which is
known as "Shakespeare Month. "
Although in my opinion the quality of Soviet archi-
tecture has remained mediocre, artists and writers have
on the whole set a high record of accomplishment. The
compelling music of Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khacha-
turian has won international acclaim. The work of
Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Dovzhenko in the motion
picture ranks as classic. Mikhail Sholokhov and Alexei
Tolstoy are among the greatest novelists of our time.
As for the status of painting and sculpture, Mr. F. B.
Taylor, an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of
Arts, offered the opinion, after a visit to Soviet Russia
in 1951, that the "Soviet standard of workmanship and
craftsmanship and all-round technical capacity in the
visual arts is the highest I know of in the world today. "21
Significant, too, was the testimony in 1947 of General
Walter Bedell Smith, at that time American Ambassador
to the U. S. S. R. , before a House of Representatives sub-
committee on Foreign Affairs: "The Soviet Union is
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? ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL PROGRESS
setting a higher cultural standard within its borders, I
believe, than exists anywhere else in the world. I say that
advisedly. . . . I mean, at least according to my tastes, the
Soviet radio, the Soviet ballet, the opera, their puppet
theatres -- things of that sort -- are based on a higher
cultural level than that which public demand dictates
in this country. "22
Along with the enormous expansion of recreational
facilities in the arts has gone a comparable development
in sports, which are constantly encouraged by the Min-
istry of Public Health and which come under the super-
vision of the Committee on Affairs of Physical Culture
and Sport -- a body directly accountable to the Cabinet.
Scattered throughout the country are 150,000 athletic
organizations with more than 23,000,000 members and
coordinated into forty large sports societies, the best
known of which are Bolshevik, Dynamo and Spartacus.
The Government gives every aid to a broad people's
program of sports and exercise, believing that they are
essential to national defense as well as to health.
Today all citizens enjoy ample opportunity to take
part in indoor and outdoor sports of a most varied nature.
This contrasts with the old Tsarist days when the masses
of the people had neither the leisure, the money nor the
equipment to participate in sports. The upper classes
themselves were not given much to outdoor sports. Writ-
ing about the typical pre-revolutionary Russian, Sir
Maurice Baring states: "His chief pastimes were singing,
endless conversation, chess playing, broiling himself red
in steambaths, guzzling tremendous amounts of tea and
vodka. "23 The Soviet Russians have not lost any of these
particular skills, but have added a great many others.
As to chess, the most intellectual of all popular games,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
millions now play it and enter into local, regional or
national competitions. Children are urged to start learn-
ing the game at an early age. In 1951 Soviet citizens won
the world's chess championship for both men and women.
Mr. Harry Schwartz, critical commentator of The New
York Times on Soviet affairs, acknowledges that "the
U. S. S. R. does stand pre-eminent" in chess. "Soviet pri-
macy is complete," he says, "and the U. S. S. R. has at least
a dozen players who rank at the very top of the chess
ladder, a greater number than any other country. "24
As for other sports, boating, swimming, rowing, ski-
ing, skating, ice-hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer,
tennis, bicycling, boxing, wrestling, marksmanship, track,
cross-country meets, horseback riding, horse-racing and
mountain climbing are all popular. Tennis is for most
Russians a new game in which they are not yet very
proficient. But in soccer their teams are a match for
those from other European countries. Cross-country
racing -- on foot or on ski -- is probably the first in
popularity and in a single season draws as many as 6,000,-
000 competitors (foot) and 10,000,000 (ski).
In 1952 the Soviet Union for the first time took part
in the Olympic Games, held in Helsinki, Finland, July
19-August 3. Competing against the teams of sixty-six
other nations, the Soviet athletes, both men and women,
showed great prowess in a number of events. The Olym-
pics do not tabulate official team scores, but according to
the unofficial Western scoring system the United States
won first place with a total of 614 points, while Soviet
Russia came second with 5531^. A marked feature of
the Games was the display of good fellowship between
the Soviet entrants and those from other countries, in-
cluding the United States. After Soviet oarsmen had pre-
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? ECOHOMIC AN. D CULTURAL PROGRESS
sented the U. S. crew a scull, the American captain said:
"They couldn't have been nicer. They're a swell bunch
of fellows. "
Later, after the U. S. crew had won the eight-oar
championship over the Soviet crew in the finals, the Rus-
sians lavishly wined and dined the victors. At the end
of the banquet the Soviet chairman rose and said: "Wel-
come, friends of America! We are happy for these friend-
ships we have made on the water. We want the sports-
men of Russia and the sportsmen of America always to
compete in this friendly spirit. " Then he offered a toast
to "international understanding"; and everyone stood up
and clinked glasses of vodka. *
In my account of Soviet Russia's achievements in
World War II and of its remarkable economic progress
under the Five-Year Plans, I noted how rapidly the coun-
try has forged ahead in the realm of science. In every
sphere of existence the Soviets stress the utilization of
scientific principles and techniques for the solution of
problems, in place of the dependence, characteristic of
Tsarist times, on the myths and methods of supernatural-
ism. As early as 1918, when the Government had its back
to the wall, Premier Lenin drew up a far-seeing "Draft
of a Plan of Scientific and Technical Work," which out-
lined some of the more significant scientific tasks facing
the nation.
As the eminent British physicist and Fellow of the
Royal Society, Professor J. D. Bernal, has said: "The great
change which the Revolution brought was to make con-
scious for the first time the necessary connection between
the ordered development of science and the life and work
? For a more detailed account of this episode, see The New York
Times, July 25, 1952.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
of the whole community. . . . Lenin had a wider and
deeper knowledge of science than any statesman of his day,
and even in the most difficult period of famine and civil
war he laid the foundations of an entirely new develop-
ment of science. . . . The task that was undertaken was
not to push forward the bounds of knowledge by the work
of a few isolated scientists, but to make scientific the
whole productive and cultural activity of 160,000,000
people. "25
As compared with only several thousand scientific
workers under the old regime, the Soviet Union had 80,-
000 in 1939 and 150,000 by the end of 1951, of whom
about 60,000 were women. These figures do not include
700,000 laboratory specialists and 1,000,000 technicians
on all levels. The Academy of Sciences of the U. S. S. R. , re-
garded as so important that it is directly responsible to
the Cabinet, has its headquarters in Moscow and acts as
a general staff for the furtherance of scientific endeavor
throughout the country. It not only arranges numberless
conferences and meetings on scientific topics, but initiates
and coordinates scientific research from one end of the
land to the other. Colleges and universities, under the
Ministry of Higher Education, also have their own scien-
tific institutes and conduct extensive research.
The central Academy is divided into eight main sec-
tions: the departments of physico-mathematical science,
of geology and geography, of chemical sciences, of biolog-
ical sciences and medicine, of technical or applied sci-
ences, of history and philosophy, of economics and law,
and of literature and languages. The Academy maintains
various institutes, laboratories, field stations, museums
and observatories totaling more than seventy. It has
affiliates in many remote districts of the U. S. S. R. and in
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? ECONOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
all the Union Republics. Twelve out of sixteen of those
Republics now have their own Academies of Science.
Likewise extremely important are the Academy of
Medical Sciences and the Lenin Academy of Agricultural
Sciences.
A revolutionary advance since 1917 has been the car-
rying over of the methods of science into agriculture and
peasant life, ever the last refuge of traditional super-
naturalism. Throughout the Soviet Republic today, the
farmers, in their efforts to obtain a good harvest, no
longer resort to prayer, religious ritual and priests sprink-
ling the fields with holy water; they rely instead upon
tractors, combines and other machine techniques, as well
as on the general principles of scientific, collectivized
agriculture. Today the U. S. S. R. has hundreds of agri-
cultural institutes, experimental stations and experi-
mental farms. And most of the collectives carry on re-
search in their own small laboratories, with the aid and
advice of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Of course science is closely linked up with the eco-
nomic system of socialist planning, which has turned
the whole country into one vast laboratory where, be-
cause of the central controls, public ownership and all
but unlimited funds, there can be carried on scientific
experiments and undertakings of unparalleled scope.
The great hydroelectric-irrigation-afforestation projects
described in the last section are excellent examples of
what large-scale planning on a scientific basis can do.
And they have had the special attention of the Academy
of Sciences and its research facilities. Planning is, in fact,
an essential factor in all scientific method, since the scien-
tific solution of a problem always involves some definite
plan of action, whether fairly simple or quite complex.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
Soviet science operates within the general -- and
limiting -- postulates and principles of Marxism. Yet the
record shows that within those limits broad and vigorous
scientific discussions have constantly taken place. For
example, in the famous genetics controversy centering
around Trofim Lysenko's theory, opposed to modern
Mendelism, that under certain circumstances living spe-
cies can inherit acquired characteristics, open discussions
raged in the Soviet Union for a decade. In 1948 the
Academy of Agricultural Sciences held a week-long con-
ference on the subject in which scientists on both sides
of the question gave their uncensored opinions. Pravda
printed every word of the debate, which later appeared
in a thick tome published in 500,000 copies.
A careful study of the controversy by Dr. Bernhard
J. Stern of Columbia University indicates that both
Lysenko and many non-Soviet scientists who answered
him were laboring under grave misunderstandings. In
his attack on American geneticists Lysenko unfortunate-
ly relied on articles in the 1947 edition of the Encyclo-
pedia Americana which were reprinted by the editors
without change from the 1917 edition. "They were there-
fore written," as Dr. Stern says, "about 1917 or 1918,
and reflect genetic doctrines of thirty years ago rather
than of today. 26 . . . However meritorious," concludes Dr.
Stern, "Lysenko's positive practical achievements are,*
his critical analysis of genetic theory represents an attack
upon positions long abandoned by the vanguard of
geneticists in this country and in England. . . . Thus it
becomes clear that the gap between Lysenko and genetic-
ists does not appear to be absolute, and may be further
? Some Western scientists believe that Lysenko may have succeeded
in introducing into Soviet agriculture, not the inheritance of acquired
characteristics, but directed mutations.
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? ECONOMIC ANJD CULTURAL PROGRESS
narrowed as reliable evidence becomes more readily avail-
able to both groups. "27
The outcome of the Soviet genetics debate was that
in July, 1948, the Agricultural Academy voted in favor
of Lysenko's position. A few weeks later the U. S. S. R.
Academy of Sciences also officially adopted the Lysenko
view and stated that his report, "which has been approved
by the Central Committee of the Ail-Union Communist
Party, lays down the party line in biology. "28 The
Academy of Sciences then put into effect a series of meas-
ures to ensure the acceptance of Lysenko's principles
throughout the country. The worst aspect of this situa-
tion was not that Soviet scientists may have taken over
the wrong theory, but that they and the Communist Party
set up an official line from which dissent would clearly
be dangerous. Soviet Marxism makes allowance for
changes in its formulations, and such changes do frequent-
ly occur; but the more fundamental ones must have
official Communist approval.
It is in the light of this fact that we must qualify the
otherwise excellent statements of Lenin and Stalin against
dogmatic attitudes.
of a less pronounced continental character, and the sharp
annual and diurnal extremes of temperature character-
istic of this region will become a thing of the past. Over
a large part of Siberia the atmosphere will become more
humid, and the winters milder. It will be possible to
carry agriculture into latitudes where it is now precluded
owing to the severe climate. "18
Engineers and scientists have thoroughly discussed
and debated the Davydov plan. Specialized groups show-
ing a particular interest in it have been the Moscow
Institute of Electrical Engineering, the U. S. S. R. Academy
of Sciences' Institute for the Study of Productive Forces,
the Power Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences,
the Ail-Union Forestry Society, the Water Conservation
Board of the U. S. S. R. Ministry of Agriculture, the Scien-
tific Council of the Ministry of Fisheries and the Science
and Technology Council of the Ministry of Electric
Power Stations. In 1951 the Government officially ap-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
proved the proposal and allocated funds for further
preparatory and research work. Several score engineers
are now drawing up and elaborating final blueprints
under the direction of Mr. Davydov. The detailed plan-
ning and execution of the whole Ob-Yenisei Project will
take at least fifteen years.
The Fifteen-Year Agricultural Plan, the various new
dams and canals, and the remarkable Davydov project
bring out the extraordinary scale and far-sightedness of
socialist planning more effectively than any recitation
of statistics on industrial and agricultural production.
The Soviets are literally re-making nature throughout
an area as large as continental United States. They are
changing the course of mighty rivers, creating new rivers,
constructing inland seas, digging through hundreds of
miles of earth and rock, building a vast network of water-
ways, bringing electric power to thousands of economic
enterprises and millions of people, irrigating enormous
areas of land, making centuries-old deserts bloom, increas-
ing the rainfall, eliminating drought, permanently alter-
ing the climate of entire nations within the Soviet con-
federation. These tremendous programs are beyond any-
thing Goethe's aspiring Faust ever imagined and remind
one of a science novel by H. G. Wells.
The tree-growing plan, involving the planting of
billions upon billions of new trees, will not achieve its
full effects for fifty years, nor the Ob-Yenisei Project fdr
twenty-five. Truly the Soviet planners are much con-
cerned with the welfare of unborn generations and with
ensuring them the economic foundations of an abundant
life. In most countries the kind of schemes which Soviet
engineers and social scientists are continually suggesting
would be dismissed as irresponsible dreams; in Soviet
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? ECONOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
Russia these "dreams," in essence rational as well as
imaginative, go speedily into effect and become the reality
of the future.
5. Cultural Advances
One does not have to be a Marxist or a Communist
to accept the view that every great culture in the history
of mankind has had an economic or material base. Eco-
nomic foundations have of course always been necessary
for the production of the requisite cultural goods and
tools, such as schoolhouses, books, library buildings,
scientific instruments, musical instruments, paints and
other artistic media; to provide artists, teachers, writers
and other cultural workers with their living essentials;
and to make possible leisure in which to appreciate,
criticize and stimulate cultural productions.
A prime Soviet aim from the start has been to develop
an outstanding new culture on the economic foundations
of socialism; to preserve the splendid artistic and literary
achievements of the Russian past; and to extend the
opportunity for cultural appreciation and creation to the
entire population. There is no sharp separation between
material and cultural output, since these two facets of
civilization go hand in hand. The development of ma-
chine processes and scientific techniques so central in a
modern economy require a continuing expansion of
general education and scientific training; while educa-
tional and scientific expansion need a steady flow from
the factories of material equipment of all kinds.
The primary requisites for the cultural progress of
a whole people are literacy and education. Since only 30
percent of the Tsar's subjects were literate, the great
majority could not know the works of Chekov, Pushkin
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
and Leo Tolstoy. One of the first steps the new Gov-
ernment took was to organize a far-reaching campaign
against adult illiteracy. In the tense years of civil war and
foreign intervention following the Revolution thousands
of individuals contributed their time without pay to
teach reading, writing and the elements of arithmetic.
They organized classes in apartment houses and at places
of work. And tens of millions of Soviet citizens became
able for the first time to read newspapers, magazines
and books.
Simultaneously the educational system was reorgan-
ized. Even during the Civil War period they were able to
increase the school population to 10,000,000, 25 per-
cent beyond the highest school figure of Tsarist times.
Teachers kept schools open, and set up new ones, despite
cold, hunger and an appalling lack of schoolhouses, books,
pencils, and even paper. The paper shortage was partly
solved by such means as using the reverse sides of the
mounds of petty documentary records stored in local
government offices for decades. Professors gave lectures
before the workers' clubs that were being established
everywhere. This not only stimulated latent interests
and talents among the people, but also brought many
scholars and men of science out of their academic isola-
tion, compelling them to simplify and freshen their lan-
guage, to think in terms of the popular application of
knowledge.
Economic recovery from World War I gradually
enabled the Soviet Union to produce paper, publish
books, erect theatres, movie halls, clubrooms and labora-
tories, and manufacture scientific instruments and other
such equipment to extend cultural facilities beyond the
bare necessities. By 1930 the nation's economy was strong
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
enough to bear the considerable burden of free, uni-
versal, compulsory elementary education, established
in that year. Tens of thousands of new schools were
built and hundreds of institutes for the training of teach-
ers. Textbooks were printed by the tens of millions.
During these same years the growing collectivization of
agriculture shortened the working day of the peasant so
that he had more time for reading and other cultural
activities; and he could let his children remain at school
instead of taking them out at an early age to work on
the farm.
The First Five-Year Plan saw school attendance grow
by almost 9,500,000, practically doubling. College enroll-
ment nearly trebled as the Government opened wide the
gates to workers and peasants, who had been all but
excluded under the old regime. The parallel systems of
compulsory education for children and voluntary educa-
tion for adults brought literacy up to 80 percent in 1939.
By that time 50,000,000 adults had been to school and
had acquired a taste for reading reflected in a fourteen-
fold rise in newspaper circulation and an eight fold in-
crease in book publishing as compared with 1913. In
1939-41, however, the illiteracy ratio rose as a result of
Soviet annexations in the west which brought 23,000,000
new people into the U. S. S. R. *
World War II took 15,000,000 children out of school
in the areas under German occupation; and millions
more interrupted their schooling as they went to work
for the defense effort or as the authorities requisitioned
schools for hospitals and other emergency uses. In 1944
the Government reduced the age for entering school
from eight to seven, and the first-grade enrollment dou-
? See pp. 309-312.
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? SOVIET CrVlLlZATIOH
bled that year, with 2,000,000 additional pupils. Five
years later, in 1949, the authorities decreed the extension
of free universal, compulsory education of seven years'
duration from the cities and industrial settlements to
the rural districts, where previously only four years had
been required. This new development was completed
by the end of the Fourth Five-Year Plan in 1950. It sent
school attendance up by 5,200,000, necessitating the
building of many thousands of new schools.
During the period of the Plan the number of students
throughout the country in elementary, seven-year and
secondary schools, technical schools and other secondary
establishments increased altogether by 8,000,000 and
reached the total figure of 37,000,000. College and uni-
versity enrollment climbed to 840,000 plus 470,000 in
correspondence courses. After the war the elimination
of illiteracy was resumed in the western borderlands.
And in 1950, without fanfare, the Soviet Union brought
to an end its great literacy campaigns, with adult illiteracy
virtually wiped out in every part of the country.
The regime was only eight weeks old when, with
civil war in the immediate offing, it established by sta-
tute a State Publishing House, the main purpose of which
was to issue cheap editions of the great Russian authors
whose works, under this law, were to become available
to all of the people. That aim has been pursued con-
sistently. When Albert Rhys Williams, noted American
authority on the U. S. S. R. , wanted to express what was
going on in this field, he wrote an article called "Billions
of Books. " "Bookstalls and bookstands," he said, "are as
numerous in the Soviet Union as are soda fountains in
the United States. The problem is no longer that of
awakening an interest in books, but rather of finding
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? ECONOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
some way to satisfy the truly insatiable demand. "19
On the eve of the Second World War there were six
times as many libraries, with eighteen times as many
books, as in 1913. The Nazis destroyed 43,000 libraries
with their 100,000,000 books. Yet at the end of the
Fourth Five-Year Plan there were 15 percent more public
libraries and clubhouses than in 1940. Book publishing
of all types was 84 percent higher than pre-war and six-
teen times higher than in 1913. The year 1951 saw the
number of libraries maintained by the State and public
organizations rise to 350,000, containing more than 700,-
000,000 books.
By the end of 1951 many millions of copies had been
issued of all the chief Russian classics in the novel, the
drama and poetry. For instance, the various works of
Alexander Pushkin had been published beyond a total
of 57,000,000, of Maxim Gorky beyond 59,000,000 and
of Leo Tolstoy beyond 42,000,000. Even in the rather
abstract sphere of philosophy the Soviets print editions
ranging in number from 10,000 to 150,000, including
translations of the outstanding classics from Plato and
Aristotle to the nineteenth century.
It is enlightening to compare publishing figures for
the first twenty years of the Soviet regime with the last
twenty years of Tsarist rule. Precise data are available
as of October, 1947, and are as follows:
Copies
Copies
Author
1888-1917
1918-1947
Chekhov, Anton O.
Gogol, Nikolai V.
Gorky, Maxim
Griboedov, Alexander S.
627,000
5,813,000
1,083,000
619,000
18,386,000
10,526,000
44,504,000
1,173,000
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
Copies
Copies
Author
1888-1917
1918-1947
Herzen, Alexander I.
167,000
1,810,000
Lermontov, Mikhail Y.
4,036,000
9,740,000
Nekrasov, Nikolai A.
254,000
9,648,000
Ostrovsky, Alexander N.
254,000
3,350,000
Pushkin, Alexander S.
10,711,000
35,429,000
Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail
E. 231,000
7,884,000
Tolstoy, Leo N.
10,784,000
26,459,000
Turgenev, Ivan S.
?
12,432,000
Soviet publishers have also issued by the millions the
translated work of foreign authors. Victor Hugo heads
the list with more than 6,600,000 copies; Guy de
Maupassant is next with more than 4,000,000; while
Balzac, Barbusse, Dickens, Rolland and Zola total over
2,000,000 each. An official survey by the Soviet Book
Chamber in 1951 showed that books by 210 American
authors have appeared in the Soviet Union since 1918.
These added up to 44,400,000 copies, translated into no
less than fifty of the languages used in the U. S. S. R.
Jack London came first with 12,259,000 copies; Mark
Twain second with 4,267,000; Ernest Thompson Seton
third with more than 2,300,000; O. Henry fourth with
1,649,000; and Theodore Dreiser fifth with 1,445,000.
The Soviet people often celebrate the birthdays or
other anniversaries of famous world writers. Thus in Feb-
ruary, 1952, the Russian press and literary journals made
a great deal of the 150th anniversary of Victor Hugo's
birth. Publishers were getting ready for the press a two-
volume edition of his selected works to be issued in 90,000
copies; and a special subscription edition of his complete
works in 150,000 copies. Soviet readers and critics see
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
in Hugo a powerful defender of the disinherited and
oppressed, and one who fought passionately for democ-
racy and the liberation of the masses. In 1952 the Soviet
Union also celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth
of Leonardo da Vinci.
In all of the arts progress similar to that in education
and literature has taken place. Lenin himself set the tone
when he said: "Art belongs to the people. It ought to
extend with deep roots into the very thick of the broad
toiling masses. It ought to be intelligible to these masses
and loved by them. And it ought to unify the freedom,
thought and will of these masses, and elevate them. It
ought to arouse and develop artists among them. "20 Up
till 1917 the fine arts (as distinct from the folk arts) were
the private property of a small minority at the top. The
overwhelming majority of the people did not have the
money to buy tickets for performances of drama, ballet,
opera and music. Now all this is changed. And in no
country on earth do a larger proportion of the population
share in the enjoyment of all the arts than in Soviet
Russia.
Not only do huge audiences attend professional pro-
ductions everywhere, but amateur art circles flourish by
the scores of thousands. The wide network of amateur
groups are mainly sponsored and equipped by the trade
unions, which make available to them their 8,000 club-
houses and 80,000 recreation rooms. In 1951 there
entered the national elimination contests 102,000 amateur
groups with over 2,000,000 members. Included were
14,000 symphony orchestras, brass bands and string en-
sembles, 12,000 dance groups, 25,000 choral groups and
40,000 drama groups.
During my two trips to the Soviet Union, in 1932
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
and 1938, I went frequently to the theatre, ballet and
opera and was always struck by the first-rate quality of the
performances, including presentations of Shakespeare's
plays.
As a Shakespeare enthusiast since my school days,
I have been impressed by the immense popularity of
England's greatest dramatist throughout the U. S. S. R.
Shakespeare festivals are a common occurrence there and
Shakespeare's plays have been published in hundreds of
thousands of copies in at least twenty languages. A special
section of the All-Russian Theatrical Society concerns
itself entirely with Shakespeare and the Western Euro-
pean Theatre. This section organizes scholarly research
and lectures on Shakespeare, and arranges an annual
conference on his work every year in April, which is
known as "Shakespeare Month. "
Although in my opinion the quality of Soviet archi-
tecture has remained mediocre, artists and writers have
on the whole set a high record of accomplishment. The
compelling music of Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khacha-
turian has won international acclaim. The work of
Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Dovzhenko in the motion
picture ranks as classic. Mikhail Sholokhov and Alexei
Tolstoy are among the greatest novelists of our time.
As for the status of painting and sculpture, Mr. F. B.
Taylor, an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of
Arts, offered the opinion, after a visit to Soviet Russia
in 1951, that the "Soviet standard of workmanship and
craftsmanship and all-round technical capacity in the
visual arts is the highest I know of in the world today. "21
Significant, too, was the testimony in 1947 of General
Walter Bedell Smith, at that time American Ambassador
to the U. S. S. R. , before a House of Representatives sub-
committee on Foreign Affairs: "The Soviet Union is
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? ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL PROGRESS
setting a higher cultural standard within its borders, I
believe, than exists anywhere else in the world. I say that
advisedly. . . . I mean, at least according to my tastes, the
Soviet radio, the Soviet ballet, the opera, their puppet
theatres -- things of that sort -- are based on a higher
cultural level than that which public demand dictates
in this country. "22
Along with the enormous expansion of recreational
facilities in the arts has gone a comparable development
in sports, which are constantly encouraged by the Min-
istry of Public Health and which come under the super-
vision of the Committee on Affairs of Physical Culture
and Sport -- a body directly accountable to the Cabinet.
Scattered throughout the country are 150,000 athletic
organizations with more than 23,000,000 members and
coordinated into forty large sports societies, the best
known of which are Bolshevik, Dynamo and Spartacus.
The Government gives every aid to a broad people's
program of sports and exercise, believing that they are
essential to national defense as well as to health.
Today all citizens enjoy ample opportunity to take
part in indoor and outdoor sports of a most varied nature.
This contrasts with the old Tsarist days when the masses
of the people had neither the leisure, the money nor the
equipment to participate in sports. The upper classes
themselves were not given much to outdoor sports. Writ-
ing about the typical pre-revolutionary Russian, Sir
Maurice Baring states: "His chief pastimes were singing,
endless conversation, chess playing, broiling himself red
in steambaths, guzzling tremendous amounts of tea and
vodka. "23 The Soviet Russians have not lost any of these
particular skills, but have added a great many others.
As to chess, the most intellectual of all popular games,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
millions now play it and enter into local, regional or
national competitions. Children are urged to start learn-
ing the game at an early age. In 1951 Soviet citizens won
the world's chess championship for both men and women.
Mr. Harry Schwartz, critical commentator of The New
York Times on Soviet affairs, acknowledges that "the
U. S. S. R. does stand pre-eminent" in chess. "Soviet pri-
macy is complete," he says, "and the U. S. S. R. has at least
a dozen players who rank at the very top of the chess
ladder, a greater number than any other country. "24
As for other sports, boating, swimming, rowing, ski-
ing, skating, ice-hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer,
tennis, bicycling, boxing, wrestling, marksmanship, track,
cross-country meets, horseback riding, horse-racing and
mountain climbing are all popular. Tennis is for most
Russians a new game in which they are not yet very
proficient. But in soccer their teams are a match for
those from other European countries. Cross-country
racing -- on foot or on ski -- is probably the first in
popularity and in a single season draws as many as 6,000,-
000 competitors (foot) and 10,000,000 (ski).
In 1952 the Soviet Union for the first time took part
in the Olympic Games, held in Helsinki, Finland, July
19-August 3. Competing against the teams of sixty-six
other nations, the Soviet athletes, both men and women,
showed great prowess in a number of events. The Olym-
pics do not tabulate official team scores, but according to
the unofficial Western scoring system the United States
won first place with a total of 614 points, while Soviet
Russia came second with 5531^. A marked feature of
the Games was the display of good fellowship between
the Soviet entrants and those from other countries, in-
cluding the United States. After Soviet oarsmen had pre-
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? ECOHOMIC AN. D CULTURAL PROGRESS
sented the U. S. crew a scull, the American captain said:
"They couldn't have been nicer. They're a swell bunch
of fellows. "
Later, after the U. S. crew had won the eight-oar
championship over the Soviet crew in the finals, the Rus-
sians lavishly wined and dined the victors. At the end
of the banquet the Soviet chairman rose and said: "Wel-
come, friends of America! We are happy for these friend-
ships we have made on the water. We want the sports-
men of Russia and the sportsmen of America always to
compete in this friendly spirit. " Then he offered a toast
to "international understanding"; and everyone stood up
and clinked glasses of vodka. *
In my account of Soviet Russia's achievements in
World War II and of its remarkable economic progress
under the Five-Year Plans, I noted how rapidly the coun-
try has forged ahead in the realm of science. In every
sphere of existence the Soviets stress the utilization of
scientific principles and techniques for the solution of
problems, in place of the dependence, characteristic of
Tsarist times, on the myths and methods of supernatural-
ism. As early as 1918, when the Government had its back
to the wall, Premier Lenin drew up a far-seeing "Draft
of a Plan of Scientific and Technical Work," which out-
lined some of the more significant scientific tasks facing
the nation.
As the eminent British physicist and Fellow of the
Royal Society, Professor J. D. Bernal, has said: "The great
change which the Revolution brought was to make con-
scious for the first time the necessary connection between
the ordered development of science and the life and work
? For a more detailed account of this episode, see The New York
Times, July 25, 1952.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
of the whole community. . . . Lenin had a wider and
deeper knowledge of science than any statesman of his day,
and even in the most difficult period of famine and civil
war he laid the foundations of an entirely new develop-
ment of science. . . . The task that was undertaken was
not to push forward the bounds of knowledge by the work
of a few isolated scientists, but to make scientific the
whole productive and cultural activity of 160,000,000
people. "25
As compared with only several thousand scientific
workers under the old regime, the Soviet Union had 80,-
000 in 1939 and 150,000 by the end of 1951, of whom
about 60,000 were women. These figures do not include
700,000 laboratory specialists and 1,000,000 technicians
on all levels. The Academy of Sciences of the U. S. S. R. , re-
garded as so important that it is directly responsible to
the Cabinet, has its headquarters in Moscow and acts as
a general staff for the furtherance of scientific endeavor
throughout the country. It not only arranges numberless
conferences and meetings on scientific topics, but initiates
and coordinates scientific research from one end of the
land to the other. Colleges and universities, under the
Ministry of Higher Education, also have their own scien-
tific institutes and conduct extensive research.
The central Academy is divided into eight main sec-
tions: the departments of physico-mathematical science,
of geology and geography, of chemical sciences, of biolog-
ical sciences and medicine, of technical or applied sci-
ences, of history and philosophy, of economics and law,
and of literature and languages. The Academy maintains
various institutes, laboratories, field stations, museums
and observatories totaling more than seventy. It has
affiliates in many remote districts of the U. S. S. R. and in
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? ECONOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
all the Union Republics. Twelve out of sixteen of those
Republics now have their own Academies of Science.
Likewise extremely important are the Academy of
Medical Sciences and the Lenin Academy of Agricultural
Sciences.
A revolutionary advance since 1917 has been the car-
rying over of the methods of science into agriculture and
peasant life, ever the last refuge of traditional super-
naturalism. Throughout the Soviet Republic today, the
farmers, in their efforts to obtain a good harvest, no
longer resort to prayer, religious ritual and priests sprink-
ling the fields with holy water; they rely instead upon
tractors, combines and other machine techniques, as well
as on the general principles of scientific, collectivized
agriculture. Today the U. S. S. R. has hundreds of agri-
cultural institutes, experimental stations and experi-
mental farms. And most of the collectives carry on re-
search in their own small laboratories, with the aid and
advice of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Of course science is closely linked up with the eco-
nomic system of socialist planning, which has turned
the whole country into one vast laboratory where, be-
cause of the central controls, public ownership and all
but unlimited funds, there can be carried on scientific
experiments and undertakings of unparalleled scope.
The great hydroelectric-irrigation-afforestation projects
described in the last section are excellent examples of
what large-scale planning on a scientific basis can do.
And they have had the special attention of the Academy
of Sciences and its research facilities. Planning is, in fact,
an essential factor in all scientific method, since the scien-
tific solution of a problem always involves some definite
plan of action, whether fairly simple or quite complex.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
Soviet science operates within the general -- and
limiting -- postulates and principles of Marxism. Yet the
record shows that within those limits broad and vigorous
scientific discussions have constantly taken place. For
example, in the famous genetics controversy centering
around Trofim Lysenko's theory, opposed to modern
Mendelism, that under certain circumstances living spe-
cies can inherit acquired characteristics, open discussions
raged in the Soviet Union for a decade. In 1948 the
Academy of Agricultural Sciences held a week-long con-
ference on the subject in which scientists on both sides
of the question gave their uncensored opinions. Pravda
printed every word of the debate, which later appeared
in a thick tome published in 500,000 copies.
A careful study of the controversy by Dr. Bernhard
J. Stern of Columbia University indicates that both
Lysenko and many non-Soviet scientists who answered
him were laboring under grave misunderstandings. In
his attack on American geneticists Lysenko unfortunate-
ly relied on articles in the 1947 edition of the Encyclo-
pedia Americana which were reprinted by the editors
without change from the 1917 edition. "They were there-
fore written," as Dr. Stern says, "about 1917 or 1918,
and reflect genetic doctrines of thirty years ago rather
than of today. 26 . . . However meritorious," concludes Dr.
Stern, "Lysenko's positive practical achievements are,*
his critical analysis of genetic theory represents an attack
upon positions long abandoned by the vanguard of
geneticists in this country and in England. . . . Thus it
becomes clear that the gap between Lysenko and genetic-
ists does not appear to be absolute, and may be further
? Some Western scientists believe that Lysenko may have succeeded
in introducing into Soviet agriculture, not the inheritance of acquired
characteristics, but directed mutations.
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? ECONOMIC ANJD CULTURAL PROGRESS
narrowed as reliable evidence becomes more readily avail-
able to both groups. "27
The outcome of the Soviet genetics debate was that
in July, 1948, the Agricultural Academy voted in favor
of Lysenko's position. A few weeks later the U. S. S. R.
Academy of Sciences also officially adopted the Lysenko
view and stated that his report, "which has been approved
by the Central Committee of the Ail-Union Communist
Party, lays down the party line in biology. "28 The
Academy of Sciences then put into effect a series of meas-
ures to ensure the acceptance of Lysenko's principles
throughout the country. The worst aspect of this situa-
tion was not that Soviet scientists may have taken over
the wrong theory, but that they and the Communist Party
set up an official line from which dissent would clearly
be dangerous. Soviet Marxism makes allowance for
changes in its formulations, and such changes do frequent-
ly occur; but the more fundamental ones must have
official Communist approval.
It is in the light of this fact that we must qualify the
otherwise excellent statements of Lenin and Stalin against
dogmatic attitudes.
