I don't recall exactly when interference in the sciences began. There was of course the notorious meddling in Soviet genetics, which resulted in Lysenkoism and severe consequences for Soviet agriculture. But the theory of relativity was also denounced as not conforming to principles of dialectical materialism, which occasioned some mockery from Einstein. (After the Post-Stalin thaw, Einstein was held up as an exemplar of dialectical materialist thought.) Mathematicians also suffered during this period. Kolman testifies to the ineptitude imposed on a number of areas.
No, there was no lack of scientific enterprise in the USSR, but it's a miracle that the incompetence and despotism of the leadership didn't sink the whole country completely, ironic in view of the crash program of industrialization which was dubbed "building socialism."
It is also important to recognize that the ideological rhetoric used was similar to yours:
This aspect is also interesting because Engels' theory and philosophy of mathematics is exactly materialist, of course, in contrast with that of what is probably the theory of most abstract mathematicians, i.e. idealist, emphasis on derivation outside of practical activities. Business is the _most_ practical activity. Even physics is less practical. Business is the most highly math practical activity, in a sense.
And yet how impractical the repression of theoretical thought proved to be. Even Bukharin was naive in this area. Some talk he gave to the effect that there was no future for "pure" research got Michael Polanyi so perturbed, he proceeded to develop his own ideas about science.
There's a new book on the strange career of Soviet cybernetics I need to get.
I know I had some correspondence with Rosser in the '90s, but I can't remember what about. The first of his essays most pertinent to our discussion seems to be;
Aspects of Dialectics and Nonlinear Dynamics http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb/DIANONL.DYN.doc
At 04:45 PM 3/3/2005 -0500, Charles Brown wrote:
They were probably doing good physics and math all along. Don't think they suddenly changed course and caught up and passed the rest of the world. Crude scientists would not have been able to pick up on the atom bomb so quickly. You know Sputnik and all that.
Afterall, Marx, Engels and Lenin put a lot of emphasis on science. Stalin and Stalinists did a lot of following those three to the tee. M,E and L did not teach establishing an intellectual ghetto, but rather exactly participating in the "totality of human knowledge."
The problem with the Soviet Union was _not_ lack of scientific work and culture.
However,on cybernetics the word seems to be that they missed the boat on that , contra what you say below.
Charles
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