Perestroika of the History of Technology and Science in the USSR: Changes in the Discourse

Abstract

Perestroika of the History of Technology and Science in the USSR: Changes in the Discourse SLAVA GEROVITCH A great social reconstruction of Soviet society (perestroika) ended with the disappearance of the reconstructed object—the Soviet Union—in December 1991. Something else, however, was recon­ structed: people’s thinking—their attitude to socialism, to their his­ tory, and to themselves. Remarkable changes also emerged in Soviet research on the history of technology and science, both reshaping the thematic discourse and altering the methodological profile. Soviet scholarship in the history of technology and science evolved along the lines of the political and social evolution of Soviet society: from sincere and enthusiastic belief in Marxism to degeneration of the Marxist theoretical framework into an instrument of rhetoric. By the mid-1980s, the time of perestroika, this evolution had resulted in an internalist methodology of research, ideological servility, limita­ tions imposed on the sphere of discussion, and a scarcity of imagina­ tive analysis. The policy of openness (glasnost') led to the weakening of ideologi­ cal censorship and opened the doors of some previously inaccessible archives. New opportunities caused a drastic shift in the interests of Soviet scholars toward the recent history of Soviet technology and science. At the same time, the role of Marxist rhetoric began to de­ crease. Changes in research methodology developed more slowly, for they were touching deeper layers of the discourse. The process of Dr. Gerovitch received his Ph.D. from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1992. He is currently working on his second doctorate in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in the his­ tory of cybernetics and artificial intelligence in Russia and the United States. He is very grateful to Professor Loren R. Graham, Professor Deborah K. Fitzgerald, Dr. Nikolai L. Krementsov, Dr. Robert C. Post, Dr. John M. Staudenmaier, and the refer­ ees of Technology and Culture for their helpful suggestions and constructive criticisms. He also expresses his thanks to Gregory Crowe and Gregory Clancey for their assis­ tance in the preparation of this article.© 1996 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040- 165X/96/3701-0005$01.00 102 History of Technology and Science in the USSR 103 revising dogmas and reevaluating historical attainments provoked a sharp methodological debate over fundamental issues concerning re­ lations of technology and science to a sociopolitical context. For some Soviet historians, mostly of the older generation, perestroika con­ sisted of merely changing heroes to villains and vice versa, while pre­ serving the traditional image of technology and science as a largely autonomous enterprise. For others, mostly young historians, technol­ ogy and science were seen as social activities deeply woven into the fabric of politics and culture. This difference stirred up traditional methodological presuppositions and caused an ongoing debate among proponents of internalist, externalist, and contextual styles. In this article, I will examine methodological, thematic, temporal, geographic, and disciplinary changes in the discourse of Soviet histo­ rians of technology and science, basing my study on a quantitative analysis of the content of the journal Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki (Problems in the History of Science and Technology, hereaf­ ter VIET] during the perestroika period, 1986-91. VIET is the major (and the only academic) Russian journal in this area.1 It is published in Moscow by the Institut Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki (Institute for the History of Science and Technology, hereafter IIET), the lead­ ing Soviet (now Russian) institution in this held. A number of popular magazines publish articles on the history of technology and science as well, but they largely reflect the interests of the audience rather than the preferences of academics.1 2 The methodology and criteria of my study are similar to those used by John Staudenmaier in his analysis of the discourse of American historians of technology based on the content of Technology and Cul­ ture (hereafter T&C) from 1959 to 1980.3 For each article published in VIET for the period 1986—91,1 have recorded the same character­ istics Staudenmaier did for T&C: time and place references; method­ ological style (internalist, externalist, contextual); and function of hypotheses in argumentation (a priori, a posteriori). The...