Science for the masses: the Bolshevik state, public science, and the popular imagination in Soviet Russia, 1917-1934

Abstract

After the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia's new leaders recognized the tantamount importance of teaching science to the masses in order to spread enlightenment and reinforce the basic tenets of Marxism. However, it was not until the first Five Year Plan and the cultural revolution of 1928-32 that a radical break from Russia's tsarist past was marked. Here, James T. Andrews presents a comprehensive history of the early Bolshevik popularization of science in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Andrews Initially focuses on the growth of scientific societies in late Imperial Russia. Pre-Revolutionary science popularizers and associations continued to operate until 1928, their efforts appealing to the popular Imagination and resonating with the interests of average Russians. Sadly, after Stalin seized power, scientists were reduced to serving industry and the propagandistic ends of Stalinism. Andrews has mined materials from previously untouched Russian archives, newspapers, scientific journals of the era, and questionnaires to show how Soviet citizens shaped the programs of science popularizers and even the agendas of communists. Underscoring the need to take care when analyzing historical and political phenomena. Andrews concludes that nothing was simple or absolute in Soviet Russia.