by scientists of Marxist-Leninist methodology, and 

 to the struggle against manifestations of bourgeois 

 ideology and bourgeois objectivism and subjectiv- 

 ism." 



Political and ideological constraints have varied 

 over time, however. Under Stalin, control extended 

 to scientific theory itself, and particular inter- 

 pretations of theory were forced upon scientists. As 

 a result some scientific fields, like biology and 

 cybernetics, were deliberately suppressed or retard- 

 ed. The social sciences in particular have suffered 

 from the encounter with ideology. While the bound- 

 aries of intellectual freedom to pursue research have 

 been extended in the post-Stalin period, science has 

 not been freed from political influence. Soviet auth- 

 orities still make demands upon the scientists, al- 

 though frequently different ones than they made in 

 the past. Controls over scientists have not really 

 been relaxed, but the goals of such controls have 

 been redefined in accord with changing official per- 

 ceptions of national needs. Today it is the problems 

 of a more sophisticated society and industrial order 

 than those of the steel age of industrial expansion 

 that Soviet scientists andoengineers are under pres- 

 sure to address and solve. 



CENTRALIZATION OF R&D PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT 



The conduct of scientific research and development 

 in the USSR is subordinate, at least in principle and 

 aspiration, to strong central planning and manage- 

 ment. R&D shares this characteristic with other 

 broad areas of economic and social activity in a sys- 

 tem wherein the vast majority of the means of produc- 

 tion is owned and managed by the state. Accordingly, 

 it is impossible to distinguish between purely gov- 

 ernmental or public and purely industrial or private 

 sectors. Rather, there is simply one giant public 

 sector. At no point in R&D decision making is there 

 an apparent juncture of the kind visible in the Amer- 



