The Soviet Union was the first nation to recognize 

 science as a natural resource, to commit systemati- 

 cally large shares of its budget to the promotion of 

 research, and to try., to plan the development of sci- 

 ence and technology. 



Kremlin leaders see their ideology as being syn- 

 onymous with science, and they have long regarded the 

 latter as an indispensable tool for modernizing Rus- 

 sia. The early Bolsheviks believed that science 

 would "conquer Russia both as a state of mind and as 

 a state of nature." Lenin's definition of Communism 

 as "Soviet power plus electrification of the whole 

 country" captures well the enthusiasm of the times 

 for science and technology during the formative stage 

 of Soviet rule. More than half a century later, 

 Leonid Brezhnev reaffirmed this basic commitment on 

 the 250th Anniversary of the USSR Academy of Sciences 

 "Socialism and science are indivisible," he empha- 

 sized. "Only by relying on the latest achievements of 

 science and technology is it possible to build so- 

 cialism and communism successfully." 



Throughout the period of Soviet rule, Kremlin 

 spokesmen have tended to claim practically unlimited 

 potentialities for science. Indeed, the regime has 

 gone through a long line of technological panaceas 

 upon which, at one time or another, everything was 

 supposed to depend — electrification, mechanization, 

 chemicalization, etc. Today the "technological fix" 

 appears to be centered on computerization and auto- 

 mation. This almost eternally optimistic attitude 

 of the government and society toward science as a 

 progressive force of great untapped potential re- 

 flects the scientific optimism to which Marxism was 

 heir. In fact, a defense of science in 18th century 

 enlightenment terms, Loren Graham observes, is prob- 

 ably more popular today among intellectuals in the 

 Soviet Union than in Western states, where the ap- 

 peal of this model has diminished. Moreover, the 

 USSR Academy of Sciences is the only one of the 18th 

 century European academies of sciences which still 

 dominates the science of its nation. 



