The importance attached to scientific and techni- 

 cal progress in Soviet ideology has encouraged the 

 acceptance of large expenditures on R&D, especially 

 in the postwar period. The rate of growth of expend- 

 itures on science for the past 25 years, in fact, has 

 outstripped the rate of increase of both national in- 

 come and industrial production. Unlike the United 

 States, there has been no "flight from science" dur- 

 ing the past decade. While allocations for R&D rose 

 in the US to 2.5 percent of the GNP in 1965 and have 

 fallen ever since, official expenditures on science 

 as a portion of national income have risen in the So- 

 viet Union from 1.3 percent in 1950, to 2.7 percent 

 in 1960, to 4.8 percent in 1975. If we add develop- 

 ment activity at the enterprise level, which is not 

 included in "official" science figures, then the to- 

 tal share of national income has probably been about 

 7 or 8 percent throughout the 1970s. While official 

 allocations for science have tended to stabilize in 

 recent years at around 5 percent of the national in- 

 come, this rate is still significantly higher than 

 that of any nation in the Western world. 



At the same time, certain tensions and conflicts 

 between science and ideology impede scientific and 

 technological developments. The commitment to sci- 

 ence is "conditional." The Soviet government, like 

 its Tsarist predecessor, has been ambivalent toward 

 science. On the one hand, it sees science as indis- 

 pensable for economic modernization and for enhancing 

 Soviet military power; on the other hand, the regime 

 distrusts the scientific spirit with its critical at- 

 titude towards authority and individualistic approach 

 to problem-solving. The evolution of science as an 

 autonomous social activity carries the dangers of 

 professional exclusiveness, elitism, and the asser- 

 tion of rationalistic modes of thought. Manifesta- 

 tions of dissent in recent years among scientists 

 testify to the reality of these dangers and make ide- 

 ological problems a continuing basic concern of So- 

 viet science policy. Dzherman Gvishiani, a deputy 

 chairman of the USSR State Committee for Science and 

 Technology, emphasizes that "all socialist states 

 cannot but grant great significance to the mastering 



