comes not only the key force driving modern society 

 forward but also a major arena of competition between 

 the world's two opposing social systems. Underlying 

 the notion of the STR is also implicit — and sometimes 

 explicit — recognition of Russia's relative backward- 

 ness and growing technology gap with the West, espe- 

 cially the United States. As a letter of appeal from 

 dissident but concerned Soviet scientists to Party 

 and government leaders in March 1970 noted frankly, 

 with respect to the computer age: "We are simply liv- 

 ing in a different era. The second industrial revo- 

 lution came along and now, at the onset of the seven- 

 ties, we see that far from having overtaken America, 

 we are dropping further and further behind. "1 Thus, 

 a "historic" task facing the USSR today, as defined 

 by General Secretary Brezhnev at the 1971 Party con- 

 gress and reaffirmed by the 1976 congress, is "to 

 combine organically the achievements of the STR with 

 the advantages of the socialist economic system, to 

 unfold more broadly our own, intrinsically socialist 

 forms of fusing science with production. "2 



Second, there has also been growing realization 

 that the Soviet economy is approaching the limits of 

 "extensive" growth and entering a new era that calls 

 for more "intensive" methods of development. Declin- 

 ing supplies of manpower and material resources re- 

 quire a basic shift in development strategy and great- 

 er emphasis on qualitative improvements rather than 

 quantitative increases of inputs as the main source 

 of future growth. Already at the end of the 1960s, 

 Brezhnev declared firmly that intensification "be- 

 comes not only the main way but the only way of de- 

 veloping our economy." Moreover, in this approach he 

 told the 1971 Party congress, "the acceleration of 

 S&T progress forges into first place both from the 

 point of view of current tasks and of the long-term 

 future." Premier Kosygin similarly insisted at the 

 1976 congress that without faster translation of S&T 

 into production "the economy can no longer success- 

 fully advance along the path of intensification and 

 quality improvement ."3 



252 



