INTRODUCTION xi 



these, there is some discussion of the incentives that are used by the Russian 

 government in stimulating its scientists. They beUeve in a system of positive 

 and negative incentives — rewards for a five-year plan fulfilled and severe 

 penalties, including long stays in Siberia, for those who do not fulfill their 

 plans. 



In Chapter Three, which was written shortly after I had attended a 

 meeting of the 220th anniversary of the founding of the Academy of 

 Sciences of the U. S. S. R. in Moscow in 1945, I was over-optimistic in 

 hoping that the Russians could cooperate with the rest of the world. I 

 believe that at that meeting it was the intention of the leaders to make a 

 gesture to the world that they intended to so cooperate, and I also think 

 that they sincerely thought that they could. The atomic bomb which was 

 first tested in New Mexico only about two weeks after our party left 

 Russia probably was the turning point in the Russian plan to cooperate 

 with the scientists of the world. Shortly -after that, it must have appeared 

 to the Russian government that their own scientists had dehberately chosen 

 to work on such things as the liquefaction of helium and the use of oxygen 

 in blast furnaces rather than study atomic energy. As a result, I believe 

 that the scientists were no longer trusted and were no longer left in charge 

 of their programs. Instead of that, the scientists are now controlled 

 politically, as we see in the case of T. D. Lysenko in the field of biology, 

 with similar control of the arts such as music. This change of attitude on 

 the part of the Russian government towards its scientists will, I believe, 

 force future scientific developments in that country to follow lines which 

 promise foreseeable advantages to the politicians but seriously discourages 

 all work which might lead to fundamental discoveries. 



