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Soviet Science in the Stalin Period: The Case of Y. I. Yernadskii and his Scientific School, 1928-1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Kendall E. Bailes
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Extract

The social conditions for scientific work in the Stalin era are often assumed to have been patterned more or less after Lysenkoism and Soviet genetics in the 1930s and 1940s. Much less is known about other areas of Soviet science in the same period. Were Lysenkoism and the fate of genetics typical or atypical of what was happening in other areas of Soviet science under Stalin? The case of Vladimir I. Vernadskii, an earth scientist, and his scientific school in the years between 1928 and 1945 documents the survival and development of an important tradition very different from that of Lysenkoism and suggests something about the mentality of one segment of the scientific intelligentsia with strong ties to prerevolutionary Russian science. The fate of the Vernadskii school suggests something of the diversity and complexity of Soviet science, even during the worst years of the Stalinist regime and illuminates some of the ways Soviet scientists like Vernadskii were able to protect their scientific enterprises and continue a critical tradition in Russian science despite political interference.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Spring 1986 , pp. 20 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1986

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References

1. Although I have been working on Vernadskii and his scientific school for some time now,much of what I have to say here is founded on new research, done in the Soviet Union during thespring and summer of 1981 and based in large part on the personal papers of Vernadskii in thearchives of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Museum of the Institute of Geochemistry namedafter him in Moscow. No western scholar has, to my knowledge, used these unpublished sourcesbefore. Vernadskii's personal archives are considered to be one of the most extensive of any Russianscientist in the twentieth century. The Soviet sources used here have been supplemented and partiallycorroborated by a large personal archive of Vernadskii's letters and manuscripts that he gave to thisson, George Vernadsky, the émigré Russian historian who taught at Yale University from 1927 to1956. This rich archive is now in the Bakhmeteff Collection at Columbia University. In subsequent footnotes this archival collection will be cited as BC.

2. On the history of geochemistry, see Servos, John W., “The Intellectual Basis of Specialization:Geochemistry in America, 1890–1915,” in Chemistry and Modern Society: Historical Essays in Honor of Aaron J. Ihde, ed. Parascandola, John and Whorton, James C., American Chemical Society SymposiumSeries, no. 228 (Washington, D.C., 1983)Google Scholar; and Servos, John W., “To Explore the Borderland:The Foundation of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington,” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 14 (1983): 147–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Interviews with Georgii B. Naumov, Aleksei B. Iaroshevskii, and Vladislav P. Volkov, scientistsat the Vernadskii Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Moscow, June 1981.

4. See his Biosfera (Leningrad, 1926). A good exposition of Vernadskii's efforts in this field canbe found in Balandin, Rudolf, Vernadskii: zhizri, mysl', bessmertie (Moscow, 1979), pp. 80–92 Google Scholar, and Korsunskaia, Vera M. and Verzilin, Nikolai M., V. I. Vernadskii (Moscow, 1975), pp. 76–115.Google Scholar

5. On the significance of major research programs in the history of science, see Lakatos, Imre, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,” in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1970), pp. 91–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. See Taton, René, ed., Science in the Twentieth Century, trans. Pomerans, A. J. (New York:Basic Books, 1966), pp. 296–311.Google Scholar

7. My thanks to Mark Adams of the department of history and sociology of science, Universityof Pennsylvania, for pointing out that Vernadskii's career spanned the same period as the developmentof biometrics, mathematical population genetics, and mathematical ecology, among whosepioneers were several important Russian scientists.

8. Inar I. Mochalov, “Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii (1863–1945),” manuscript, Moscow,p. 596. This most extensive and authoritative biography by a Soviet scholar was shared with me inMoscow in June 1981. My thanks to the author.

9. “Autobiography of V. I. Vernadskii,” manuscript in BC; V. I. Vernadskii to Fedor Rodichev,late 1925, BC, box 3012,3.2.4,, folders 97–98.

10. Interviews with former associates of Vernadskii who asked not to be cited, Moscow, Mayand June 1981.

11. For a discussion of his views in the 1920s and 1930s see Kendall E. Bailes, “Science, Philosophy,and Politics in Soviet History; The Case of Vladimir Vernadskii,” Russian Review (July1981): 278–99.

12. Deborin, Abram M., Izvestiia AN SSSR. Otdelenie matematicheskikh i estestvennykh nauk (Leningrad, 1933), p. 419.Google Scholar

13. Vernadskii to V. P. Volgin, June 1930, Arkhiv akademii nauk SSSR, Moscow, f. 518, op. 3,d. 1952, l. 9; Vernadskii to V M. Molotov, 17 February 1932, Arkhiv nauk SSSR, Moscow, f. 518, op. 3, d. 51, l. 2. This archive will henceforth be referred to as Arkhiv AN, MO;f will stand forfond (archival collection), op. for opts’ (list), d. for delo (file), and l. for list (page number).

14. For example, Vernadskii was elected a corresponding member of the French Academy ofSciences in 1928. He had been a member of the Czech and Yugoslav academies of science since 1926and was an active member of the German Chemical Society, the Geological Society of France, andthe mineralogical societies of the United States and Germany; see Stepan G. Korneev, Sovetskie uchenye—pochetnye chleny inostrannykh nauchnykh uchrezhdenii (Moscow, 1973). He also frequentlypresented papers at international congresses and published books and papers in a numberof foreign languages, including French, German, English, Czech, and Japanese; see Otchet o deiatel'nosti AN SSSR za 1929 g. (Leningrad, 1930), pp. 4–5.

15. Alexander Vucinich devotes an excellent chapter on Vernadskii's theoretical contributionsto science in his forthcoming book on Soviet science.

16. Otchet o deiatel'nosti AN SSSR za 1930 g. (Leningrad, 1931), p. 6; Mikhail I. Sumgin, “Sovremennoe polozhenie issledovanii vechnoi merzloty v SSSR i zhelatel'naia postanovka etikhissledovanii v blizhaishem budushchem,” in Vechnaia merzlota (Moscow, 1930); Balandin, Vernadskii, pp. 147–50.

17. Pis'ma V. G. Khlopina k V. I. Vernadskomu (Moscow, 1961), pp. 1–14.

18. Gordeev, Demian I., “Stanovlenie radiogeologii,” Ocherkipo istorii sovetskoi nauki i kul'tury (Moscow, 1968).Google Scholar

19. V. I. Vernadskii, “O kontsentratsii radiia rastitel'nymi organizmami,” Doklady Akademii nauk, seriia A (Leningrad, 1930); Arkhiv AN MO,f. 518, op. 1, d. 137.

20. See Holloway, David, “Entering the Nuclear Arms Race: The Soviet Decision to Build theAtomic Bomb, 1939–1945,” in Social Studies of Science 11 (1981): 159–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. Otchet o deiatel'nosti AN SSSR za 1934 (Moscow, 1935), p. 112; Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518,op. 4, d. 51, ll. 8; op. 2, d. 48, l. 108; Otchet o deiatel'nosti AN SSSR za 1935 (Moscow, 1936),p. 168.

22. “Materialy po deiatel'nosti v BIOGEL, 1935–1938,” Arkhiv AN, MO,f 518, op. 4, d. 51, ll. 33–38; d. 54. See also the article by Dmitrii P. Maliuga in Pravda, 13 June 1941, concerning thework of the BIOGEL laboratory.

23. Konstantin P. Florenskii, “100-letie so dnia rozhdeniia akademika V. I. Vernadskogo,” Geokhimiia, no. 3 (1963): 90; Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 4, d. 55, ll. 33–34; op. 4, d. 80, l. 116;Aleksandr P. Vinogradov, “Geokhimiia i biogeokhimiia,” in Uspekhi khimii 5 (1938); also Vinogradov's “Biogeokhiraischeskie provintsii i endemii,” Doklady AN 18, no. 4–5 (1938); and idem, “Geokhimicheskiissledovaniia v raione rasprostraneniia urovskoi endemii,” Doklady AN23, no. 1 (1939).

24. Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 2, d. 49, l. 39.

25. V I. Vernadskii, “O neobkhodimosti vydeleniia i sokhraneniia chistykh tiazhelykh izotopovprirodynkh radioaktivnykh protsessov,” Priroda, no. 1 (1941): 64.

26. Trudy BIOGELa 4 (1937).

27. Otchet AN za 1929, pp. 98–99; Mochalov, “Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii,” p. 516; anonymous, “Memoirs of a BIOGEL Worker,” manuscript in private collection of a Moscow scientist,shown to me in Moscow, June 1981; Pravda, 13 June 1941.

28. Mochalov, “Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii,” p. 573; Inar I. Mochalov, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii (1863–1945) (Moscow, 1982), pp. 329–38.

29. New York Times, 5 May 1940; Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 2, d. 49, l. 1.

30. Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 2, d. 49, l. 1.

31. Izvestiia, 26 June 1940; Pravda, 16 July 1940.

32. Vernadskii to Shmidt, 1 July 1940, Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 3, d. 1,817, l. 11.

33. Vernadskii to Grevs, 2 July 1940, Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 3, d. 562, l. 1.

34. Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 4, d. 68, ll. 36–38.

35. Ibid., op. 4,d. 68,11. 13–14.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid., op. 2,d. 49, l. 3.

38. Ibid., op. 4, d. 68, l. 3; op. 2, d. 49, l. 4; op. 4, d. 68, ll. 6–7.

39. Vernadskii to B. L. Lichkov, 7 September 1940, Vernadskii Museum Collection, Instituteof Geochemistry, Moscow (hereafter called VMC).

40. Holloway, “Entering the Nuclear Arms Race,” p. 167.

41. Ibid., p. 170.

42. Ibid., p. 187.

43. Vernadskii to V. L. Komarov, 15 March 1942, Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 2, d. 55, l. 195;Vernadskii to A. P. Vinogradov, 25 November 1942, and December 1942, op. 2, d. 52, ll. 98, 354;Vinogradov to Vernadskii, 12 December 1942, d. 53, l. 214; Vernadskii to Komarov, 13 March 1943,op. 2, d. 55, l. 182; see also Astashenkov, Petr T., Kurchatov (Moscow, 1967), p. 130 Google Scholar, and Nikolai VBelov, ed., D. I. Shcherbakov, Zhizn’ i deiatelnost’ (Moscow, 1969), pp. 280–81.

44. Vernadskii to Fersman, 27 November 1942, VMC. Holloway, in a recent paper, has suggestedthat Ioffe was especially cautious about the prospects for atomic energy research because he hadsuffered a major embarrassment in the early 1930s when he had promised a new insulating materialthat would greatly improve electric power transmission and was then unable to deliver on his promise;see Holloway's untitled paper on the Ioffe Institute delivered at the Stanford Conference on SovietScience and Technology, July 1984.

45. Holloway paper, Stanford conference.

46. Holloway, “Entering the Nuclear Arms Race,” p. 175.

47. Igor’ N. Golovin, I. V. Kurchatov (Moscow, 1967), p. 481; Astashenkov, Petr T., Akademik I. V. Kurchatov (Moscow, 1971), p. 170 Google Scholar; see also Holloway, David, “Military Technology,” in The Technological Level of Soviet Industry, ed. Amann, Ronald (New Haven, 1977), pp. 451–55Google Scholar. In “Enteringthe Nuclear Arms Race,” Holloway relates the story that Stalin summoned Ioffe and Vernadskiito a meeting in the Kremlin in 1942 to discuss the possibility of an atomic bomb but it is apparentlyapocryphal, according to later information received from Soviet sources by Holloway. (For thisapocryphal incident, see pp. 174–75 of the Holloway article.) In the summer of 1984 Hollowaycommunicated to me that he has concluded that the Astashenkov book, in which the purportedmeeting with Stalin is related, is inaccurate on this point. I would agree, having found no evidencein the Vernadskii materials that he ever met personally with Stalin on any topic, either before orduring World War II. Vernadskii spent most of the war at a Kazakhstan spa that was maintained bythe Academy of Sciences for elderly and infirm members. Beyond that, the Soviet government maynot have fully trusted Vernadskii with defense information, given his family ties with the West andhis liberal, anti-Marxist background.

48. Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518,, op. 2, d. 55, l. 182.

49. Ibid.

50. Belov, ed., D. 1. Shcherbakov, pp. 280–81.

51. Vasilii S. Emel'ianov, “U istokov atomnoi promyshlennosti,” Voprosy istorii 5 (1975): 123—39 and idem, S chego nachinalos’ (Moscow, 1979).

52. See Lewis, Robert L., “Some Aspects of the Research and Development Effort of the SovietUnion,” Science Studies, no. 2 (1972): 153–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 1, d. 325, ll. 1–3; Vernadskii to Fersman, 24 September 1932,7 March 1933, 1 October 1936, 1 July 1943, VMC; anonymous, “Memoirs of a BIOGEL Worker “;Vernadskii to V. A. Obruchev, 1938, Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 4, d. 62, ll. 3–4; Vernadskii toKomarov, 3 August 1937, and to G. M. Krzhizhanovskii, 10 December 1937, Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 4, d. 51, l. 23, l. 21; op. 3, d. 863, l. 3.

54. Vernadskii to Fersman, 3 May 1941, VMC.

55. Ibid.

56. Vernadskii to Fersman, 7 March 1933, and 12 July 1937, VMC.

57. Vernadskii to Komarov and Vernadskii to N. G. Sadchikov [head of Glavlit, the censorshipbureau], 18 March 1942, Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 2, d. 52, l. 92.

58. Vernadskii to Fersman, 7 March 1933, and 12 July 1937, VMC.

59. Mochalov, “Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii,” pp. 528–29; Mochalov, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii, pp. 304–305. The essay was first published in Biulleteri moskovskogo obshchestva ispytatelei prirody, otdelenie geologii 21 (1946): 5–41. The essay has been republished recently in Vernadskii, V I., Izbrannye trudy po istorii nauki (Moscow, 1981), pp. 242–89.Google Scholar

60. Vernadskii to Lichkov, 16 September 1944, Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 3, d. 1,756, l. 30;Mochalov, “Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii,” p. 514.

61. Vernadskii to Lichkov, 16 September 1944, Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 3, d. 1,756,1. 30.

62. Copies of the complete correspondence between Lichkov and Vernadskii can be found inthe VMC.

63. See two manuscripts in BC: M. M. Samygin, “Partiinaia prosloika v AN SSSR,” andN. lefremov, “Conditions of Research in Soviet Geology,” and also Vernadskii to Lichkov, 7 July1940, VMC.

64. Perepiska V. I. Vernadskogo s B. L. Lichkovym, 1918–1939 (Moscow, 1979), and Perepiska V. I. Vernadskogo s B. L. Lichkovym, 1940–1944 (Moscow, 1980).

65. Anonymous, “Memoirs of a BIOGEL Worker,” pp. 5ff.; Lev Gumilevskii, Vernadskii (Moscow,1967), pp. 214–27. Another student of Vernadskii's ideas, the biologist Vladimir V. Stanchinskii,developed and began to quantify the concept of energy transfers between trophic levels in an ecosystema decade before the United States biologists G. Evelyn Hutchinson and Ray Lindemann did.Stanchinskii, however, came into conflict with the Michurinists and the followers of Lysenko in the1930s and was ousted from his laboratory. His work was disrupted and virtually forgotten until the1970s. See the excellent article by Douglas Weiner, “The Origins of Soviet Environmentalism,” inEnvironmental Review 6, no. 2 (1982): 42–62. Another biologist closely associated with Vernadskii's school in the 1930s, Georgii F. Gauze, also ran into trouble with the followers of Lysenko butmanaged to survive; see Weiner, “Origins of Soviet Environmentalism,” p. 52. Biologists associatedwith Vernadskii encountered more political problems in this period than geochemists or geologists,perhaps in part because the Lysenko followers had become entrenched in the biological sections ofSoviet scientific institutions but had little influence on the physical, chemical, or geological sections.On the efforts of Soviet chemists and physicists to resist Lysenkoism, see Mark B. Adams, “Biologyin the Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1953–1965: A Case Study in Soviet Science Policy,” in Soviet Science and Technology: Domestic and Foreign Perspectives, ed. John R. Thomas and Ursula M.Kruse-Vaucienne (Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1977), pp. 161–88.

66. Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 1, d. 325, 11. 1–3; see also Vernadskii to N. G. Bruevich, 9December 1943, Arkhiv AN, MO, op. 2, d. 60, ll. 168–69.

67. Vernadskii to Fersman, 1 July 1943, VMC.

68. Arkhiv AN, MO,f. 518, op. 1, d. 325, ll. 1–3.

69. Vernadskii to N. N. Luzin, 19 June 1943, quoted in Inar I. Mochalov, V. I. Vernadskii— chelovek i myslitel’ (Moscow, 1970), pp. 169–70.

70. Vernadskii to Komarov, 15 March 1943, Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 2, d. 55, l. 32.

71. See, for example, Arkhiv AN, MO, f. 518, op. 4. d. 62, l. 3; op. 4, d. 177, 11. 77–78;Vernadskii to V A. Obruchev, 1938, op. 4, d. 62, ll. 3–4.

72. Khimicheskoe stroenie biosfery zemli i ee okruzheniia (Moscow, 1965).

73. Razmyshleniia naturalista, Book 1. Prostranstvo i vremia v nezhivoi i zhivoi prirode (Moscow,1975); Razmyshleniia naturalista, Book 2. Nauchnaia mysl’ leak planetnoe iavlenie (Moscow,1977).