Read Online Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953 Book PDF

Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953

Written By: Simon Ings
Read Online Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953 Book PDF.Scientists throughout history, from Galileo to today’s experts on climate change, have often had to contend with politics in their pursuit of knowledge. But in the Soviet Union, where the ruling elites embraced, patronized, and even fetishized science like never before, scientists lived their lives on a knife edge. The Soviet Union had the best-funded scientificScientists throughout history, from Galileo to today’s experts on climate change, have often had to contend with politics in their pursuit of knowledge. But in the Soviet Union, where the ruling elites embraced, patronized, and even fetishized science like never before, scientists lived their lives on a knife edge. The Soviet Union had the best-funded scientific establishment in history. Scientists were elevated as popular heroes and lavished with awards and privileges. But if their ideas or their field of study lost favor with the elites, they could be exiled, imprisoned, or murdered. And yet they persisted, making major contributions to 20th century science. tells the story of the many gifted scientists who worked in Russia from the years leading up to the Revolution through the death of the “Great Scientist” himself, Joseph Stalin. It weaves together the stories of scientists, politicians, and ideologues into an intimate and sometimes horrifying portrait of a state determined to remake the world. They often wreaked great harm. Stalin was himself an amateur botanist, and by falling under the sway of dangerous charlatans like Trofim Lysenko (who denied the existence of genes), and by relying on antiquated ideas of biology, he not only destroyed the lives of hundreds of brilliant scientists, he caused the death of millions through famine.But from atomic physics to management theory, and from radiation biology to neuroscience and psychology, these Soviet experts also made breakthroughs that forever changed agriculture, education, and medicine. A masterful book that deepens our understanding of Russian history, is a great achievement of research and storytelling, and a gripping look at what happens when science falls prey to politics.

What They Said About This Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953 Book (Reviews):

Bettie☯

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Review under spoiler until nearer publication date, however I can give this a 5* and tell you that the paper book is a must for my home library.

Gill

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'Stalin and the Scientists' by Simon Ings4 stars/ 8 out of 10I have previously read a lot about Trofim Lysenko, and had many discussions about him; so I was interested to read this book in order to find out more about him and his contemporaries, and the environment in which they lived and worked.Simon Ings has written a detailed and clearly expressed book, about scientists in Russia during the period from 1905 to 1953. In addition to the bibliography, each chapter has informative endnotes.There is a prologue covering the period 1856 to 1905, which provides an explanatory background for the rest of the book. Part 1 covers 1905 to 1929. As I read this, I realised that there were several Russian scientists from this period whom I already knew something about: Luria, Pavlov and Vygotsky. This helped provide me with a context for the many unknown scientists that were introduced to me in this part. There were so many issues raised in this section that interested me eg: the shocking severity of the famines in Russia throughout the period, the work by Muller on genes, some of the details relating to eugenics and sterilisation in many countries. Other things I found fascinating included Kammerer and his toads, and Lenin's brain.Part 2 covers 1929 to 1941. It starts with the background to the rise to power of Stalin. The most interesting sections here for me related to Luther Burbank (the American plantsman), Gorky, Stakhanov, and the Great Purge. Lysenko appears as an overarching theme in both this Part, and in Part 3 of the book, which covers 1941 to 1953. Part 3 was interesting regarding the change in the role of specialists during this period. I learnt here of Timofeev-Ressovsky, whom I had never known about previously, and also gained much more knowledge about the gulag camps, and about the development of the Russian nuclear programme.Simon Ings has a clear and enjoyable writing style, suitable for a non-specialist audience. The book contains a lot of political history, which is necessary in order to put the developments in the scientific fields into context. I feel that I have learnt a lot from this book, and I recommend it to anybody who is interested in this period in Russian history, or is interested in science in general.Thank you to Faber and Faber Ltd and to NetGalley for an ARC.

Graham McGhie

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A Fascinating and Informative Study of Russian Science under Stalin This is an illuminating, highly readable and informative study by Simon Ings of Russia under the dictatorship of Stalin with particular regard to Science. The author places developments under Stalin in context with Pre Revolutionary Russia (the Tsars), Russia under the leadership of Lenin (post October 1917) and progress immediately after the death of Stalin. The book is packed with facts, information, revelations, personal vendettas, stories of self sacrifice, heroism and a lot of Russian Surnames which may appear daunting at first but by repetition you grasp them. The book makes for fascinating reading only a few of which I mention below.The era immediately following the Revolution was to see continued International cooperation in most Scientific fields with free exchanges of information between East and West. It was only the advent of Stalin which was to halt such exchanges. I was amazed to learn how easy it was to travel into and out of Russia following the Revolution. But that freedom was to cease during the Stalin era. The period following the Revolution was a momentous one for Scientific discoveries on the international stage: mainly for the good but occasionally not so good. Advances made in agriculture promised to alleviate, if not prevent, large scale famine. Unfortunately Russia failed to benefit from many of these advances due to ideology and millions died as a consequence. It is sad to think that millions of Russians died needlessly for the sake of political ideology. Science as defined by Marxist ideology did not confine itself to the laboratory but also included philosophy and by extension nearly all matters of learning, education, study and research. Marxism itself implies scientific government and for this reason deviation from that which was defined as truly "scientific" caused so many problems as it affected so many areas of life. The definition of what was truly "Marxist" varied over time: when massive problems faced the country, a pragmatic view was pursued, whilst in better times it depended often on who held sway with Stalin and latterly, in his final years, which side of the bed he got out of on the morning. The book describes how scientists could be hailed as heroes one month only to find themselves at odds with the state the next. Add to that the realities of the times (civil war, famine and invasion) and scientists faced problems if their research and results deviated from Marxist ideology. There is one particularly "bad" scientist in the book, Lysenko, who made all kinds of whimsical claims, was a laughing stock internationally and, although most Russian scientists held the same view, they risked arrest and execution if they openly criticised him. Lysenko seemed to have a natural talent for coming out on top. In part it seems that his background which was of lower peasant stock rather than the suspect bourgeois intelligentsia may have assisted his cause. Lysenko, who oversaw repeated scientific failures relating to agriculture, remained in favour with the Marxist governing elite even under Khrushchev. Indeed it was Khrushchev's downfall that lead to Lysenko eventually falling out of favour. (That and cows which produced a fraction of the milk he claimed). But by that time decades had been wasted by central government directing an agrarian economy on the basis of incorrect, biased data deemed by Stalin to be sound advice. Thus real progress eluded Russian agriculture and prevented her providing sufficient food for her own population. Of course it was more than just Lysenko to blame but rather an entire litany of errors defying common sense. And the failure rests squarely at the feet of the very Revolutionaries who promised so much in 1917 yet squandered opportunities to better the lot of the ordinary Russian citizen. Stalin's interpretation of Marx meant that humankind could organise nature to suit the needs of humans. Massive projects were undertaken in forestry, reservoir and dam construction all to divert natural resources for the supposed benefit of the population. New cities were created to support this infrastructure. But in the end such projects were doomed largely to failure. Ings does not dwell long on the suffering of World War 2. I felt this probably appropriate given that more Russians died at Stalin's hands than as a consequence of the war. However the scientists which the Soviet Union captured towards the end of the war were to prove invaluable especially in developing their Nuclear capability. The conclusion of the war also made vast areas of quality arable land particularly in the Ukraine accessible to the Soviet Union. Despite the destruction the motherland suffered she emerged probably the stronger in many ways for it. Stalin's long period as Dictator did see some positive progress. Nuclear advancement I have already mentioned but there were also advances in the extraction of natural resources, neurology, education and medicine to mention but a few. Russian technology was responsible for the first man in space. Indeed they might have beaten the Americans to a moon landing had bureaucracy and rivalry between Soviet Political Departments not got in the way. At the end of the day Stalin continues to be judged by the loss of life he inflicted on the peasants of the countryside who formed the largest part of the population. The Marxists were a party of the proletariat and always seem to have viewed the rural population with a degree of cynicism. I found the chapter on Neurology a bit difficult to follow. Too many names! But otherwise I was taken by the narrative style of Simon Ings's book which made a difficult topic as easy to read and to understand as any book I've read on the period. My review is intended only to give a taste for the book which covers many areas I have not mentioned (music, drama, films and art for instance). I would recommend this work to readers interested in Russian history. Simon Ings's book presents the epoch of the Stalin dictatorship from a different but important perspective. (My review was based on an eBook file provided to me free of charge by the publisher via NetGalley. My review is totally independent.)

Carol Kean

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“Russia’s political elites embraced science, patronized it, fetishized it and even tried to impersonate it,” Simon Ings writes in “Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905-1953.” Ings takes a light tone with the dark history of a nation so big, it has “more surface area than the visible moon”(eep! I still haven’t web-surfed that one, but I trust it must be so). All that land, yet most of it cannot sustain its population. A full third of this empire is in the permanent grip of ice and snow. Where the soil is fertile, the climate is cold. In warmer regions, the soil is poor. There’s a narrow belt of fertile black earth with enough rainfall to grow crops.In Russia there were no institutions for reformers to reform; no councils, no unions, no guilds, few roads, schools or hospitals. “For the masses, modernization consisted of containment, regimentation, curfew and exemplary punishment.” What a country!“Quite simply, whenever capitalism tried to penetrate Russia’s heartland, it caught a cold and died,” Ings quips.So many fascinating facts and insights in this history of Russian scientists, particularly under Stalin! I want to comment on every chapter, but I also want to read dozens more books, and it's ever a balancing act, deciding how much to rave about one book before moving on to the next one. "The Patriots" by Sana Krasikov is the next Russian-themed novel on my list. I loved "The Bear and the Nightingale" by Katherine Arden, which reads like a fairy tale. This book is straight non-fiction, but Simon Ings brings it to life with a conversational tone, as if telling us these stories over a pitcher of beer (er, vodka!). He makes the Russian people *real* in a way that history books seldom do.Below, some of my favorite excerpts:-- Alexander Romanovich Luria, in a career full of astonishing achievements, accomplished the extraordinary feat of leading a normal life. He betrayed no one, nor was he betrayed. He led a happy family life.-- Austrian scientist Enrst “Speed of Sound” Mach argued that science makes no pronouncements about ultimate reality. One body of knowledge can lead scientists to several, equally valid conclusions. Lenin hated Mach’s “empirionmonism."-- “The Bolsheviks’ philosophy preached optimism as a virtue, even a moral duty.” -- “The communist ideal did not fail; it was never really tried.” The shadow of the Prussian solution over all. Western commentators bemoaned Russia’s failure to adopt capitalism: without a free market, how would Russia ever emerge from a dark age?-- A Russian poet in 1906 returned from Stockholm to St Peterbsurg, and you must read the book to see why this caught my eye. It's sad. That's all I want to say about that.-- Stalin’s forced collectivization of agriculture took tsarist megalomania to new depths.-- Stalin believed science should serve the state. Pure research was counterproductive. Politicians, philosophers, and scientists intruded onto each other’s turf.Ings summarizes the most life changing work of scientists before Stalin’s time: Edwin Hubble measuring the distance to the nearer spiral galaxies, for example, and Marconi’s longwave radio signals. With the transformative and traumatic 20th Century, impatient believers turned on the scientific community and demanded that the future happen right away. Gone was the mutual understanding that characterized 19th Century Europe’s religion, science and politics. Stalin “invested recklessly in Russian science even while having individual scientists sacked, imprisoned, murdered”– many vanished without a trace. Psychoanalysis was made illegal.If this review makes me look lazy, allow me to share the Outline:Part One: Control (1905-1929) )Scholars, revolutionaries, entrepreneurs, workersPart Two: Power (1929-1941Eccentrics, office politics, Part Three: Dominion (1941-1953)LysenkoI read the book, and others should, too. I just can't justify taking time to write the review it deserves.NOTE: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest feedback.

Emma

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It is unsurprising to read that Stalin demanded science and scientists to first and foremost serve the Soviet state, their work at all times to reflect the politics of the ruling party, and that this didn't exactly work out how he imagined, especially as he took party will=Stalin's will. Yet what Ings presents here is a well researched and complex picture of the relationship between the leader and scientists/ intellectuals within Russia that had its failures, but some successes too. That I wasn't expecting. Ings may criticise the irrationality and devastating failure, but he doesn't do it from a position of superiority, but as another flawed human. As such, we see the parallels he makes with contemporary political and scientific decision making, lambasting recent failure to take into account the food and other resources we need to meet demands, waiting for scientists to pull us out of the fire with some last minute save.As with Hitler, it is clear that Stalin saw the significance of scientific endeavour to the internal and external power of the state, but he too believed that its direction should be moulded by his will. Science was thus subverted by party politics, or Stalin's personal desires, and only those following the party line got to play. Conversely, those who could reel out the right slogans got a seat at the table, regardless of the viability of their 'science'. His favourite scientist, Lysenko, seemed to see will as the single most important factor in scientific endeavour, the ultimate version of the 'if you want it enough, it'll happen' philosophy. The idea was conceived as a positive one [loc 7185]. Yet as some of the evidence makes clear, will alone did not solve Russia's issues with famine or child mortality. Throughout the book, the repeated threat to human life in Russia is staggering. Meanwhile, Stalin becomes obsessed with growing lemons. It's both tragic and bizarre.Such could be said of the whole book. I think the only reason it works so well is due to Ings ability to be entertaining. It makes the reading experience a somewhat strange one, but never boring.Thanks to Simon Ings, Faber & Faber, and Netgalley for the chance to read this review copy. All opinions are my own.