The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science

by Vadim J. Birstein

During the Soviet years, Russian science was touted as one of the greatest successes of the regime. Russian science was considered to be equal, if not superior, to that of the wealthy western nations. The Perversion of Knowledge , a history of Soviet science that focuses on its control by the KGB and the Communist Party, reveals the dark side of this glittering achievement. Based on the author's firsthand experience as a Soviet scientist, and drawing on extensive Russian language sources not easily available to the Western reader, the book includes shocking new information on biomedical experimentation on humans as well as an examination of the pernicious effects of Trofim Lysenko's pseudo-biology. Also included are many poignant case histories of those who collaborated and those who managed to resist, focusing on the moral choices and consequences. The text is accompanied by the author's own translations of key archival materials, making this work an essential resource for all those with a serious interest in Russian history.

Genres: History, Science, Politics, History Of Science, Nonfiction

512 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2001

Reviews

[Bert Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating journey to the dark side of government-driven science. The book covers the start of the formalized Russian science program under Tsar Peter the Great and how the program evolved, always under strict state control, until it was indistinguishable from other KGB-influenced government institutes. The inhumane science experiments, poisonings, and torture headed by Grigory Mairanovsky and like-minded science collaborators are described in some detail along with how their activities were sanctioned by the state in the defense of communism. The suppressed resistance movement is also described. Lastly, the book is replete with over 150 pages of notes, biographical sketches, translated documents, and selected readings.
The author, a famed molecular geneticist from the Soviet science program, draws broad parallels between the Nazi and Soviet science and medical programs that were heavily controlled by the respective governments. One got caught and the other one did not.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable book on two counts.

First, for anyone interested in an overview of Soviet science in the 20th century and how it was perverted by a completely top-down approach which placed political value altogether over actual science.

Second, for anyone not familiar with the Soviet police state and its cheerful torture and execution of millions of its own people at the whim of Stalin and his legion of savage henchmen, the Cheka, GPU, NKVD, GRU, MVD, FSB and other state organs. This book concentrates on a small arena, the fates of scientists, but the same cruelty applied to every area of the Soviet Union.

(The composer Dmitri Shostakovich slept on a cot outside his entrance door so that when the secret police came for him in the night they would not disturb his family. Stalin disliked some of his music. He was too famous to kill, so they killed his best friend.)

Of course, Soviet science suffered accordingly, although a few good scientists were somewhat left alone since they were too famous to kill. Most Soviet big science was stolen from the west and copied, except for chemical and biological weaponry, tested on political prisoners and used in assassinations there and around the world.

Thus it is little wonder that the GDP of the entire Soviet Union upon its collapse in 1991 was about that of Denmark. Much of that came from underground as oil and natural gas.