The survival of physics pointed to a profound cultural contradiction in Stalinism, between the effort to make the Soviet Union a powerful state vis-à-vis the rest of the world and the urge to exercise complete control over the life of society at home. The Soviet nuclear project shows not that science and totalitarianism are compatible, but that totalitarian regimes have to allow some zones of intellectual autonomy in the society if they are to reap the benefits of science.
