Abstract
As we have seen, the new regime inherited few R&D organisations geared to the servicing of industry. The initial network of about a dozen industrial research organisations comprised the small number of bodies which existed before the revolution, such as the central laboratory of the War Department and the experimental factory of the War Chemical Committee, two previously private institutes which were nationalised and establishments organised on the basis of work previously done on a more informal footing in higher educational establishments and elsewhere by scientists such as Zhukovskii the aeronautical specialist. These institutes were to come under the control of VSNKh, the commissariat which had been set up after the revolution to run industry.1 It was on the basis of such institutes that the Soviet industrial R&D effort was to grow. While in the West industrial R&D was mainly done in laboratories or departments attached to factories, in the Soviet Union such facilities were to play a minor role and R&D was to be concentrated in independent organisations.
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Notes
See, for example, the speech by Kuibyshev to the First All-Union Conference for the Planning of Scientific Research in 1931, V. V. Kuibyshev, Nauke-Sotsialisticheskii Plan (Moscow-Leningrad, 1931) p. 14.
For these and subsequent data on the numbers of industrial research establishments, see A. Ziskind, ‘Naucho-Issledovatel’skie Kadry v Promyshlennosti’, FNIT no. 7–8 (1932) p. 105, Sotsialisticheskoe Stroitel’stvo SSSR (Moscow, 1934) p. 420, Kul’turnoe Stroitel’stvo SSSR (Moscow, 1940) p. 238.
L. Reinberg, ‘Pokonchit’ s Otstavaniem Nauchno-Issledovatel’skikh Institutov Promyshlennosti’, FNIT, no. 10 (1936) pp. 100–6.
N. Mezenin, Metallurg Grum-Grzhimailo (Moscow, 1977) pp. 95–8; TPG 27 November 1926.
S. S. Khromov, F. E. Dzerzhinskii vo Glave Metallopromyshlennosti (Moscow, 1966) p. 232; Gipro - an acronym for State Institute for Projecting - was to be widely used in the title of such organisations.
V. S. Lel’chuk, Sozdanie Khimicheskoi Promyshlennosti SSSR. Iz Istorii Sotsialisticheskoi Industrializatsii (Moscow, 1964) p. 86; it was later to be renamed Giprokhim.
Alcan Hirsch, Industrialised Russia (New York, 1934) pp. 30–1.
S. Mosin, Industriya 21 November 1938.
Zh. S. Beilin, Nauchno-Issledovatel’skaya Rabota v Vtuzakh Mashinostroeniya’, Sovetskaya Nauka, no. 6 (1939) p. 123.
For the example of the higher educational establishments of the chemical industry see S. Ya. Plotkin, ‘Vysshee Khimiko-Tekhnologicheskoe Obrazovanie v SSSR’, Sovetskaya Nauka, no. 3–4 (1940) p. 154.
See, for example, E. A. Chudakov, ‘Problemy Nauchno-Issledovatel’skoi Raboty v Oblasti Mashinostroeniya’, Sovetskaya Nauka, no. 4 (1939) p. 70.
S. Kostyuchenko, I. Khrenov and Yu. Fedorov, Istoriya Kirovskogo Zavoda 1917–1945 (Moscow, 1966) pp. 424–9, 545–7, 556–60.
Julian M. Cooper, The Development of the Soviet Machine Tool Industry (unpublished PhD thesis: University of Birmingham, 1975) p. 308.
Chudakov, Sovetskaya Nauka, no. 4 (1939) p. 71.
See A. N. Krylov, Moi Vospominaniya (Moscow, 1945) pp. 347–52.
For an account of the relations between the Academy and the government in these years see Loren R. Graham, The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party 1927–1932 (Princeton, 1967).
N. M. Mitryakova, ‘Struktura, Nauchnye Uchrezhdeniya i Kadry AN SSSR’, in Organizatsiya Nauchnoi Deyatel’nosti (Moscow, 1968) p. 214.
G. A. Knyazev and A. V. Kol’tsov, Kratkii Ocherk Istorii Akademii Nauk SSSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1964) p. 100.
I. P. Bardin (ed.), Ocherki po Istorii Akademii Nauk. Tekhnicheskie Nauki (Moscow-Leningrad, 1945) p. 15.
E. H. Carr and R. W. Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy 1926–1929, Vol. I (London, 1969) pp. 431–52.
See, for example, A. Ziskind, ‘Organizatsiya Nauchno-Issledovatel’skoi Raboty v Promyshlennosti’, FNIT, no. 6 (1931) p. 51.
‘ENIMS’ i Ordena Lenina Zavoda ‘Stankokonstruktsiya’. 25 let (Moscow, 1958), A. A. Armand (ed.), Nauchno-Issledovatel’skie Instituty Tyazeloi Promyshlennosti (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935) pp. 591–8.
Crowther, Soviet Science p. 219, V. G. Prelkov, ‘Voprosy Elektrifikatsii Promyshlennosti i Transporta: iz Rabot Vsesoyuznogo Elektrotekhnicheskogo Instituta 1932g.’, SRIN, no. 4 (1933) pp. 150–61.
John Erickson, The Soviet High Command (London, 1962) pp. 252–79, 331–49.
Lel’chuk, Sozdanie Khimicheskoi Promyshlennosti… pp. 115–16; however, the author of a recent western study would undoubtedly strongly dispute this statement – Anthony C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1917 to 1930 (Stanford, 1968) pp. 209–24
Anthony C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1930–1945 (Stanford, 1971) pp. 97–114.
D. A. Gerasimov, ‘Nauka i Ee Primenenie v Torfyanoi Promyshlennosti’, SRIN, no. 2 (1934) p. 79.
See P. M. Luk’yanov, Kratkaya Istoriya Khimicheskoi Promyshlennosti SSSR: of Voznikoveniya Khimicheskoi Promyshlennosti v Rossii do Nashikh Dnei (Moscow, 1959) pp. 326–9.
J. G. Crowther, Science in Soviet Russia (London, 1931) p. 61; for another example, see Armand (ed.), Nauchno-Issledovatel’skielnstituty …, pp. 577–82.
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© 1979 Robert Lewis
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Lewis, R. (1979). The Industrial Research Effort. In: Science and Industrialisation in the USSR. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03786-5_3
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