"TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA IS HARD TO COME BY"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 397, 31 January 1947, Page 18

"TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA IS HARD TO COME BY"

Scientist's Talks on ULS.S.R.

TA/HEN he was in Auckland recently,

Professor

Eric

Ashby

who

r" served for a term as scientific attaché at the Australian Legation

in. Moscow, recorded three talks for the NZBS on science and education

in the Soviet Union. The first of these scripts appears below.

couple of minutes clearing up prejudices: for the trouble about reports on Russia is that you feel you’ve got to take sides straight away, and to compare the Soviet régime with our own. If I were to talk to you about Chinese science you wouldn’t immediately bristle up and say: "To the devil with Chinese science-we do it better here." Nor would you say: "If only we introduced Chine&e methods here, how much better off we’d be." But with Russia it’s different. All the time there is the temptation to measure Russia with a British measuring rod, and we are apt to forget that the Russians don’t measure their accomplishments that way. So I’m going to ask you to co-operate with me by approaching this question of science in Russia objectively, not taking sides. If you merely want to know whether my visit has made me pro-Russian or antiRussian, switch off straight away. Ail that matters about a report on Russia is that it should be accurate; agd I believe that there is no hope that the Soviet Union and the British ‘Commonwealth will live amicably alongside each other unless the truth is told on both sides. \" the outset we must spend a The truth is hard to come by. It’s no joke to. learn the Russian language, and you can’t understand Russia unless you do. It’s not easy to get inside the Soviet Union, and the picture you have of it depends on how you get inside. Broadly speaking, there are two ways of visiting the Soviet Union. Either you go on 2 brief and hectic visit as a guest of the government, or you live for a lon> time there as a member of the diplomatic corps. These two ways of seeing the Soviet Union give you two very divergent impressions. I have seen it both ways; and I'll tell you to-night about my experience as a guest of the Russian government at the celebration of the 220th anniversary of the Academy oi Sciences. Immense Organisation The Academy of Sciences has no parallel in this country. It was founded 55 years before Captain Cook came to the South Seas. It controls research not only in science as we understand the word, but also in literature, law, history, philosophy, and economics. Its president has~the status and salary of a minister. Its budget exceeds £10,000,000 a year. It has dozens of institutes, laboratories, museums, libraries; commissions, and field stations. It has a scientific staff of over 4,000. It has a press and a bookshop, and it publishes 28 journals. The policy of this immense organisation is controlled by 139 academicians, the scientific élite of Soviet Russie. The honour of being elected to the Academy

generally comes late in life (the average age of academicians is nearly 65). To be an academ cian is much more than an honour. You get a salary of 5,000 roubles a month, over and above your salary as professor or director of an institute. More important, you have a special ration book, with much_ higher rations than ordinary people-higher even than a heavy worker in industry gets; and you can shop at a special store which stocks all sorts of coveted goods. And by 1947 it is planned to give every academician a flat, a country cottage, and a car. This is the body which celebrated its 220th birthday in June 1945. For two weeks the iron curtain was lifted. Over 1,000 delegates enjoyed the hospitality of the Soviet Government. The guests included 122 foreign scientists from 18 countries: and it was my peculiarity to be the only guest from the southern hemisphere. Russian Hospitality Most of the foreign guests were brought to Moscow by Soviet planes, which picked them up in their own countries. On June 14 they arrived: the Canadians over Siberia: the Americans from Teheran; the British over _Ham"burg; the French, Swedes, Hungarians, Poles, Chinese-all brought by air, still bewildered at the suddenness of their invitations. The celebrations opened in the great Bolshoi theatre. At the back of the stage sat the Council of the Academy. The audience included the President of Poland and the cream of the diplomatic corps. For three hours we heard messages of greeting to and from the Academy; and an address from the 77-year-old President, Komarov. In the evening the celebrations warmed up. All. the thousand guests were entertained at a monstrous dinner of some 20 courses: caviare, sturgeon, salmon, chickens, hams, crab, with vodka, wine, and champagne. We had a wonderful time. I told one Soviet scientist that I had never seen such a meal before in my: life. "No," he said. meaningly, "nor have I." There was no doubt about the sincerity of the scientists’ welcome and their delight at having foreign scientists with them. This sincerity and delight were sustained throughout the celebrations. Provided a Soviet citizen has his Government’s permission to meet a foreigner, he is charmingly frank and friendly. For two weeks after this party the laboratories of the Academy were open to us. I was shown the technique of ex- periments, the results of research, and unpublished data, as freely as though I were with my colleagues in Auckland or London. We were hurried in cars from one institute to another. As we arrived at a new institute interpreters. met us to take us round. The walls of every laboratory were covered with diagrams (continued on next. page) es

(continued from previous page) illustrating the work done there. Young students, who had never heard English spoken before, had been practising prepared speeches for weeks. I remember one which began: "Gentlemen, I. shall now tell you about the research of comrade So-and-So in the struggle against beetles." Every night there were opera, ballet, scientific meetings. Engagements overlapped and became hopelessly double-banked. And at the end of the week we tumbled exhausted into three special trains for Leningrad. Flowers and Books Leningrad met us at the railway ¢tation with flowers. Every moment of our time was organised. On the night when we had dinner at the Uritsky palace, a Soviet schoolboy waited outside till 2.0 a.m. in the hope of speaking English to a real foreigner. It was I he caught; and we sat on the banks of the Neva in the midnight sun, doing an English lesson together at two in the morning. I got an idea in Leningrad of whet it was like to have been through the siege. The wife of one botanist told me how her husband had continued work till he died of starvation. "We kept going, with the children," she said, "till there were no more cats to eat. Then my husband was too weak. He had to stay in bed. Soon after he died. It was winter time. For a week his body was in the room; we hadn’t enough strength to take him away. Then a soldier helped us to bury him." We saw a great deal in Leningrad and after four days there we staggered back to the train for Moscow. I say, staggered. (continued on next page)

SCIENTIST IN RUSSIA

(continued from previous page) You must not misunderstand me. The vodka had worn off. It wasn’t that. It was books, given to us by the Leningrad scientists. I, for instance, had about 30 large volumes and some hundred pamphlets; but-no string. Fortunately scores of people came to see us off, and carried our parcels for us. We returned to Moscow to find the climax awaiting us: a banquet in the Kremlin for the academicians and thet foreign guests. Stalin and his colleagues in the politburo were our hosts. It was traditional Russian hospitality; stupendous; lavish; dignified. There were long speeches in which the Government thanked the Academy for its contribution to ‘victory, and the Academy thanked the Government for its generosity to science. Early next morning Soviet planes swept away the foreign visitors to their own countries. The academicians retired to their rest-home for a long, holiday. And the iron curtain descended again. Science is Lavishly Endowed Well, I’ve given you a glimpse of Soviet science as the official guest sees it; but I haven’t told you about the quality of scientific work in Russia. Science is endowed very generously ir the Soviet Union. The government

attaches immense importance to the application of science to national needs. There are tempting rewards for the man who introduces a new variety of wheat, or a new chemical method in industry; so tempting that some scientists make exaggerated claims about their own work and aim at flashy results; and these, too often, are the results we hear about. But the genuine quality of scientific work as a whole in Russia can be summed up quite simply. There is in the Soviet Union the same percentage of first-class men as in any other country. These men have every encouragement and facility . to work, and their work is important, as it would be wherever they lived. But in Russia science is so lavishly endowed--there are so many jobs to be filled-that these first-class scientists have to be diluted with men who are not first-class by any means. This, of course, reduces the average: quality 6f scientific work to a mediocre level. It is one of the embarrassments which face the planners of science in Russia, that their enthusiasm sometimes outruns the human material available. The Russians recognise this well enough. They are working hard to cure it. There is only one cure-more and better education in science. When I tell you that only six academicians were born in the present. century, you will realise that Soviet science has: been run largely on intellectual capital from the Czarist regime. The present educational programme aims to change that.