IDEOLOGICAL PRESSURE ON SCIENCE IN THE SOVIET UNION AT THE END OF THE FORTIES AND THE BEGINNING OF THE FIFTIES
Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Pechenkin
M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: ideology, scientific theory, positivism, quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, totalitarian state
Abstract
The paper discusses the facts of the ideological campaign which took place in the USSR to suppress any free thinking in physics and in chemistry and establish a Leninist-Stalinist totalitarian world view. Philosophers, physicists and chemists participated in the campaign. By following A. Sonin’s books we indicate two ideological dominants of the campaigns: the struggle with “idealism in physics” and with cosmopolitanism. We emphasize that in contrast to Lysenkovism in biology, the ideological campaigns did not lead to considerable destruction of scientific research in physics and in chemistry. Nevertheless, they were harmful from a moral point of view; they carried conformism and limited the horizon of research. The philosophers Maximov and Deborin, the physicist Blokhintsev, the chemists Chelintsev, Shakhparonov and Tatevskii participated in the campaign, trying to establish their understanding of theoretical knowledge and their scientific priorities. At the end of the paper the metaphysical problem “knowledge and power” is outlined.,
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