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What is notable in Soviet science is despite the massive commitment to science is the lack of real accomplishments. This can be observed in many areas. One way of measuring scientific accomplishments are Nobel prize awards. Annotavly, oher than in physics, Soviet scientists won almost no Nobel prizes. Given the huge commitment of the Soviet state to science, how could there be such limited accomplishments? One factor surely was that most Soviet science was done in secret for weapons development. Unlike weapons reserch in the West there seems to have been very limited spin off into the Soviet consumer economy. Thus there was no innovative development in the Soviet Union in the field of electonics and computers that led to such important consumer industries. Nor were there important developments in the field of medicine. The Soviets failed to make important contributions in pharmecuticals and vcaccines that have so improved human life in the 20th century. But even in areas that the Soviet state asigned high priorities, Soviet science filed. The Soviet space program failed to beat the Americans in the race to the moon. This was not as important as other failures of Soviet science, but it was a highly vissible one. More important than the moon race was the economic and commercial developmets that flowed from the American space race. Virtually nothing flowed from the Soviet space program into the Soviet economy. Also the Soviet weapons industry failed to produce weapons that could compete with comparable American weapons. While thankfully there was no direct military confrontation between America and the Soviet Union, Soviet and American weapons were used in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle West. And in those conflicts, the Western weapons systems (especially aircraft) generally proved superior to Soviet types.
What is notable in Soviet science is despite the massive commitment to science is the lack of real accomplishments. This can be observed in many areas. One way of measuring scientific accomplishments are Nobel prize awards. Annotavly, oher than in physics, Soviet scientists won almost no Nobel prizes.
The Soviet scientific record varied. There were some impressive achievements in physics, but the achievements in other areas were very limited.
There do not seem to have been important Soviet achievements in the field of medicine. Major achievements in medicine were made after the creation of the Soviet Union. Penecillan was developed as well as vaccines against many deady diseases. Most were developed by Western, especially American pharmecutical companies. Polio was ended by American research efforts. Important surgical procedures were developed involving the heart and organ replacement. The Soviet Union played virtually no role in any of this ground-breaking research that so improved human life in the 20th century.
Electronics was another weak point in Soviet science.
And this clearly showed in Soviet electronic products. A radio enthisiast tells us, "Soviet radios, televisions and other electonics in the 1970s was still based on electrical circuity of the 1950s. The Inside of a Russian shortwave radio was based on old technology. They actually were well built. I recall that a British consumer magazine, Which rated it as a best buy for price, reliability and the choice of stations. There were also excellent tape recorders. They were soon, however, out classed by the products from the Far East. I recall
visiting a Polish electronic company in 1992. It had a vast works complex but had scaled back its production to a small area of available floor space because it just cold not compete. There is the classic account of the state operated record industry (Saxophone). The company made major investments in a new LP record factory. This was done just at the time when CD were being introduced.
A reader suggests that Western actions to prevent the export of electronics technology to the Soviets was a factor in the weakness of Soviet electronics. We are not sure we would agree with this. The West is not very good about keeping secrets. The Soviets could buy products one way or another, subscribe to scientific journals, and had active espionage programs. (There are many examples of this. The penetration of the Manhattan Project is well known. There are many other examples. For example the metal alloys for the Mig-15 jet engines deployed in Korea were obtained when a Soviet trade delegation visited a British jet engine plant. Gummy shoe soles picked up metal shavings on the floor. The Labor Government was chummy with the Soviets any trying to encourage trade exchanges.) We think the Soviet weakness wth electronics lies elsewhere, although this area is certainly outside of our area of specialization. I suspect that the fact that the large consumer demand for electronic equipment caused large numbers of individuals, universities, and corporations to focus on this area. And these many varied individuals were able to persue awide range of research lines including highly original and innovative lines.
The result was a wide range of advances that the Soviets could not match. The Soviets of course were not all that interested in the consumer. And electronics has connotations concerning both espionage and exchange of inforation--both areas the Soviets were paranoid about. (Remember this is a country that registered every typewriter in the country and stationed a babuska by every copy machine to oversee and discourage usage.) Thus it may well be it was the Soviets themselves that impeded their own electonics industry. This is only speculation at this time. We would like to see an academic study on this subject, but have yet to find one. We also suspect that Soviet reliance on espionage meant that they were never on the cutting edge, but always years behind Western researchers.
Coputers might be considered a foeld of electronics. You would have expected the Sovies to to have made advances in computersgiven the importabnce given to science and technology. Mathematics is an important element in computers. Soviet computer technology was far behind that of the West. This began to seriously compromise the overall Soviet science effort in the 1970s. It is not entirely clear to us why the Soviets were so backward in the area of computers. Unlike other devloed countries. There is virtually no importat computer company in modern Russia. A Russian reader has provided some valuable information.
Also the Soviet weapons industry failed to produce weapons that could compete with comparable American weapons. While thankfully there was no direct military confrontation between America and the Soviet Union, Soviet and American weapons were used in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle West. And in those conflicts, the Western weapons systems (especially aircraft) generally proved superior to Soviet types. This does not appear to have been a question of air frames. The Soviets produced excellent air frames. The primary difference appears to have been with the electronics systems developed for the planes.
The Soviet space program can not be accurately described as a failure. The Soviets accomplisghed a great deal. Ultimately the Soviet space program failed to beat the Americans in the race to the moon. This was not as important as other failures of Soviet science, but it was a highly visible one--especially because Soviet propaganda as triumphed space as an example of the superiority of Soviet science. More important than the moon race, however, was the economic and commercial developmets that flowed from the American space race. Virtually nothing flowed from the Soviet space program into the Soviet economy. This is in sharp contrast to the American space program which spawned whole new industries.
Given the huge commitment of the Soviet state to science, how could there be such limited accomplishments? One factor surely was that most Soviet science was done in secret for weapons development.
Unlike weapons reserch in the West there seems to have been very limited spin off into the Soviet consumer economy. Thus there was no innovative development in the Soviet Union in the field of electonics and computers that led to such important consumer industries. Given the massive expenditures in scientific research, it is astonishing that there were no industrial spinoffs. The result is that the country that was a leader in space with a huge number of scientists and engineers today has an export profile of a third world nation. Virtually all of Russia's export earmings comes from the sale f raw materials, mostly petroleum. Virtually the only manufactured goods Rissia exports today are military equipment.
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