SENIOR RESEARCH STAFF ON INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01445R000100350001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 17, 1961
• Content Type: REPORT

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Senior Research. Staff on -International Communism
The attached outline summarizes a speech given
before the Scientific Research Group of the Office .of Civil
Defense Mobilization, Battle Creek, Michigan, on 2 March
1961. It was followed by several hours of discussion, ampli-
fyir-zg and developing the points made in the speech.
25X1A9a
The views expressed are those of They
have benefited from "inputs" and "feedback" from members
of the Life Sciences Division, DDI/OSI.
17 April 1961
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Senior Research Staff on International Communism
SOVIET SCIENTIFIC POLICY
25X1A9a
Outline of Speech Delivered by before the
Scientific Research Group,
Office of Civil Defense Mobilization, Battle Creek, Mich.
2 March 1961
There is no Soviet "scientific policy" as such (nor, for
that matter, economic, military, or other separate "policy. ")
The only real policy of the CPSU is to bring about the "transi.,
tion to Communism."
1. What is the "transition to Communism? " The USSR
has long since completed the building of socialism and is em-
barked on the fullscale process of building a Communist form
of society. Among the other 11 members of the "world social-
ist system" there is an uneven progress toward the goal of
completed socialism. It appears that Czechoslovakia has
now "arrived" at this goal but there is a great disparity of
levels and background among the others. Khrushchev has
held that there will be a gradual elimination of this disparity
so that the final entry into Communism will be "almost simul-
taneous. B1 The question arises - how far behind is Communist
China at this point? Both the CP$U and the CPC are studious-
ly vague at this point so that one may infer a lag of as much as
20 or 30 years,but at the same time there is a prospect that
the gap may be closed or narrowed much more quickly. At
any rate, the CPSU has definitely committed itself to issue a
new program for the transition to Communism at the XXII
Party Congress to be held in October. If this promise is held
it will be the first new program for the Party since the 1920s,
and hence would be an event of great moment.
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II. Basic Factors in Building Communism
A. Ideology
Ideology is not mere abstract doctrine but is the "cre-
ative" interaction of theory and practice. In scientific terms
this is interpreted as the construction or simulation and the
testing of models, utilizing the feedback from the tests to
modify the model - operations research. Communists insist
that dialectical materialism is the necessary framework of
all true science and are currently making sharp attacks on
relics of idealism, positivism, empiricism, and other Free
World"aberations. It
B. The Material Base
In laying the foundations for Communism it is neces-
sary to have a vast development of the economy to a high level
of abundance in order to be able to provide "to each according
to his needs, " not "according to his wants. " This aspect of
the transition is reflected in considerable increase in the pro-
vision of consumer goods for the Soviet population, a trend
which, however, is held in check by the application of "com-
radely criticism" supported by disciplinary action, in cases
of over-concern with bourgeois types of material gratifica-
tion. The magnitude of the Soviet economic achievement is
increasingly appreciated in the Free World, though there may
still be a tendency to under-estimate its massive potential.
The compounding of reinvestment in heavy industry with great
technological progress, especially in the fields of automation,
holds out the prospect of as yet unguessed economic sputniks.
Important efforts are being made to rationalize economic plan-
ning of the Soviet Union through less ideologically slanted con-
sideration of "capitalist" factors such as cost accounting and
obsolescence, consumer choice and price. From visible
Soviet successes we appear to be learning slowly the lesson
that a planned economy is not necessarily less efficient than
one whose ideology has an anti-planning bias built into it.
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C. The Scientific Technical Base
1. The "permanent sputnik. "
The aim of Soviet scientific planners is to assure an
uninterrupted surge forward, punctuated by occasional major
breakthroughs. This is covered in the so-called perspective
plan of Soviet science. We have noted that there can be only
one science, that of building Communism, which rests on the
article of-faith that Marxism-Leninism is science.
2. The central, all-pervading role of the party.
This has grown steadily since the time of Lenin. A
major landmark emerged about 1936, at which time Stalin
launched the massive scientific technical education program
which has been carried down to the present. Another land-
mark was the accession to supreme power of Khrushchev
himself, especially 1956 and early 1957, at which time cer-
tain major breaks with Stalinist scientific policies began to
be noticeable. Today 40% of the Presidium members have
had a scientific or technical education or experience. The
next generation will be even stronger. Both Khrushchev's
daughter and son-in-law, are scientifically trained, and there
is ample evidence that Khrushchev himself, though not adept
in science, fully understands its significance and potential
for the regime.
3. Total Organization of Science.
Here the most striking feature is the parallelism of
State system of Ministries and the Academy of Science struc-
ture. How to improve this complex was the subject of a cinajor
debate launched by Khrushchev himself in 1959 which is still
going on.
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by:
a. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR which
has counterparts in the satellites and Communist
China, stands at the head of a hierarchy of Union
Academies and scores of dependent institutes.
b. Overall coordination problems are handled
(1) A system of councils, about 70 in number,
under the jurisdiction of the State Committee for
Coordination of Research, Council of Ministers.
Their task is to stimulate research on a wide
variety of programs, hence many of the councils
appear to be ad hoc in nature. Others are more
permanent, such as. the Councils for research on
the Soviet Northern regions, on atomic energy
matters, cybernetics, etc.
(2) . State committees, 5. or 6 in number, and
Oosplan.-which come under the jurisdiction of the
Council of Ministers, USSR. In addition to the
one mentioned above there are others which deal
with the application of research and have taken
over much of the guidance of specialized institutes,
, e6ign'bu a .u. ;addmilot.4lants. For example, the
State Committee for Automation and Engineering
chaired by Anatoliy Kostousov heads 57 research
institutes, 25 design offices, 7 design institutes,
and 26, experimental plants.
d Many of the industrial enterprises under de-
centralized control at the Sovnarkhoz level have de-
veloped institutes for the application of research to
production. There is currently some debate as to
the relationship of these activities to the central sys-
tem described above.
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D. The Resources Available for Soviet Science are
Tremendous.
1. There is a vast administrative apparatus support-
ing the main elements described above.
2. Very large funds are available. These are increas-
ing at the rate of about 15%o per annum. It is clear that money
is no object where priority fields are concerned,
3. Scientific cadres are growing at the rate of 10%
per annum. New centers are constantly being built or pro-
jected with special emphasis on Siberia. There is appar-
ently increasing bloc coordination of science typified in the
joint atomic energy research center at Dubna where satellite
and Chinese Communist scientists play an important role.
4. Supporting services include abstracting of foreign
and domestic scientific journals on a vast scale. The Refer-
ativnyy Zhurnal publishes over half a million abstracts per
year. In general Soviet scientific publication is more highly
organized than here; ftthas. recently averaged nearly a million
pages a year.
5. There is a new openness: to foreign scientific in-
fluence. One of the chief benefits. of the end of Stalinist ortho-
doxy was what amounts to the principle that "anything goes"
in science, so long as it does not violate basic ideology, and
even this provision seems to be somewhat more liberally
interpreted.
6. Freedom of scientists in their specific disciplines
is greatly increased.. They are still governed by a basic
taboo against involvement in politics as such, though as we
have seen more and more of the political functionaries have
scientific or technological background. This combination
of receptivity to foreign influence and general freedom of
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discussion in specialized and non-political fields has been
noticed by hundreds of free world scientists in. exchanges, dur-
ing recent years.
E. Priorities
It is important to note that ith?v.,',!Perspective plan,
does not consider separate scientific disciplines but rather
priorities. This. plan has been described as a."Chinese box
of problems. "
1. The center box as we have seen is. the building of
communism.
2. Surrounding this are 4 top general priorities:
(a), Release and control of atomic energy.
(b) The synthesis of new products - foods and
fabrics.
(c) Purposeful intervention in the organic cell
which "opens whole new areas. "
(d) , Science underlying automation and based on
the "modeling of the human brain.
3. The outer group consists of 30 more specific
priorities, which were listed in an important speech by the
Vice President of the Academy of Sciences, Topchiyev (1959).
These range in orderly sequence from the basic physical
biological and behavioral sciences to the area we would call
social science, i. e?. economics and sociology, and finally to
what we would call the humanities, including linguistics and
the arts. The specific tasks under these 30 priorities are
being worked out in infinite detail with subdivision of labor
down to the Republic and lesser institute levels.
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III. The Unity of Sciences and the. Creation of a New Soct6ty
and a "New Man" - the Communist Novum Or anum.
A. The Dominant Discipline is Cybernetics, and Con-
trol Theory
This is a complex flourishing discipline throughout the
advanced scientific world and ties in closely with what we now
call "systems theory. " There is abundant evidence that the
Soviets are making a major thrust forward throughout this
field. (The Communist Chinese have a considerable poten-
tial in this area).
B. The Application of Cybernetics to the Condition-
ing Process of Pedagogy.
Here lies a whole complex area of scientific disci-
plines beginning with the study of the cell, working through
the higher nervous system, physio-psychology, heredity,
genetics, and pre-natal influence, leading into the field of
experimental psychology and pedagogy.
Here too a hug6 organizational structure supports the
discipline, chiefly the Institute of Automatics and Telemechan-
ics, the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences; at the apex of the
pyramid stands the Academy of Social Science which is a di-
rect offshoot of the Central Committee of the Party. (It is
worth noting that Khrushchev's important 6 January 1961
speech on the Moscow Statement of December 1960 was de-
livered before the party aktiv of this Academy).
IV. The End Product is. Held Forth in the Ideal of the
"New Soviet Man. "
Soviet spokesmen are more and more using the phrase
"socialist humanism" to denote the moral, spiritual, and cull_
tural development superimposed on the material base. Power-
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ful institutional mechanisms are being developed to carry out
the indoctrination and conditioning process, especially the
so-called "boarding schools" which are already training
600, 000 students per year and are. intended to become uni-
versal.
Even the medium of "science fiction" which played an
important role in conditioning the Soviet population to the ad-
vent of the space era is. now being applied to inculcating the
ideal of the "new Communist man. " He is painted in almost
superhuman stature as one who achieves "freedom" through
the "recognition of necessity, " a glowirng.iLndiividtxal wh-use
high personal fulfillment lies in the combination of socially
useful work, with maximum develgpment of the cultural side
- art, letters, etc. The enthusiasm of the Soviet leaders for
this utopian vision goes so far that hard-headed science exec-
utives and theorists. are now talking of the superseding of
historical determinism by cybernetics.,
With this breathtaking thought, we come to the burn-
ing question of concern to any American scientific research
group - Can our free system match the projected achieve-
ments of the Communists? I can.only give a layman's answer,
but I would say, on the basis of the attitude and temper of our
society during the past ten years, that unless this is changed
in the coming decade the. answer is likely to be "no. " We
are confronted with a challenge which is hard and inescapable.
We. can no longer afford any luxury of complacency.
1
Note Berg in Voprosy Filosofii No. 2, 1961, "Cybernetics
and National Planning. "
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POSTSCRIPT
Since the delivery of the speech outlined in this paper,
there has been announced a far-reaching reorganization of
scientific research in the Soviet Union, including the creatinn
of a top controlling and coordinating body with a single direc-
tor. Whether by design or coincidence, the joint decree of
the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers
was published in the USSR on the same day that Yuri Gagarin
was reported to have completed man's first flight into space.
The new top body is known as the State Committee of
the USSR Council of Ministers for Coordination-of Research.
It is officially stated to represent a "radical reorganization
of the work of scientific research institutions. " It will stand
above the Soviet Academy of Sciences and all other scientific
bodies, although the Academy will remain intact. Apparently
the Soviet leaders feel that experience has shown that the
Academy could not function as the general administrative and
monitoring body over the various scientific institutes and at
the same time do an effective job of solving the "long range
problems of science. " Moreover, there are large areas of
scientific research in the industries and academic labora-
tories of the Soviet Union which have never been under the
control of the Academy but which are now to be coordinated
by the new agency.
The reorganization seems to mean that. henceforth
all long-term scientific and technological planning and re-
search are to be carried out under one command. The en-
compassing scope of this command may be judged by the fact
that it is to cover all research and application of "all the
natural sciences and the humanities. "
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The establishment of a new control body marks a break
with a doctrine-bound past in .which academic "pigeonholing"
of various scientific disciplines tended to prevent a coordinated
or organic approach which could pull together, for instance,
mathematics, the physical sciences, and economics in order
to achieve better planning of the Soviet economy. The example
of American industry is often cited by the Soviets as illustrat-
ing the need for the application of more modern scientific
methods to the needs of industry. Undoubtedly the recent
Soviet emphasis on cybernetics has been a large factor in
pointing the way to a more integrated approach.
The head of the new agency is Lieutenant General
Mihail V. Khrunichev, whose previous putts have included
First Deputy Chief of the Soviet atomic energy project, Deputy
Chairman of Gosplan, Deputy Peoples Commissar of the avia-
tion industrybefose and during World War II, and Minister of
the Aviation Industry (1946-53).
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