Abstract
A consequence of the growth of a network of independent research establishments and the failure to develop widespread R&D at the enterprises was that links between the research laboratory and the plant became a matter of much concern. Firstly, it was necessary to ensure that the work done by these independent organisations was relevant to the needs of industry. Action taken towards this end included the policy of fostering research in the areas of industrial growth and the subordination in 1929 of the majority of the research institutes to organs directly responsible for the individual branches of industry; further it was an important aim of the research planning system. Secondly, the links between research and industry had to ensure the smooth and rapid utilisation in industrial production of the results of the research network’s activities. In this chapter we are specifically concerned with this second aspect — the industrial application of the research undertaken in the Soviet industrial research establishments. However, in practice these two problems were closely related in industrial science policy.
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Notes
A. E. Fersman, ‘Osnovnye Voprosy Organizatsii Nauchnoi Raboty’, Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR, no. 10 (1936) p. 40.
For a discussion of the term, see P. L. Kapitsa, Teoriya, Eksperiment, Praktika (Moscow, 1966) p. 7.
E. P. Frolov, ‘Osnovnye Zadachi Zavodskikh Laboratorii’, ZL, no. 8–9 (1932) p. 10.
N. I. Bukharin, ‘Tekhnicheskaya Rekonstruktsiya i Tekushchie Prob- lemy Nauchno-Issledovatel’skoi Raboty’, SRIN, no. 1 (1933) pp. 28–9.
A. I. Aksenov, ‘Perestroika Nauchno-Issledovatel’skoi Raboty Tsementnoi Promyshlennosti’, ZL, no. 7 (1934) p. 663.
See, for example, the case of Ramzin’s single-pass boiler, K. Ya. Bauman, ‘Polozhenie i Zadachi Sovetskoi Nauki’, Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR, no. 10 (1936) p. 23.
L. Reinberg, ‘Pokonchit’ s Otstavaniem Nauchno-Issledovatel’skikh Institutov Promyshlennosti’, FNIT, no. 10 (1936) pp. 100–6, SKIN, no. 8 (1936) pp. 134–44.
See the case of a process for producing liquid oxygen which had been developed by Kapitsa’s institute, Industriya 10 September 1939, Kapitsa, Teoriya… pp. 42–4, M. M. Levitin, Industriya 27 May 1940; B. Kil’chevskii and G. Mirkin, Industriya 21 August 1939.
I. V. Brenev (ed.), Tsentral’naya Radiolaboratoriya v Leningrade (Moscow, 1973) pp. 83–4.
For a western view on the importance of avoiding both an organisational and a spatial barrier, see the chapter by Jack Morton of the famous Bell Laboratories in David Allison (ed.), The RandD Game: Technical Men, Technical Managers, and Research Productivity (Cambridge, Mass., 1969) pp. 213–35.
E. P. Frolov, Osnovnye Zadachi Zavodskikh Laboratorii (Moscow, 1933) p. 17.
Yu. N. Flakserman, Promvshlennost’ i Nauchno-Tekhnicheskie Instituty (Moscow, 1925) p. 14.
I. Chuev, ‘Promyshlennost’ v 1928/29 Godu’, Vestnik Finansov no. 6 (1930) p. 116, Ob‘yasnitel’naya Zapiska k Proektu Edinogo Gosudarstvennogo Byudzheta Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik na 1927–1928 Byudzhetnyi God (Moscow, 1928) p. 229.
M. Ya. Lapirov-Skoblo, Nauchno-Issledovatel’skaya Rabota v Promyshlennosti’, NR, no. 1 (1929) p. 34.
V. N. Kritsman, ‘Osnovnye Problemy Razvitiya Mashiny v Sotsialisticheskom Khozyaistve’, SRIN, no. 2 (1933) pp. 78–9.
A. A. Armand (ed.), Nauchno-Issledovatel’skie Instituty Tyazheloi Promyshlennosti (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935).
See, for example, A. N. Bakh and A. N. Frumkin, Industriya 26 October 1938
I. Konontsev, Industriya 26 April 1940.
A. A. Armand (ed.), Zavodskie Laboratorii Tyazheloi Promyshlennosti. Sbornik Soveta Zavodskikh Laboratorii NKTP SSSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935).
E. A. Chudakov, ‘Problemy Nauchno-Issledovatel’skoi Raboty v Oblasti Mashinostroeniya’, Sovetskaya Nauka, no. 4 (1939) p. 74.
See, for example
O. Yu. Shmidt, the vice-president of the Academy of Sciences, in Otchet o Rabote Akademii Nauk SSSR za 1939g. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1940) p. 9.
For example, in the case of the process developed by Kapitsa’s institute, which has already been referred to; see also A. N. Bakh and A. N. Frumkin, Industriya 26 October 1938, B. Volov, Industriya 11 May 1939, and Industriya for 12 February 1939 and 26 May 1940.
See, for example, R. W. Davies, ‘Aspects of Soviet Investment Policy in the 1920s’, in C. H. Feinstein (ed.), Socialism, Capitalism and Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1967) pp. 285–305.
Walter Arnold Rukeyser, Working for the Soviets (London, 1932) p. 266.
Branch offices and bureaux were, in fact, established abroad, see NR no. 4 (1927) p. 113, V. S. Lel’chuk, Sozdanie Khimicheskoi Promyshlennosti SSSR: iz Istorii Sotsialisticheskoi Industrializatsii (Moscow, 1964) p. 86.
V. V. Kuibyshev, Izbrannye Proizvedeniya (Moscow, 1958) p. 218.
G. K. Orzhonikidze, Industrial Development in 1931 and the Tasks for 1932. Report to XVII Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Moscow, 1932) p. 21.
Chudakov, Sovetskaya Nauka, no. 4 (1939) p. 73.
S. I. Vol’fkovich, FNIT, no. 9 (1933) pp. 36–7.
See Alexander Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture 1861–1917 (Stanford, 1970) p. 395.
For the view that the Soviet Union was almost totally dependent on imported technology in every sphere, see Anthony C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1917 to 1930 (Stanford, 1968) and Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1930–1945 (Stanford, 1971).
No comprehensive account of the industry in the interwar period has yet been written; material on the development of the industry can be found in Istoriya Vtoroi Mirovoi Voiny Vols I and II (Moscow, 1973 and 1974), The Soviet Aircraft Industry (Chapel Hill, 1955), A. A. Velizhev, Dostizheniya Sovetskoi Aviapromyshlennosti za Pyatnadtsat’ Let (Moscow-Leningrad, 1932).
N. I. Bukharin, ‘Tekhnicheskaya Rekonstruktsiya i Tekushcbie Problemy Nauchno-Issledovatelskoi Raboty’, SRIN, no. 1 (1933) p. 28.
G. K. Ordzhonikidze, Stat’i i Rechi, Vol. II (Moscow, 1957) p. 517.
A. S. Yakovlev, Tsel’ Zhizni (2nd edition) (Moscow, 1968) pp. 178–9, 273.
K. E. Baffles, ‘Technology and Legitimacy: Soviet Aviation and Stalinism in the 1930s’, Technology and Culture, XVII (1976) pp. 55–81.
Alexander Boyd, The Soviet Air Force since 1918 (London, 1977) p. 41.
Asher Lee (ed.), The Soviet Air and Rocket Forces (London, 1959) pp. 30, 131.
A. Sharagin (G. A. Ozerov), Tupolevskaya Sharaga (Frankfurt/M, 1971) pp. 11–29.
V. B. Shavrov, Istoriya Konstruktsii Samoletov v SSSR do 1938 Goda (Moscow, 1969) p. 345.
A. I. Shakhurin, ‘Aviatsionnaya Promyshlennost’ v Gody Velikogo Otechestvennoi Voiny (iz Vospominaniyi Narkoma)’, Voprosy Istorii, no. 3 (1975) p. 136.
M. Arlazarov, Front Idet Cherez KB (2nd edition, Moscow, 1975) p. 39.
A. Magid, Bol’shaya Zhizn’ (Moscow, 1968) p. 112.
For the example of Il’yushin and the starting up of production of the I1–2 at the Voronezh plant, see P. Y. Kozlov, Ily Letyat na Front (Moscow, 1976), p. 10; on the moving of Putilov’s design team which designed the Stal’-2 passenger plane to factory no. 81, see Shavrov, Istoriya Konstruktsii Samoletov… pp. 453–4.
Istoriya Vtoroi Mirovoi Voiny Vol. III, p. 383; for such close control elsewhere in the military industrial sector, see
V. Emelyanov, ‘O Vremeni, o Tovarishchakh, o Sebe. Zapiski Inzhenera’, Novyi Mir, no. 2 (1967) pp. 88–90, 105–6.
Ibid., pp. 65–89; for a general discussion of Osoaviakhim, see William E. Odom, The Soviet Volunteers: Modernisation and Bureaucracy in a Public Mass Organisation (Princeton, 1973).
Vaclav Nemecek, ‘Polikarpov: the Prolific Pioneer’, Flying Review International, XXIII (1968) p. 401.
A. Chesalov, ‘General’nyi Konstruktor’, Aviatsiya iKosmonavtika, no. 9 (1963) p. 74.
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© 1979 Robert Lewis
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Lewis, R. (1979). Industrial Research and Innovation. 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_9
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