Abstract
The conception of science in the English-speaking world is narrower than the Russian equivalent nauka, which more closely corresponds to the English words ‘knowledge’ or ‘scholarship’, since it incorporates the social sciences and the humanities as well as the natural and applied sciences.
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Notes and References
Narodnoe obrazovanie, nauka i kul’tura v SSSR (Moscow: Statistika, 1977) p. 438: see also E. Zaleski et al., Science Policy in the USSR (Paris: OECD, 1969) pp. 542–3 and 545–6.
See also M. N. Rutkevich, ‘Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya problem intelligentsii’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 2 (1980) p. 68
Mervyn Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet Union (London: Allen & Unwin, 1978) pp. 117–18.
Mark Ya. Azbel, Refusenik (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981) pp. 169–70.
V. Zh. Kelle, S. A. Kugel’ and N. I. Makeshin, ‘Sotsiologicheskie aspekty organizatsii truda nauchnykh rabotnikov v sfere fundamental’nykh issledovanii (po materialam konkretno-sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniya)’, in Sotsiologicheskie problemy nauchnoi deyaternosti (Moscow: Institut sotsiologicheskikh issledovanii AN SSSR, 1978) pp. 113 and 121. Somewhat different proportions were given in another piece of research which reported that the majority of scientific workers employed by the USSR Academy of Sciences were engaged in both fundamental and applied research and, to a lesser extent, in development. Only 31 per cent were said to be carrying out fundamental research exclusively. S. A. Kugel’ and P. B. Shelishch, ‘Nauchnaya intelligentsiya SSSR: faktory i tendentsii razvitiya’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 1 (1979) p. 34.
Thane Gustafson, ‘Why Doesn’t Soviet Science Do Better Than It Does?’, in Linda L. Lubrano and Susan Gross Solomon (eds), The Social Context of Soviet Science (Folkestone: Wm Dawson, 1980) p. 61.
M. N. Rutkevich, ‘Sovetskaya intelligentsiya: struktura i tendentsii razvitiya na sovremennom etape’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 2 (1980) pp. 72–3.
Medvedev’s figures are used because they give a sense of relative pay rates among scientific workers. However, his observations probably relate to the late 1960s or early 1970s, for the average monthly wage for a Soviet industrial worker in 1975 was already 161 roubles and this had risen to 186 by the end of 1980. In science and science services (which includes technicians and other supporting workers) the wage levels for the respective years were 158 and 180 roubles. Vestnik statistiki, no. 8 (1981) p. 78; Zhores A. Medvedev, Soviet Science (Oxford University Press, 1979) p. 78; Mervyn Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet Union, pp. 26–8;
see also Murray Yanowitch, Social and Economic Inequality in the Soviet Union (London: Martin Robertson, 1977) p. 39; E. Zaleski et al., Science Policy in the USSR, p. 411;
B. D. Lebin and G. A. Tsypkin, Prava rabotnika nauki (Leningrad: Nauka, 1971) p. 139.
Ibid., passim; Hedrick Smith, The Russians (London: Times Books, 1976) pp. 38–52.
Nicholas De Witt, Education and Professional Employment in the USSR (Washington, D. C.: NSF, 1961) p. 418; Moskva v tsifrakh (1966–1970gg) (Moscow: Statistika, 1972) p. 138.
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© 1984 Peter Kneen
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Kneen, P. (1984). Soviet Natural Scientists: Institutions and Status. In: Soviet Scientists and the State. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07332-0_2
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