On the Results of the Conference on Planning Scientific Research Work

The results of the Conference on planning scientific research work have shown with complete clarity that only under the conditions of the USSR, only in the country of the proletarian dictatorship, have all the necessary conditions been created for the exceptional development of science, for the unprecedented progress of technology.

If in the advanced capitalist countries science, and in particular the physical sciences, are in a state of prolonged and deepening crisis, which reflects the development and deepening of the world economic crisis, the most profound symptoms of decay and doom of the capitalist system as a whole, then under the conditions of the USSR science is in an entirely different position. If bourgeois scientists are sliding into mysticism, priestcraft, and find no arguments other than arguments of a divine order, then only under the conditions of the USSR is genuinely scientific development possible, the development of science on the basis of materialism, on the basis of dialectical materialism.

Only in the USSR are new cadres being drawn into scientific work—the cadres of proletarians, shock workers—the foremost fighters for the scientific reconstruction of the whole world on the principles of socialism and communism. Only in the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat are science and technology becoming the concern of the entire working class, of all working people, where, under the leadership of the Leninist Party of Bolsheviks, the world is being remade in a new way. The Conference has set before all scientific workers

of the Soviet Union as their general task—to subordinate science to the interests of socialist construction, for the entire mass of scientific workers to join the advanced ranks of the proletarian columns that are storming the remnants of the old capitalist world and building the new communist society. Does this diminish the role of science? Does such a way of posing the question turn science into a handmaiden of practice? Nothing of the kind. On the contrary—precisely science in the service of socialist construction stands firmly on solid ground, acquires enormous acceleration and purposefulness, considerably expands its possibilities, receives nourishing juices from practice, increases its ranks many times over, and so on. And since we have set ourselves such a task as “to catch up with and surpass, within 10 years, the foremost capitalist countries in the technical-economic respect,” it is quite obvious that, in the realization of this slogan, science acquires an entirely exceptional significance. Science must ensure the realization of this slogan, must wholly place itself at the service of solving this task.

The exceptional scope of socialist construction, the depth of the processes expressing this construction, the enthusiasm that has gripped the working class, the new socialist forms of labor: shock work, socialist competition, the counter-plan, through brigades—all these place before the sciences, and especially before the physical sciences, new and grandiose problems. The physics of production processes in the factory and plant, physics in the collective farm and state farm (agrophysics), and so on and so forth. Carefully studying everything valuable and significant among bourgeois scientists, criticizing everything pseudoscientific, divine, and mystical in Einstein, Planck, Eddington, and others, we are building our own materialist science and shall give it entirely to the service of the working class, to the cause of socialist construction, to the completion of the building of socialism in our country; and the front of the physical sciences, which has shown enormous achievements precisely in our country, precisely under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, exposing wreckers and pseudo-scientists, unmasking old scientific workers, attracting to its side all loyal—

...creating optimal working conditions for them, creating thousands upon thousands of new proletarian scientific workers, will become the strongest sector of the fighting front of the builders of socialism.

Below we present the resolution of the Conference concerning the foundations of planning scientific-research work.

ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF PLANNING SCIENTIFIC-RESEARCH WORK

(Resolution on the report of N. I. Bukharin, adopted at the First All-Union Conference on the Planning of Scientific-Research Work)

1. The First All-Union Conference on the Planning of Scientific-Research Work states that present-day decaying capitalism has become fetters not only upon the further development of the productive forces, but also upon the further development of scientific thought. The capitalist system of violence, oppression, slavery, and poverty, which has placed an enormous scientific and technical army at its service, is not in a position to digest even those technical achievements that it has already accumulated.

Only the Soviet system, leading to the complete destruction of class domination, reconstructing all social relations on socialist foundations, relying on the creativity and labor enthusiasm of the multimillion masses, creates unlimited possibilities for the development of science and technology.

1. Those historic slogans under whose banner the socialist offensive of the proletariat is unfolding in our country—to fulfill the five-year plan in 3–4 years, to build the foundation of socialism in the coming year, to complete in the main the collectivization of all agriculture by the end of the first five-year plan, and in a maximum of 10 years to catch up with and surpass the advanced capitalist countries—must in reality become the fighting slogans of the entire Soviet army of scientific and technical workers.

The fierce struggle against the USSR on the part of the entire...

international capitalist encirclement, the liquidation of capitalist elements within the country, and sabotage on the part of class-hostile circles in the field of science and technology require a clear and precise posing of the question of the place and role of scientific-research work in socialist construction. Just as the ideology of neutrality proved to be, objectively, a weapon in the hands of wreckers, so too the concept of “science for science’s sake,” still defended here and there, and the struggle against the planning of scientific-research work are a screen behind which the class enemies of socialist construction conceal themselves; this concept leads to the disarming of the proletariat in the face of the imperialists, who have placed science wholly at the service of their aims.

The conference emphasizes with all force that the system of scientific-research institutions in the USSR and all workers of scientific thought must be placed at the service of the grandiose socialist construction and of the defense of the USSR against its enemies.

3. The grandiose scale of socialist construction, the unprecedented tempo of its development, considerably exceeding the tempo of development of the “advanced” capitalist countries, and a number of fundamentally new tasks arising in the process of socialist construction require an enormous increase in the role of science in the system of social labor and a decisive turn of it toward production. They require a socialist collective organization of scientific-research work, a sharp increase in its tempo, the socialist modernization of its methods and techniques, and its internal reconstruction on the basis of dialectical materialism and planning in scientific-research labor. It is precisely through the plan that the proletariat is in a position to conduct its class policy on the scientific-research front in the most rational manner; through the plan, the most rational adaptation of scientific-research thought to the needs of socialist construction is possible, above all to the technical-economic plans of the socialist reconstruction of the country; with the aid of the plan.

possibly a decisive increase in the pace and effectiveness of scientific-research labor.

1. The planning of scientific-research labor is subdivided as follows: 1) determining the relative weight of the entire scientific-research system in the country’s general budget, 2) planning of subject matter, i.e., planning of scientific-research work in the proper sense of the word, 3) planning the construction of scientific-research institutions, 4) planning their location, 5) planning of funds, 6) planning of personnel.

2. The Conference believes that determining the relative weight of the scientific-research system, constituting an immediate part of nationwide state planning, must proceed from directives that ensure the most rapid development of the capacity of the scientific-research network. Only under such conditions will science be able to exert an ever-increasing influence on the technical-economic foundation of socialism under construction, promoting its growth in every way.

3. The basis for planning the subject matter of scientific-research work is the completed and prospective plans of the economic agencies, above all (for industrial and agricultural scientific-research institutions directly) the plans for technical-economic socialist reconstruction and defense. Servicing the plan of technical-economic reconstruction, and the ever-increasing influence of science on the very drafting of these plans, is the chief and determining task in planning scientific-research labor along the line of its subject matter.

4. Planning must ensure: a) full coverage of current needs (beginning with needs connected with the elimination of particular bottlenecks); it must ensure b) prospective plans; it must ensure c) work on major nodal problems of contemporary science, on the solution of which depends the further course of technical-economic development of the socialist country, outstripping the pace of scientific development in capitalist countries. The proper combination of these elements must cor—

...correspond to a known ratio in the division of labor between leading scientific-research institutions, institutions of a specialized type (for example, branch institutes of industry and agriculture), and narrowly practical lower-level scientific-research units (factory and plant laboratories, experimental stations, etc.), with the entire network serving a single goal: the socialist reconstruction of the USSR, the great cultural revolution, and defense against the enemies of socialism.

1. Priority within a group of problems of a more concrete order is determined above all in relation to the calendar plans of the corresponding group of practically working state organs (the Supreme Council of the National Economy, the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture, the People’s Commissariat of Labor, etc.). The priority of themes of a more general order is determined by: a) the urgency of their development from the point of view of long-term plans; b) the breadth of their practical consequences; c) the degree to which the given problem has been developed in capitalist countries (so that under no circumstances should we lag behind, but, on the contrary, should move ahead of them in this field); d) the available scholarly forces and their particular qualifications (so as to be able to make use of especially favorable conditions for advancing major problems), etc.

2. Setting as its goal the rational distribution of scientific-research work, planning conducts a struggle against parallelism in this work. However, it must allow useful forms of parallelism, which come down to two main cases: a) when there is an equal methodology for solving a problem and, consequently, equal types of such solution; b) when a rapid solution of a question is necessary, along with the corresponding mass character in the posing of particular experiments.

3. The planning of scientific-research institutions (construction) and the planning of funds are determined by the volume of scientific-research work as a whole and by its distribution among the various sectors. The planning of the placement of scientific-research institutions must be carried out on the basis of a decisive course toward decentraliza-

On the Results of the Conference on Work Planning

…tion, in particular and especially toward bringing scientific-research institutions closer to industry, to places of production, to the leading enterprises of one or another branch of industry, or toward the growing use of the principle of the combine: plant—higher educational institution—scientific-research institute (production, personnel, scientific-research work). Analogously to this, scientific-research institutions of another type are also located in connection with the particular economic character of a given district, its national-political features, and the specific problems of the cultural revolution.

1. The planning of personnel of the scientific-research type is determined by the entire volume of work and by its distribution among the various branches. The Conference draws special attention to the necessity of class selection of young scientific-research workers, to ensuring their scientific qualifications, to the necessity of developing the corresponding profiles, to ensuring the proper expanded reproduction of personnel, the proper distribution of them among the branches of scientific labor, and the corresponding calendar time limits for replenishment. At the same time, the Conference considers it necessary to have a more orderly distribution of the time of scientific workers in such a way that there be guaranteed, whatever the circumstances, the amount of time necessary for work in their specialty. All component parts of the planning of scientific-research work (planning of themes, funds, personnel, etc.) must constitute functional (and not mechanically connected) parts of a single plan of scientific-research work, which in turn must constitute a functional part of the general state plan.

2. Methods of planning must take into account the particularities of scientific-research labor. From above there are laid out only the most general problems (the direction of the work); individual major problems, priority problems, and complex problems are posed. These more or less general directives are decoded in the lower-level links, and within the corresponding limits these links…

have their own initiative and complete freedom of movement under their full responsibility. A certain amount of time in the budget of the scientific-research institution is allocated to unforeseeable tasks. Individual works are included in advance in the collective plan, forming an organic part of it, which also presupposes the proper placement of workers according to their qualifications and in accordance with the given field of work, while ensuring more or less fully the right to scientific-research risk, analogous to technical risk.

1. Planning methods must ensure the closest linkage with practical work. Both when plans pass “from below” upward and when plans are deployed from above downward—in all links—the plans of scientific-research institutions are constructed on the basis of the plans of practically operating bodies (for example, in industry the corresponding series are: factory laboratory—factory, branch institute—association, leading institutes—consolidated plans of the VSNKh; in agriculture: zonal station—collective farm, state farm; branch institute—specialized branch of crop production and animal husbandry, consolidated plans and leading institutes—NKS, etc.).

The planning methodology presupposes a system of reciprocal plans both along the line of scientific-research work and between scientific-research institutions and practical state bodies (production cells), with increasing application of the principle of mutual responsibility for the fulfillment of the industrial-financial plan.

1. Special attention in drawing up consolidated plans must be given to complex problems, which are subject to subdivision into their component elements; in doing so, the demand for scientific-research work is ascertained according to the various component aspects, from exploratory work and the study of qualitatively different types of fuel, metal, and technological processing processes, up to the design of machines and apparatuses; moreover, the classificatory division of problems is more expediently built not by disciplines, but by groups of problems directly arising from

practice; moreover, questions of general theory are sifted out in the very process of forming the plan and are combined with other analogous problems on the basis of kinship, for their common resolution. Alongside this, special meetings and conferences of scholars by discipline must play a role in drawing up plans; these scholars put forward problems that are maturing in the bosom of science itself or else are posed by scientific-research institutions of capitalist countries. The meeting of representatives of various disciplines and a broad exchange of scientific-research experience must be an indispensable prerequisite for the proper planning of scientific-research work.

1. The methodology for taking account of the effectiveness of scientific-research work must likewise be regarded as a distinctive form of scientific-research labor. Methods for selecting personnel must—while ensuring a proletarian socialist base—provide for a preliminary accounting of the inclinations and abilities of the persons being selected; at the same time it is necessary to bear in mind orientation toward worker-inventors, rationalizers, the proletarian technical activists, participants in all kinds of circles at technical colleges and higher educational institutions, and so forth.

Proceeding from the fact that in the field of planning scientific-research work only the first, but at the same time decisive, steps are being taken, the Conference gives every warning against the bureaucratic distortion of planning and considers it necessary to involve in this work the broadest possible circles of the proletariat. The Conference believes that the chief danger on this front is old academism, rigidity, routine, detachment from practice and from living life, from concrete construction plans. The struggle against this danger is therefore the foremost duty of all scientific-research workers. The Conference considers it necessary, relying on the broad democratization of knowledge, to help by all forces and all means the mass movement for mastering technology, including workers of science in the common front of fighters of the unfolding socialist offensive.