Joseph Vissarionovich
STALIN

USPEKHI FIZICHESKIKH NAUK

COMRADE STALIN—THE GREATEST SCHOLAR OF OUR EPOCH

(ON THE SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH)

Soviet people are marking the glorious date of the seventieth anniversary of the birth of Comrade Stalin with a new upsurge of creative activity. The name of Comrade Stalin inspires the working people to new feats of labor in the name of building communism.

Under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, the greatest transformations have been carried out in our country. For the first time, conscious control of social production, based on the firm foundation of Marxist-Leninist science, has taken the place of the spontaneous process.

The faithful comrade-in-arms of Lenin, the continuer of Lenin’s cause, Comrade Stalin is the greatest scholar of our epoch, an unsurpassed master of the socialist revolution.

Comrade Stalin masterfully combines theoretical power with the practical revolutionary experience of the workers’ movement. Already in the early years of his revolutionary activity, Comrade Stalin, following Lenin, taught the working class to understand that revolutionary science and revolutionary practice are inseparable; that “if the workers’ movement is not connected with scientific socialism, it inevitably becomes petty,” while, on the other hand, “scientific socialism without the workers’ movement is empty words, which can always easily be thrown to the winds” (Stalin, Briefly on Party Disagreements, Works, vol. 1, pp. 114 and 115). Twenty years later, in the classic work The Foundations of Leninism, Comrade Stalin writes: “Theory is the experience of the workers’ movement of all countries taken in its general aspect. Of course, theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice, just as practice becomes blind if it does not illuminate its path by revolutionary theory. But theory can become the greatest force of the workers’ movement if it is formed in inseparable connection with revolutionary practice, for it, and it alone, can give the movement confidence, the power of orientation, and an understanding of the inner connection of surrounding events, for it, and

only it can help practice understand not only how and where classes are moving in the present, but also how and where they should move in the immediate future” (Stalin, Works, vol. 6, pp. 88–89).

All of Comrade Stalin’s revolutionary struggle is permeated with this spirit of unity of revolutionary practice and theory.

Together with the great Lenin, Comrade Stalin created the doctrine of the socialist revolution, revealed its driving forces and reserves, proved the possibility for the proletariat to lead the main masses of the peasantry, further developed the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the vanguard detachment of the working class—the Communist Party, the party of a new type, of the foundations of its construction, and of its place in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This doctrine was worked out in the course of resolving the practical tasks of the workers’ movement; it served as a beacon illuminating the practical activity of the party and determined its strategy and tactics.

In the mid-1920s, when the country was completing the restoration of industry and entering the period of reconstructing the national economy on a new technical basis, the question of the possibility of the victory of socialism in our country acquired enormous practical significance. Without resolving this question, all work in construction would have been work without prospects.

Relying on Lenin’s doctrine of the possibility of the victory of socialism in a single, separately taken country, Comrade Stalin developed this doctrine further, defended it in the struggle against the contemptible enemies of the working class—the Trotskyites and other agents of capitalism—worked out the concrete paths and methods for building socialist society, created the theory of the socialist industrialization of the country and the theory of the collectivization of agriculture, revealed the role of the state under socialism, and inspired the party and the working class to struggle for the realization of socialism.

Comrade Stalin’s theoretical genius, which illuminated the path of building socialism, and his unbreakable will in the struggle to fulfill the scientifically grounded plan led the Soviet people to victory. Socialism has been built in our country. Comrade Stalin, the creator of socialism, appears as a brilliant scientist, a great master of revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice.

Today the Soviet people are building communism on the basis of the scientific theory developed and raised by Comrade Stalin to the highest level. Comrade Stalin proved that in a country such as ours there is every possibility for building communist society even under conditions of capitalist encirclement; he established that, under conditions of capitalist encirclement, the state under communism does not wither away, but is preserved, merely changing its functions; he worked out the paths for creating the material base of communism; he discovered and substantiated that the Stakhanovite movement paves the way to communism, for it contains the seed of such a cultural and technical

of the rise of the working class, which leads to the elimination of the opposition between mental and physical labor; he highly elevated the significance, for the building of communism, of abundance alongside material and spiritual goods, of the flourishing of science and art, of the flourishing of socialist nations and their cultures; he pointed to the exceptional importance of the struggle against the survivals of capitalism in the consciousness of Soviet people and of educating them in the spirit of communism; he revealed that criticism and self-criticism are a special law-governed feature and motive force of Soviet society, a necessary condition for the building of communism.

And now, as in the period of transition to the construction of socialism, Comrade Stalin provides the theoretical substantiation of the possibility of building the new, communist society, indicates the practical paths for the realization of communism, inspires and organizes the Party and the Soviet people in the struggle for communism, and appears as the greatest scholar of a new type, whose science serves the practical aims of the revolutionary struggle of the working people and gives them clarity of perspective in labor and struggle.

In his revolutionary activity Comrade Stalin relies on the teaching of Marxism-Leninism and creatively develops it further. As early as in the work Anarchism or Socialism, dating from 1906–1907, Comrade Stalin creatively developed the basic propositions of materialist dialectics. In the work On Dialectical and Historical Materialism Comrade Stalin generalized all that Marx, Engels, and Lenin had given in the teaching on the dialectical method and materialist theory, and raised the doctrine of dialectical and historical materialism to the highest level on the basis of the entire experience of the revolutionary movement.

Comrade Stalin showed that the internal content of the process of development of the phenomena of nature and society consists in the struggle between the old and the new, between the dying and the nascent, between that which is becoming obsolete and that which is developing. The proposition of Marxism concerning the struggle of opposites as the motive factor of development received, in the works of Comrade Stalin, a new, concrete content. An enormous contribution to the doctrine of dialectical materialism is the law formulated by Comrade Stalin concerning the invincibility of the new, the nascent, the developing. Summing up the experience of history, the richest experience of revolutionary struggle, Comrade Stalin teaches: that which is becoming obsolete must inevitably suffer defeat; that which is growing and developing is invincible. Having disclosed this law, Comrade Stalin gave a theoretical, philosophical substantiation of the inevitability of the victory of the working class, of the victory of socialism over capitalism. Knowledge of the law of the invincibility of the new increases the energy of the working people, strengthens their will to struggle for the victory of the new, for the victory of communism. Comrade Stalin is the greatest theoretician of Marxism-Leninism.

Throughout all his activity Comrade Stalin has waged an uncompromising struggle for the Leninist principle of partisanship in questions of theo-

ries, mercilessly smashes the contemptible enemies of Marxism-Leninism, and shows that any departure from Marxism-Leninism in theory is in fact a betrayal of the cause of the working class, a desertion to the camp of its class enemies.

In the classic work History of the CPSU(B). Short Course, Comrade Stalin gave a scientific generalization of the gigantic historical experience of the Bolshevik Party, from which hundreds of millions of working people are learning Bolshevism. In this work Comrade Stalin showed with tremendous persuasiveness the inseparable connection between the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary practical activity of the Bolshevik Party.

Marxist-Leninist materialist philosophy is the only correct theory of knowledge of the laws of development of nature and society, of knowing them as they exist objectively. Marxism-Leninism teaches that knowledge of the laws of development of nature and society is necessary not for contemplation, but for the purpose of changing nature and society, for conscious influence upon the course of events; it teaches their prediction. “The strength of Marxist-Leninist theory,” says Comrade Stalin, “lies in the fact that it enables the party to orient itself in the situation, to understand the inner connection of surrounding events, to foresee the course of events, and to recognize not only how and where events are developing in the present, but also how and where they should develop in the future” (History of the CPSU(B). Short Course, Gospolitizdat, 1946, p. 339).

Applying and creatively developing further the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, masterfully possessing knowledge of the laws of social development, Comrade Stalin sees far ahead the paths of society’s development and gives classic examples of scientific prediction.

In the period of the stabilization of capitalism, which the servile lackeys of capitalism advertised as its revival, Comrade Stalin pointed out that “the October Revolution dealt world capitalism a mortal wound from which it will never again recover. Precisely for this reason capitalism will never again regain that ‘equilibrium’ and that ‘stability’ which it possessed before October. Capitalism may partially stabilize, it may rationalize its production, hand over the administration of the country to fascism, temporarily suppress the working class, but it will never again regain that ‘tranquillity’ and that ‘confidence,’ that ‘balance’ and that ‘stability’ of which it formerly boasted, for the crisis of world capitalism has reached such a stage of development that the flames of revolution must inevitably break out now in the centers of imperialism, now on the periphery, reducing capitalist patchwork to naught and bringing the fall of capitalism closer day by day” (Stalin, The International Character of the October Revolution, Works, vol. 10, p. 246).

The history of the development of capitalism over the last two decades shows that this forecast of Comrade Stalin’s is being justified with exceptional force. Today it is becoming increasingly clear to the working people of the whole world

COMRADE STALIN—THE GREATEST SCIENTIST OF OUR EPOCH

it clear that capitalism cannot eliminate the grave economic consequences of the Second World War, that it is not in a position to avoid the growing economic crisis, that the frenzy of the imperialist reaction, which is preparing new military adventures, is an indication not of the strength but of the weakness of capitalism, evidence that capitalism is mortally wounded, that it is doomed by history.

As early as the very beginning of the Chinese revolution, in 1927, when skeptics were prattling about its decline, Comrade Stalin spoke of its prospects: “The fact that the Chinese revolution has not yet led to a direct victory over imperialism—this fact cannot be of decisive importance for the prospects of the revolution. Great popular revolutions never, in general, win completely in the first round of their actions. They grow and become stronger in a sequence of tides and ebbs. This has been the case everywhere, including Russia. It will be the same in China. The most important result of the Chinese revolution is the fact that it has awakened from age-old slumber and set in motion hundreds of millions of the exploited and oppressed, has finally exposed the counter-revolutionary character of the generals’ cliques, has torn the mask from the Kuomintang lackeys of counter-revolution, has strengthened the authority of the Communist Party among the lower strata of the people, has raised the movement as a whole to a higher stage, and has awakened new hopes among millions of people of the oppressed classes of India, Indonesia, and so on. Only the blind and faint-hearted can doubt that the Chinese workers and peasants are moving toward a new revolutionary upsurge” (ibid., Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), p. 283).

This prediction of Comrade Stalin has also been justified: as a result of the rise of the revolutionary movement, the Chinese people defeated the counter-revolutionary Kuomintang clique and the American imperialism standing behind it, formed the Chinese People’s Republic, and radically changed the balance of forces in favor of the camp of peace, the camp of socialism.

More than twenty years ago Comrade Stalin expressed remarkable ideas about the possible paths of development of the world revolution. Emphasizing the fact that under capitalism contradictions exist not only between labor and capital, but also among individual imperialist states, as well as between the imperialist countries and the colonies; that all these contradictions are deepened and sharpened by the existence of the great Republic of Soviets, Comrade Stalin pointed out that it is now no longer correct to think that the revolution will develop by way of a uniform “maturing” of the elements of socialism, primarily in the more developed, “advanced” countries: “Most likely, the world revolution will develop by way of the revolutionary falling away of a number of new countries from the system of imperialist states, with the support of the proletarians of these countries by the proletariat of the imperialist states. We see that the first country to fall away, the first victorious country, is already being supported by ...”

by the workers and toiling masses of other countries. Without this support it could not have held out. Undoubtedly, this support will strengthen and grow. But it is equally undoubted that the very development of the world revolution, the very process of a number of new countries’ falling away from imperialism, will proceed the more rapidly and thoroughly, the more thoroughly socialism is consolidated in the first victorious country, the sooner this country is transformed into a base for the further unfolding of the world revolution, into a lever for the further disintegration of imperialism” (Stalin, The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists, Works, vol. 6, pp. 398–399). World wars unleashed by the imperialists cannot bring salvation to capitalism. On the contrary, they lead to a change in the balance of forces in favor of socialism. In 1934, indicating that matters were heading toward a new imperialist war, Comrade Stalin predicted that it would “surely unleash revolution and put in question the very existence of capitalism in a number of countries, as happened in the course of the first imperialist war” (Stalin, Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress, Problems of Leninism, 11th ed., p. 431).

And this brilliant prognosis of Comrade Stalin was vindicated with the inevitability of law: in the Second World War a number of countries of people’s democracy in southeastern and central Europe, as well as in the East, fell away from the system of capitalism.

Comrade Stalin clearly saw the forms that the struggle between international revolution and international reaction would take in the following decades. In a conversation with the first American workers’ delegation in 1927, Comrade Stalin said: “It is impossible to conceive the matter in such a way that the working class of one country or of several countries will advance toward socialism and, all the more, toward communism, while the capitalists of other countries will look on indifferently and sit with folded arms. Still less can one conceive that the working class in the capitalist countries will agree to be a mere spectator of the victorious development of socialism in one country or another. In actual fact, the capitalists will do everything in their power to strangle such countries. In actual fact, every serious step toward socialism and, all the more, toward communism in one country or another will inevitably be accompanied by an irresistible urge of the working class of the capitalist countries toward the conquest of power and socialism in those countries.

Thus, in the course of the further development of international revolution and international reaction, two centers of world scale will take shape: a socialist center, attracting to itself the countries tending toward socialism, and a capitalist center, attracting to itself the countries tending toward capitalism. The struggle of these two camps will decide the fate of capitalism and socialism throughout the world” (Stalin, Works, vol. 10, pp. 134–135).

And this scientific prognosis of Comrade Stalin is being vindicated with astonishing accuracy. Our country is going full steam ahead toward commu-

...to communism. A bestial hatred for it is harbored by the imperialists, who are weaving nets of military plots against it. With love and hope the working people of the capitalist countries look upon it, full of determination to defend peace and socialism against the imperialists. Two centers of world scale have already taken shape: the capitalist center—the USA, headed by the financial monopolies, and the socialist center—the USSR, toward which the countries of people’s democracy gravitate. The Soviet Union is doing everything possible to prevent war. It is not afraid of peaceful competition with capitalism. But it is not afraid of war either, for there can be no doubt that “if the imperialists unleash a third world war, then this war will be the grave not for individual capitalist states, but for all world capitalism” (G. M. Malenkov).

Such are some examples of Comrade Stalin’s brilliant scientific forecasts and of their confirmation in the course of world history. They demonstrate the unsurpassed power of Comrade Stalin’s theoretical thought, the exceptional cognitive force of Marxist-Leninist theory.

As a true man of advanced science, as a master of the dialectics of social development, Comrade Stalin keenly notices the new in the social movement, that which is still in an embryonic state and is lost among other phenomena, but which has a tendency to grow, has a future, and ought to be supported.

Thus, a classic example of the new in Soviet society is the popular movement—socialist emulation and its highest form—the Stakhanovite movement. Comrade Stalin, with all his authority, supported this movement and helped the party and the entire people to see in it a method for the construction of communism. “Is it not clear,” says Comrade Stalin, “that the Stakhanovites are innovators in our industry, that the Stakhanovite movement represents the future of our industry, that it contains within itself the seed of the future cultural and technical advancement of the working class, that it opens for us the path by which alone we can achieve those higher indicators of labor productivity which are necessary for the transition from socialism to communism and for the abolition of the contradiction between mental labor and physical labor?” (Stalin, Speech at the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites, Problems of Leninism, 11th ed., p. 496). Stalin’s assessment of the Stakhanovite movement sank deeply into the souls of the working people and transformed socialist emulation into a nationwide movement.

The resolution of theoretical problems arising in the course of the struggle of the working class, the remarkable foresight of “how and where the classes will move,” the discernment in the phenomena of the present of the lawful features of the future, profound principledness, partisanship in questions of theory—all this characterizes Comrade Stalin as the brilliant scholar of our great epoch.

Comrade Stalin develops theoretical problems that are vitally necessary for the cause of the working class, for the struggle for socialism. Whatever problems he has had to solve—political, economic, military, philosophical, historical, or others—Comrade Stalin everywhere advances revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice, and raises science to an unprecedented height.

The classical works of Comrade Stalin develop Marxist-Leninist theory as applied to the new epoch, the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, the epoch of the victory of socialism in our country. They have guiding significance for the countries of people’s democracy that have entered upon the path of building socialism; they arm the fraternal parties for the struggle for the victory of communism throughout the world; they instill in the foremost representatives of the working people of all countries confidence in the victory of the cause of the working class.

The great movement for peace, which has now embraced hundreds of millions of working people of all nationalities and races, sees in Comrade Stalin the indestructible bulwark of peace and democracy.

The name of Comrade Stalin has united around itself the vastest and best part of humanity. Comrade Stalin, continuer of Lenin’s cause, the brilliant thinker of the working class, the great architect of socialism, the creator of the most democratic Constitution in the world, has become for all progressive humanity the banner of the struggle for the most vital rights of working people: for work, for bread, for peace, and for freedom.

The Great October Socialist Revolution destroyed all barriers to the development of science, opened wide the doors of science to the people, and placed science at the service of the people.

In Soviet times the organization of scientific research in our country acquired an unprecedented scope and new forms. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR, from a small “academic” institution detached from practical tasks, was reorganized into a powerful association of scientific research institutes, the headquarters of Soviet science, embracing almost the entire diversity of scientific fields, including technology. Scientific institutions were given the task of the “planned use of scientific achievements to assist in the construction of the new socialist classless society” (from the Statute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). Much work has been carried out in training scientific personnel in the national republics; in ten Union republics republican academies have been organized and are successfully functioning. Branch academies have been created—the agricultural, pedagogical, medical, architectural academies, and others. In industry there has developed a powerful network of branch scientific institutes. The network of universities has expanded considerably, especially in the Union republics, as has that of scientific research institutes within them. As the basis for the development

science, as of the entire national economy, rests on a state plan. The army of scientific workers numbers hundreds of thousands of people, among them several tens of thousands of the highest qualification. More than three and a half thousand figures of science and technology have been awarded the title of laureates of the Stalin Prize. In Soviet times the activity of scientists of whom our country is proud reached its highest flowering—Pavlov, Michurin, Williams, Lysenko, Zhukovsky, Chaplygin, Krylov, Rozhdestvensky, Vavilov, Tsiolkovsky, Gubkin, Karpinsky, Obruchev, Bach, Kurnakov, Favorsky, Zelinsky, Burdenko, Komarov, Marr, and many others.

The flourishing of science in the Soviet Union, its enormous successes, its growth in breadth and depth, the growth of the Marxist consciousness of men of science are inseparably linked with the name of Comrade Stalin. Comrade Stalin shows daily concern for the development of science, for the needs of men of science, and inspires men of science. It was he, together with Lenin, who opened to science the great transformer of nature I. V. Michurin, supported the remarkable scientist-inventor K. E. Tsiolkovsky, and assisted in the building of the “capital of physiological science”—Koltushi, where the work of the great physiologist I. P. Pavlov flourished. On the initiative of Comrade Stalin, construction is now being carried out, on an exceptional scale, of the scientific-research and educational base of Moscow State University.

Comrade Stalin regards science as a mighty lever in the hands of the state, making it possible to transform in a new way the level and tempo of development of the country’s productive forces. As early as 1924 Comrade Stalin conceived the implementation of a plan of amelioration measures in the Samara—Saratov—Astrakhan—Stavropol zone, with the aim of protecting agriculture from the hazards of drought. Today this plan has become a grandiose plan of shelterbelt forest plantations, the introduction of grass-field crop rotations, and the construction of ponds and reservoirs to ensure high and stable harvests in the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the European part of the USSR. In this plan, which the people have lovingly named the “Stalin plan for the transformation of nature,” are expressed the age-old aspirations of the peasantry, suffering from crop failures due to drought. In this plan, on an unprecedented scale, the dreams and achievements of the luminaries of native agricultural science—Dokuchaev, Williams, Lysenko—are being brought to life.

From Comrade Stalin Soviet science receives guiding indications of the paths of its development. On his instructions the reorganization of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was carried out; new academies were created; academies and other scientific institutions were built in the Union republics. Almost at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in April 1942, in a telegram addressed to the President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Comrade Stalin expressed the hope “that the Academy of Sciences of the USSR will head the movement of innovators in the field of science and production and become the center of the ...

“of Soviet science in the unfolding struggle against the most evil enemy of our people and of all other freedom-loving peoples, German fascism.” Soon after the victory over German fascism, Comrade Stalin set before Soviet science the task “not only of catching up with, but also of surpassing in the near future, the achievements of science beyond the borders of our country.”

Comrade Stalin teaches people of science what true advanced science must be.

Advanced science serves the people, hands over to them all its conquests, and serves the people not by compulsion, but voluntarily, eagerly.

Advanced science does not enclose itself within the shell of monopolists, priests of science, but voluntarily and eagerly opens all the doors of science to the young forces of our country.

The people of advanced science understand the power and significance of the traditions established in science and make use of them, but they are not slaves to traditions; they boldly break old traditions, norms, and precepts when these become obsolete and turn into a brake on forward movement.

“Science,” says Comrade Stalin, “is called science precisely because it does not recognize fetishes, is not afraid to raise its hand against the outworn and the old, and listens sensitively to the voice of experience, of practice. Were it otherwise, we would have no science at all...” (Stalin, Speech at the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites, Questions of Leninism, 11th ed., p. 502).

Lenin and Stalin are models of men of science who boldly raise their hand against obsolete propositions of science, who tirelessly teach that science must not be turned into a dogma, but must be taken as a guide to action. The teaching of Lenin and Stalin on the possibility of the victory of socialism in a single country taken separately, Comrade Stalin’s teaching on the strengthening of the role of the state under socialism in the conditions of capitalist encirclement—these are examples of how our teachers perceive Marxism creatively, develop it under new conditions, and do not turn it into a dogma.

Constant forward movement in the interests of the people, support for that which has a future, the struggle against that which drags backward—such is the necessary hallmark of advanced science; this is how Comrade Stalin understands science.

From this also follows the evaluation of the role of innovators of production in science given by Comrade Stalin: “It also happens that new paths of science and technology are sometimes laid not by generally known people of science, but by people completely unknown in the scientific world—ordinary people, practitioners, innovators in their work” (Stalin, Speech at the Reception in the Kremlin for Workers of Higher Education). Among those who advance science and technology, Comrade Stalin includes the Stakhanovites, who overthrow existing norms established by well-known people of science and technology as obsolete. It is no accident that among the laureates of the Stalin Prizes for the highest achievements in the field of science and technology we meet

COMRADE STALIN—THE GREATEST SCIENTIST OF OUR EPOCH

the names of the distinguished Stakhanovites of our industry and agriculture, masters of high labor productivity. It is no accident that it was precisely in the Stakhanovite movement that Comrade Stalin saw the ways of overcoming the opposition between physical and mental labor.

Tirelessly concerned that people of science should understand the paths of social development, that they should consciously and voluntarily serve the people to whom the future belongs, Comrade Stalin, with particular force, set before scientific cadres the task of mastering Marxist-Leninist science: “But there is one branch of science, knowledge of which must be obligatory for Bolsheviks in all branches of science—this is the Marxist-Leninist science of society, of the laws of development of society, of the laws of development of the proletarian revolution, of the laws of development of socialist construction, of the victory of communism. For one cannot consider a person who calls himself a Leninist to be a real Leninist if he has shut himself up in his specialty, shut himself up, let us say, in mathematics, botany, or chemistry, and sees nothing beyond his specialty. A Leninist cannot be only a specialist in his chosen branch of science—he must at the same time be a political and public figure, keenly interested in the fate of his country, acquainted with the laws of social development, able to make use of these laws, and striving to be an active participant in the political leadership of the country” (Stalin, Report to the Eighteenth Party Congress, Problems of Leninism, 11th ed., pp. 598–599). These instructions of Comrade Stalin are regarded by Soviet scientists as the most important and necessary condition of their successful scientific activity, as a pledge of the creation of advanced science.

Comrade Stalin teaches people of science Bolshevik partisanship in science, irreconcilability toward the enemies of Marxism-Leninism, teaches them to recognize, behind supposedly scientific objectivism, the expression of alien class interests. Comrade Stalin rendered great assistance to philosophers in exposing and routing the Menshevik idealism hostile to Bolshevism. Comrade Stalin revealed the objectivist errors in G. F. Aleksandrov’s textbook History of Western European Philosophy, in which the author appears “as a preacher of toothless vegetarianism with regard to philosophical opponents” (Zhdanov), and in which Marxism was not presented as a discovery, as a revolution in philosophy.

Comrade Stalin supports everything advanced in science and directs it along the only correct, materialist path. Guided by the ideas of Comrade Stalin, men of science routed reactionary Weismannism-Morganism and cleared the way for the flourishing of advanced Michurinist biology.

The merit of the Soviet Michurinists, headed by T. D. Lysenko, consists in the fact that they understood that the struggle between Weismannism-Morga-

...and Michurin biology are not “academic” disputes, but the expression of a struggle between two opposing ideologies, between the ideologies of socialism and capitalism, that is, the struggle between the old and the new, between the moribund and the developing.

They drew for biology the conclusion from Lenin’s and Stalin’s teaching on the connection between theory and practice. The strength of the Michurin doctrine consists in the fact that it developed together with the development of socialist agriculture, that it is closely linked with the collective farms and state farms, that it elaborated theoretical problems by solving practically important tasks of socialist agriculture. Only on the basis of the close connection of biological theory with collective-farm and state-farm practice could such a powerful advanced doctrine as Michurin biology grow up.

The strength of the Michurin doctrine further consists in the fact that it transforms biology from a science explaining nature, such as, for example, pre-Michurin Darwinism was, into a science transforming nature. Such an understanding of the role of science lies at the foundation of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.

The Michurin doctrine showed the necessity of intensifying the struggle against all “theories” that set limits to man’s cognition and alteration of nature. The Michurinites routed the Weismannist-Morganist notions of chance, which allegedly reigns in biology; by asserting the dominance in nature of accidents that exclude regularity and the necessary connection of phenomena, the idealists justify agnosticism, positivism in science, which merely records facts after they have occurred, and does not reveal the necessary, law-governed connection of facts and does not predict them.

Bourgeois ideologists strive to instill the idea of man’s impotence before the phenomena of nature and society. Marxism-Leninism teaches that man, on the contrary, is capable of knowing and changing the world. Comrade Stalin teaches that a science which does not give practice a clear prospect, the power of orientation, and confidence in the attainment of practical aims is not worthy of being called science. Science is the enemy of accidents. Nature is not an accidental heap of objects unrelated to one another. Comrade Stalin writes: “In contrast to metaphysics, dialectics regards nature not as an accidental accumulation of objects, of phenomena, torn from one another, isolated from one another and independent of one another, but as a connected and integral whole, where objects and phenomena are organically connected with one another, depend on one another and condition one another” (Stalin, Questions of Leninism, 11th ed., p. 536). The phenomena of social life are just as law-governed. It is precisely upon the fact of the existence in the phenomena of social life of objective regularities, upon the cognition of these regularities, that Comrade Stalin’s brilliant forecasts are based; upon this is based the possibility of changing and reorganizing society by the working class.

Soviet physics, in its ideological armament, is the foremost physics in the world; it is guided by the objectively true, scientific theory of knowledge developed in the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. It sees its task in the cognition of the properties of objective nature, for the purpose of changing it in the interests of man, and it knows that there are no barriers to this cognition, however new the area of nature under investigation may be.

The Party and the government, Comrade Stalin, have created all the conditions for the development and rapid progress of Soviet physics.

The many-thousand-strong army of Soviet physicists is responding to this concern with an upsurge of creative forces, with significant results in all fields of physical science, raising it to the highest level.

American businessmen and diplomats only quite recently based their calculations on the fact that, having gathered in their laboratories scarcely less than all the physicists of Western Europe and America, the United States had left the science of the country of socialism far behind in the most urgent and important field—in the field of obtaining atomic energy. But the short-sighted calculations of the warmongers, calculated on the weakness of our physical sciences, were smashed to smithereens: Soviet science had long since mastered atomic energy.

Soviet physicists have made discoveries of decisive importance in the field of nuclear physics and cosmic-ray physics. They laid the foundation for modern ideas about the structure of atomic nuclei and about nuclear forces, as well as the foundations of the theory of the fission of atomic nuclei; they experimentally established the existence of spontaneous fission of uranium; they discovered the phenomenon of nuclear isomerism and investigated the most essential aspects of this problem. Soviet physicists made the most important discovery in cosmic rays of an entire family of elementary particles having various masses, up to masses exceeding the mass of the proton (varitrons); this discovery compels an entirely new approach to the problem of the nature of nuclear forces—the most important problem of nuclear physics. They established the explosions of atomic nuclei under the action of cosmic rays, detected in cosmic rays narrow showers and particles causing the explosions of atomic nuclei, developed fruitful ideas about the origin of cosmic rays and the cascade theory of showers, and significantly improved the methodology for investigating cosmic rays and nuclear processes (Skobeltsyn’s method, the method of thick-layer photographic plates, automatic apparatus for the study of cosmic rays in the upper layers of the atmosphere, etc.).

Not a few outstanding discoveries have been made by Soviet physicists in the field of optics. Thus, one of the most important discoveries in the physics of the twentieth century is the discovery of the combination scattering of light; it has great theoretical significance for the study of the structure of molecules and has also found broad practical application as a powerful method of molecular spectral analysis. Soviet physicists discovered and explained the phenomenon of electron radiation, equal—

...uniformly moving in a medium with a velocity exceeding the phase velocity of light. Soviet physicists are responsible for fundamental works proving the quantum nature of the photoelectric effect. They also discovered quantum fluctuations of visible light—one of the most vivid proofs of the corpuscular nature of light. The investigations of Soviet physicists in the field of fluorescence, both in gases and in condensed systems, are of outstanding importance. Studies of fluorescence in gases and vapors not only shed light on the nature of the optical excitation of atoms and molecules, but also enabled Soviet physicists to disclose the mechanism of elementary photochemical processes. The extensive investigations of the Soviet school of physicists in the field of fluorescence in solutions and in solids are of outstanding theoretical and practical importance in the development of new phosphors for luminescent lamps, in the development of methods of fluorescent analysis, etc. In the Soviet Union the hyperfine structure of optical spectra, connected with the influence of the nucleus on the motion of electrons, was discovered for the first time.

Of very great importance, from both the practical and theoretical points of view, are the studies carried out by Soviet scientists on the phenomena of light scattering in turbid media.

Through the work of the Soviet school of physicists, an extensive new chapter of the theory of oscillations has been created—the theory of nonlinear oscillations, which is of outstanding scientific interest and of enormous practical significance in electrical engineering, aeronautics, and the theory of automatic control. In the doctrine of the propagation of radio waves, Soviet physicists likewise opened a new chapter, thanks to the development and application of methods of radio interference, which have received important practical applications (radio range-finders, radio altimeters, radio-interference methods in geodesy and navigation). Soviet physicists are also responsible for the most rigorous theory of the propagation of radio waves over the earth’s surface.

The works of Soviet physicists and physical chemists on the kinetics of chemical processes are exceptionally important. They developed the theory of chain reactions, which is of great significance for the theory of combustion and explosions.

Important work has also been carried out in the field of low-temperature physics, in which a number of fundamentally new phenomena have been discovered and investigated (the superfluidity of helium, “second sound” in helium) and their theory has been given.

Soviet works on the theory of magnetism made it possible to improve electrical machines and served as the basis for the creation of a new type of flaw detection—magnetic flaw detection of metal products.

Soviet physics has achieved major results in elucidating the mechanism of molecular processes occurring in metals, glasses, polymers, etc., during their melting or processing. These works have such substantial significance that they make it possible to accelerate and improve...

...to begin technological processes of treatment, to create materials with predetermined properties.

Thus, Soviet physicists elucidated the nature of martensitic and austenitic transformations in metals, investigated the processes of crystallization of metals, the phenomena of diffusion, and also metal fatigue; these studies enabled our plants to create armor of first-class quality, dynamo iron, magnetic steel, and light alloys. The investigations of Soviet physicists and physical chemists helped our industry to create synthetic rubber, frost-resistant rubber, heat-resistant escapon, ideally insulating styrol, and elegaz with high electrical strength. Materials with extremely high dielectric permeability have been created and introduced into practice, having great importance in electrical engineering and especially in radio engineering. Methods have been developed for controlling the process of melting optical glass with predetermined optical properties. Methods of spectral analysis and apparatus for rapid control of the composition of metallic alloys have been developed, now widely introduced in the metallurgical and metalworking industries. In posing and solving all these problems, Soviet physicists blazed pioneering paths and advanced science and technology far forward.

Soviet physicists occupy leading positions in the field of instrument-making. It is known that the first radiolocation devices were created in the USSR. In the Soviet Union the idea of modern particle accelerators for nuclear reactions—betatrons, synchrotrons, and phasotrons—was first developed; many devices of a new type have been designed, for example anaberrational (meniscus) optical systems, radio range-finders; vacuum photoelements of record sensitivity have been created, used in sound cinema, automation, and telecontrol; interferometers for monitoring the machining of surfaces; the most luminous spectrographs; rectifiers; original photoelectronic multipliers; achromatic objectives for ultraviolet microscopes have been built, and a method of color transformation in ultraviolet microscopy has been developed, which is of great importance for biology and metallurgy, and so on and so forth.

There is neither the possibility nor the need to enumerate all the achievements of Soviet physics, fostered by the Soviet government, the Party, and Comrade Stalin.

One may say with pride that Soviet physics, in developing concrete physical problems, follows its own original paths; that its achievements are not isolated, they cover a broad front of all branches of physics and characterize the high class of Soviet physics, and the rapid and powerful growth of its cadres. Soviet physicists are now equal to any scientific task that the Party and Comrade Stalin may set before them.

The achievements of Soviet physicists by no means signify that all problems have been solved by them. Comrade Stalin teaches Soviet people not to become conceited...

...to be content with what has been achieved, one must continuously raise the demands placed upon oneself. The building of communism and the struggle for peace against the instigators of war set before the Soviet people ever new and enormous tasks. From this arise the demands of the people and of Comrade Stalin upon men of science. It is necessary tirelessly and continuously to multiply the successes of Soviet physics. It is necessary, with the passion of Bolsheviks, to struggle for the fulfillment of Comrade Stalin’s instructions, for the embodiment in life of his wise teaching.

Comrade Stalin and the Party, in their decisions and instructions on ideological questions, teach Soviet people to struggle against ideological laxity and apolitical attitudes in all fields of ideological activity, against bowing before foreign bourgeois culture, against quasi-objectivism, and for a militant Bolshevik party-mindedness.

Soviet physicists follow these instructions of the Party, the instructions of Comrade Stalin.

Soviet scientists remember the fundamental opposition between progressive, socialist ideology and reactionary, capitalist ideology. The ideology by which a particular science is guided determines its successes or failures, its forward advance or its stagnation. Advanced Marxist-Leninist philosophy is the foundation for the unprecedented growth of our science, for the successful and rapid solution of the task set by Comrade Stalin—to surpass, in the near future, the achievements of science beyond the borders of our country. Soviet physics is successfully solving this task. Foreign physics in the capitalist countries is undergoing a continuous ideological crisis; its development is fettered by the pseudoscientific “theories of physical knowledge,” created in great numbers by bourgeois schools, in which the existence of objective reality is denied, the possibilities of knowing microphenomena are restricted, and the study of the objective properties of nature is replaced by the study of the “procedure of measurement.” Foreign theoreticians drag into physics absurd, antiscientific little ideas to the effect that individual processes in the microworld are absolutely random and causally unconditioned, thereby undermining the very foundations of science.

Is it fitting for Soviet scientists, guided by the most advanced theory of Marxism-Leninism, possessing every condition for the rapid advancement of physical science, and having achieved serious successes in all its fields, to bow their heads before reactionary foreign theories!

The foremost Soviet scientist-patriots are filled with a feeling of deep gratitude to Comrade Stalin, who helped to dispel the spirit of servility, to show in its true greatness the creative genius of our people, and to cultivate a sense of dignity in the Soviet citizen.

Yet the vice of servility has not yet been completely eliminated among certain physicists; some still regard foreign theoreticians as their model; some, in their works, out of considerations of personal sympathies and antipathies, are prepared to pass over in silence the works of Soviet scientists, but...

...to note the names of foreign scientists, thereby objectively damaging the priority of Soviet science. Among some people, individual achievements of foreign physics serve as grounds for overestimating the level of development of foreign physics and underestimating the level of Soviet physics.

Soviet physicists, in all their activity, must display irreconcilability and passion in the struggle against reactionary pseudo-teachings; they must, along the whole front, counterpose Soviet physics to the physics of the bourgeois schools. It must be remembered that idealism in the theories of foreign physicists is not a chance “appendage” to physical theory, not the result of fantasies; idealism is expressed in the method of approach to knowledge, to the object of knowledge—nature, and this means that physical idealists build the physical theories themselves on an idealist foundation. This obliges us to investigate thoroughly the question of what in the physical theories of foreign schools is a reflection of the objective laws of nature, and what is (to use Lenin’s apt expression) a one-sided transformation of a fragment of the curve of cognition into a straight line leading into the swamp of idealism.

Learning from Comrade Stalin irreconcilability toward the enemies of materialism, Soviet physicists must smash the numerous reactionary idealist schools in physics flourishing abroad, show that they distort and obscure the essence of the achievements of contemporary physics, and are a brake on the path of its development.

The need has ripened for Soviet physicists to master the materialist theory of knowledge still more deeply, to comprehend the achievements of contemporary physics from the standpoint of dialectical materialism. The performance of this work will make it possible to appraise these achievements more deeply, to encompass them in a single integral theory, to move physics forward at a more rapid pace, to raise Soviet physics to an immeasurably higher level, and to improve the training of new cadres.

In our pedagogical practice, as also in physics textbooks for higher educational institutions, there still persists “academic” objectivism, under the guise of which idealist theories of knowledge are often smuggled in. It is high time to create physics textbooks in which the presentation of the subject would be permeated by the Marxist-Leninist worldview. The issue is not one of changing individual formulations in textbooks or supplementing them with reservations; it is necessary that the very subject of physics be expounded in the light of Lenin’s theory of knowledge.

Physics is one of the mighty means of developing the productive forces of society, which must attain unprecedented expansion under communism, now being brought to life by the Soviet people. Soviet physicists must still more actively join in the solution of practically important tasks of the national economy. Physical theory too will benefit from this, for only that theory is fruitful and vital which has been born in the course of solving practical tasks, which is aimed not at contemplation but at the active transformation of the world. The presence in some institutes of completed works not introduced into practice...

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scientific work testifies to the still-existing separation of these institutes and individual scientists from the practical tasks of socialist construction, to the work of certain scientists “for the archives.” The strength of a Soviet scientist lies in the fusion of his labor with the labor of the people. We must continually learn from Comrade Stalin how, in his revolutionary activity, he brings about the unity of theory and practice.

The Soviet physical community, learned councils, scientific departments and seminars, and the scientific press must more boldly and more widely apply the method of Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism developed in the works of Comrade Stalin. Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism must help overcome shortcomings in the development of Soviet physics: the danger of separation from practice, a disdainful attitude toward innovation, and the striving to establish a monopoly in science—traits characteristic of certain conservatives in science. It must expose the enemies of Soviet ideology, help individual Soviet physicists overcome their wavering in the appraisal of the “theories of physical knowledge” fabricated by foreign schools, and strengthen our struggle against idealistic foreign theories in physics. Criticism and self-criticism will help Soviet physicists find the right paths in science and will promote the development of Soviet physics as a whole.

Soviet physics is on the rise. This is evidenced by the growth of its concrete achievements and by the growth of the theoretical level of its cadres. Even now we have, and in the near future will have still more, attempts to interpret in our own way, from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, the problems of modern physics. It is necessary to give comradely assistance to every serious undertaking in this direction, to discuss and not reject out of hand the search for new paths merely because they run counter to established traditions—often traditions that have come from abroad—or because they have particular shortcomings or are insufficiently developed. Comrade Stalin teaches us that science ceases to be science if it follows traditions and loses the feeling for the new. Advanced ideas in Soviet science can and must develop in an atmosphere of support from the entire Soviet scientific community.

Such are the most general conclusions that Soviet physicists draw for themselves from the teaching of our great leader Comrade Stalin and from the instructions of our Party.

Soviet science responds to the leader’s concern with new successes. The commonwealth of people of science with the leading people of industry and agriculture is growing stronger, yielding remarkable results in raising labor productivity. Our scientific institutions, headed by the headquarters of Soviet science—the Academy of Sciences of the USSR—have firmly embarked upon the path of strengthening the connection of science with production, of subordinating scientific-research plans to practical

tasks of socialist construction. The Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, now awarded the Order of Lenin, headed by the bold innovator in agricultural science T. D. Lysenko, is an example of the close connection between men of science and the advanced collective farms; it is successfully carrying out the government’s assignments in the struggle against drought, in introducing the grass-field system, and in developing livestock breeding.

Summing up the successes of the Soviet people in all fields of the socialist national economy and culture, Comrade Malenkov, in his report on the 32nd anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, noted also the significant successes achieved in the field of science.

Soviet science, nurtured by Comrade Stalin, is the most advanced in the world. Science in the capitalist world—whether physics, or medicine, or philosophy—serves the selfish interests of the financial monopolies, the cause of oppressing peoples, the cause of war. Soviet science has raised high the banner of progress. It is bound by blood ties to its people; it serves the noblest cause—the cause of building communism, of building the people’s happiness. “Soviet science,” says Comrade Malenkov, “is directed toward serving the cause of peace and the prosperity of our Motherland. If atomic energy in the hands of the imperialists is a source for the production of deadly weapons, a means of intimidation, an instrument of blackmail and violence, then in the hands of Soviet people it can and must serve as a mighty means of technical progress hitherto unseen, of the further rapid growth of the productive forces of our country.”

The people of Soviet science are inspired by the image of the Great Stalin, the brilliant luminary of science, boldly leading the struggle against obsolete traditions in science, laying the path for a new, advanced science—a science placed at the service of the people, for the building of their bright future. It is not for nothing that in the Soviet land the best people of science proudly bear the title of laureates of the Stalin Prize.

Soviet scholars will spare no effort in fulfilling any task set by their beloved leader.

On this significant anniversary—the 70th year since the birth of Comrade Stalin—Soviet scholars, together with the entire people, with a feeling of deep love and devotion, proclaim:

— Long may he live and be well, for many years, for the happiness of the people, our great teacher and friend, Joseph Vissarionovich STALIN!