INDUSTRIAL ASSIMILATION OF ACHIEVEMENTS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Yu. A. TONKIKH

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Political Economy)

Among the determining factors in solving the chief economic task of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, a special place is assigned to the accelerated assimilation of scientific and technical achievements in material production. The draft Directives of the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU on the five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1971–1975 single out, as the principal tasks for improving the system of industrial assimilation of scientific and technical achievements, the following:

1. To plan all stages of scientific-research and design work, up to and including the introduction of their results into production.

2. To develop a system of organizational and economic measures for assimilating and introducing new technology into production within compressed time frames.

3. To strengthen the effectiveness of the system of material incentives for the creation and introduction of advanced technology.

4. To raise the role of cost accounting in the activity of scientific-research and design organizations with the aim of increasing the efficiency of scientific-research work and accelerating the introduction of scientific developments into production. (See Pravda, February 14, 1971.)

An analysis of these measures makes it possible to conclude that, as one of the principal means of accelerating scientific and technical progress and effectively using its results in material production, the Party puts forward the use, in the process of organizing scientific and technical activity, of the economic regularities governing the development of modern socialist production.

The overwhelming part of the growth of national income has as its necessary prerequisite, at the present time, successes in the sphere of scientific and technological activity. New machinery, advanced technology, and the organization of production increase the efficiency of human labor precisely because they embody man’s productive mastery of the forces of nature. “Appearing in the form of machinery,” wrote K. Marx in Capital, “the instruments of labor acquire such a material form of existence as conditions the replacement of human force by forces of nature and of empirical routine methods by the conscious application of natural science”¹. The conscious application of natural science creates unprecedented possibilities for raising labor productivity.

In developing the problems of the industrial assimilation of the results of scientific research, it is necessary to take into account that the connection of science with production at the present time is not homogeneous. Particular branches and forms of research are directly included in production. But there also exist scientific investigations that continue, as before, to create only the general conditions for the development of production. Both the former and the latter kinds of research continue to develop within the sphere of scientific knowledge. Only this sphere itself becomes more complex. One part of it continues to remain informational activity; another, while retaining informational significance, at the same time becomes productive activity. In organizational terms, the transformation of science into a direct productive force creates the conditions for the separation, within the sphere of research activity, of those branches of science and forms of research that are undertaken for the direct improvement of production.

These scientific investigations, while continuing to remain part of the scientific sphere, become a distinctive branch of material production. Within science this branch takes shape as its structural part, while it enters production as its functional part. Moreover, scientific activity that directly serves the needs of production itself becomes economic activity. The relations of this activity must be considered as economic relations and, consequently, as the objective basis for developing organizational measures for the social regulation of this scientific activity.

A significant shortcoming of the views currently widespread concerning the essence of the industrial assimilation of science, in our opinion, is that they proceed from the assimilation by production only of the results of scientific activity—ready-made scientific knowledge. Science becomes a force of production when scientific knowledge becomes the worker’s production knowledge and is realized in the means of production. In this case, science as a whole appears only as an object of productive use. But science is also a subject—a sphere of scientific activity; in this capacity it also enters into production. Scientific knowledge is materialized not simply in individual elements of the productive forces, but in the process of the productive movement of the productive forces, in the activity of generating and using knowledge. Therefore the industrial assimilation of science is not simply the realization of its product in material means and human knowledge, but its continuous recreation in both the one and the other; that is, an activity in which material

and spiritual factors. The question of whether science is a productive force by its very nature receives an affirmative answer only if we recognize a definite activity as science. If scientific activity, at a certain stage of social development, becomes a necessary component part of production activity, then science under these conditions necessarily becomes a productive force, and the relations of scientific activity become economic relations.

The problem of the development of production relations under conditions in which science is being transformed into a direct productive force has two interrelated aspects. First, the formation and development of the economic relations of scientific activity itself; second, the change in the economic relations of direct production associated with the inclusion in them of relations of scientific production. In our opinion, the point should be precisely the inclusion of the economic relations of science in the system of reproduction². The economic relations of science in real life, of course, cannot constitute some isolated link in the system of the production relations of society. A separate consideration of these relations is legitimate only within the limits in which it is necessary for revealing their specific features.

The starting point in characterizing the economic relations of scientific production should be the concept of scientific activity or, if one is speaking of science as a whole, the concept of science as a special type of social activity. Being one of the forms of human activity, science cannot fail to give rise to corresponding relations as well. The general characterization and system of these relations have been developed by A. B. Nikolaev³.

At the basis of the relations of scientific activity lies the relation of people to nature (in the natural sciences) and to society (in the social sciences), appearing in the form of people’s cognition of the laws of development of nature and society. These relations are realized in the process of scientific labor, which at the same time also gives rise to relations among people. Already in these relations, relatively independent of social conditions, one can discover those features which subsequently manifest themselves at the level of production relations. The labor relations of science include the exchange of the results of activity among scientists, the basis of which is the specialization and cooperation of scientific labor. The cooperation of scientific labor presupposes the development of ties among scientists working within a scientific collective, on the one hand, and those engaged in scientific research independently, on the other. In the development of forms of cooperation of scientific labor, such specific features of science as universality and continuity are of particular importance.

K. Marx called science the product of general historical development in its abstract form. In Volume III of Capital, characterizing scientific labor, he writes: “A distinction should be made between universal labor and communal labor. Both play their part in the process of production, each passes over into the other, but there is also a difference between them. Universal labor is all scientific labor, every discovery, every invention. It is condi—

is partly the cooperation of contemporaries, partly the use of the labor of predecessors”^4).

Only by considering scientific labor as universal can one understand the peculiarities of its cooperation. Every discovery and invention is based on a large amount of prior work, to which many scientists contribute. Social labor in the sphere of science takes the form of universal labor—the cooperation of the labor of contemporaries and the use of the labor of predecessors. This creates a special relationship between individual labor in the sphere of science and social labor. If in any branch of material production individual labor has its own significance, then scientific labor is possible only as successive labor, on the basis of preceding labor. Even when a scientist creates an entirely new direction in science, his labor is based on preceding labor. Therefore the cooperation of labor in science develops on a broader basis than the cooperation of labor in material production. Cooperation within a scientific collective is directly supplemented by cooperation throughout all of science; the individual labor of the scientist directly acquires the features of social labor.

In the process of scientific labor, certain material means are used: various research equipment, installations, instruments, and materials. These means occupy an especially large place at present in the natural sciences. A situation has now arisen in which, in a whole number of branches of the natural sciences, the technical equipment of the scientist significantly surpasses the technical equipment of the worker in the branches of material production, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The expansion and improvement of the technical means of scientific research undoubtedly also affects the development of the relations of scientific activity. For example, the need to use large and costly installations in contemporary physical research to a significant extent determines the development of cooperation of labor in this field of knowledge. The enlargement of technology in this case gives rise to the need for the concentration of research activity, the enlargement of scientific collectives, and, accordingly, the complication of ties among scientific workers. The enlargement of research technology in individual branches of science leads to a restructuring of the sectoral structure of research. At present, many countries are generally unable independently to develop research in the most costly areas of physics, as well as space research. This stimulates the development of interstate cooperation in scientific research.

The formation of the relations of scientific activity is also influenced by the specific properties of the product of scientific research. The direct product of science consists of scientific ideas in the form of new discoveries, inventions, and developments. The basic defining feature of scientific creativity, which must be taken into account when characterizing the particularities of the scientific product, is the non-reproducibility and probabilistic character of its results. Scientific creativity presupposes the production of new knowledge, the discovery and development of previously unknown regularities of nature and society. This circumstance affects, in particular, the character of the reproduction of the material means of scientific

^4) K. Marx and F. Engels, Archive, vol. II (VII), p. 159.

activity. The conditions for the reproduction of research technology depend on the extent to which this technology corresponds to continuously renewing scientific production. What is new in its aims and methods, research requires the renewal of the technical means by which it is carried out. Under these conditions, the moral depreciation of research technology acquires special significance.

The product of scientific research by no means always fully corresponds to the tasks for whose solution the given research is undertaken. The result of research activity may be an entirely new product not planned in the program of a particular study. The history of science knows many cases when major discoveries, in relation to the aims of a given study, were accidental in character. In the course of scientific research a negative result may also be obtained. And although such a result has its place in the logic of the progressive development of scientific knowledge, in itself it does not remove the problem posed for the given study. This problem may prove solvable through the use of other means and methods. Finally, scientific research does not exclude the possibility that false directions will arise, directions in general incapable of yielding any socially useful result. Therefore, in a number of cases repeated and parallel studies are justified, and there arises the need to coordinate them on the scale of an individual scientific institution, a scientific organization, and society as a whole.

The appropriation and use of the material conditions of scientific activity and of the scientific product within the framework of a definite form of property is the prerequisite for the emergence and operation, in the sphere of science, of production relations.⁴ By itself, the movement of material means and the creation of a definite product in the sphere of scientific activity, of course, does not yet create production relations. In order for the relations of scientific activity in the appropriation and use of its material means and product to become the basis for the emergence of production relations in science, scientific activity must be transformed into a component part of production activity, must be directly included in the creation of material goods. Only the transformation of science into a direct productive force makes it possible to create such conditions under which science, without losing its significance as spiritual activity, at the same time becomes material activity as well. This participation is realized in the improvement of technology, techniques, and the organization of production, and in raising the level of the worker’s general and specialized training. The improvement of production becomes a direct function of science and at the same time an essential characteristic feature of production itself. Under these conditions the labor of the scientific worker becomes a form of productive labor, and the scientist becomes part of the aggregate productive worker.

The features of scientific cognition indicated above manifest themselves in the production relations of scientific activity.

Thus, in developing a system of incentives in the sphere of scientific activity, one cannot fail to take into account such a feature of science as the probabilistic character of its results. If the incentive system is built only on the basis of obtaining, in the course of research,

ahead of the planned result, then in that case the scientific institution’s non-interest may encompass potentially promising but, at the given moment, insufficiently assimilated areas of science. Methods of stimulation come into conflict with the need to renew scientific interests, encouraging the preservation of obsolete directions that provide a modest but reliable result.

In the process of being transformed into a direct productive force, a scientific idea passes through several stages. Each stage of this process—which is, at its foundation, the movement of a scientific idea from its inception to its embodiment in production—has its own economic conditions, in many respects similar but also differing. These stages are as follows: scientific discovery (fundamental science), invention (applied science), the technical embodiment of the invention (the development of a new machine, a new technology, a new method), and the assimilation of the product of the entire preceding process by functioning production (implementation). In a particular case one or another of these links may prove unnecessary, but in general this sequence of passage from a scientific idea to a production result is preserved. Each stage of this process has a natural-scientific basis. But since the whole process takes place under definite social conditions, within the framework of definite property relations, it also gives rise to corresponding production relations, to the extent that science is transformed into a direct productive force.

From the economic standpoint, bearing in mind the multistage character of the movement from scientific idea to production result, the following must be noted. At each stage there exists a particular correlation between natural-scientific and economic conditions. Therefore, for the social regulation of the entire process, it is important that the economic measures undertaken at each stage reflect the specific character of research work at each of the stages and its continuity from one stage to the next. Thus, the tasks of economic stimulation at the invention stage must be resolved with due regard for the specificity of this work, and at the same time they must correspond to stimulation at the stage of machine development, and then at the stage of introducing the machine into production. A chain of economic connections arises, reflecting the reproductive unity of the given economy, but at the same time superimposed upon the specific scientific activity with its differing stages.

The rapid and effective introduction of scientific achievements into production requires such a system of economic actions as would reflect the reproductive unity of the economic regularities operating in this sphere and would be sufficiently flexible to take account of the specificity of scientific development at each stage. The resolution of this contradiction is, in essence, the process of introducing the results of scientific research into production.

The gap between the potential capabilities of science and the actual application of its results in production, the sharpening of the problem of introducing the results of scientific research into production, is now forcing a search for new forms of combining scientific and production activity. In recent times practice has attempted to solve this urgent problem in various ways. One of the most widespread is the path of linking science and production by developing scientific research direc-

to be introduced into production and are organizationally connected with a particular production facility. Put more simply, the idea of carrying out factory-based scientific research in order to bring it closer to concrete production and thereby ease the difficulties of implementation has become very popular. This form of linking science with production is discussed and promoted quite widely, chiefly in the form of the experience of individual enterprises that solve, in this way, on-site problems of the technical improvement of their production.

As an example one may cite the article by P. Malofeev, director of Uralmashzavod, “Uralmash Sets an Example,” which describes the experience of this enterprise in combining scientific and production activity⁵. In this case there is no reason to doubt the usefulness, for individual enterprises, of such a method of carrying out scientific and technological progress, or its local effectiveness. But when evaluating the method as a whole, the question must be posed more broadly, on the scale of social production: to what extent does this method of linking science with production correspond to the contemporary conditions of scientific and technological development?

In answering this question one must not lose sight of the chief shortcoming of the method. It consists in the decentralization of the scientific process under this mode of organizing the development and use of science. This creates additional difficulties not only in coordinating research from the standpoint of the development of science itself, but also in the public utilization of the generally significant results of scientific creativity. In essence, the task of coordination has not yet been solved even at the level of the academic and branch organization of science. A relative expansion of the share of research at enterprises would aggravate it still further, transferring it from the level of society and the branch to the level of the individual enterprise.

In a certain respect, the method under consideration for bringing science and production practice closer together is at present a forced one, since theory and practice have not yet provided sufficiently perfected methods corresponding to the nature of scientific creativity and, at the same time, to the level of socialization of production. In this sense the spread of production research is justified, since it is to some extent capable of improving the use of scientific results in production. But it would be wrong to elevate concrete, historically formed conditions to the rank of generally applicable ones corresponding to the needs of development.

The organizational division of scientific activity within the sphere of scientific research, under conditions in which science is being transformed into a direct productive force, must correspond to two most important requirements. First, it must ensure the unity of the scientific process on the scale of the whole of society; second, it must link scientific research to the solution of concrete production tasks. From this point of view, an analysis of the principal legal acts of the Soviet government regulating scientific activity is of interest.

In essence, these decrees provide a detailed answer to the question of what policy the Soviet government is currently pursuing in resolving the problem of the relationship between the main sectors of scientific activity and the principal ways of introducing scientific work into production⁶. The essence of this policy is the development of scientific production under conditions in which independent research institutions and organizations establish links with scientific institutions and enterprises interested in using scientific products, on a contractual basis. That is, the participation of enterprises and organizations in research activity is defined as their participation in providing independent research institutions with the monetary and material resources necessary for carrying out scientific work. Such a path for the development and use of scientific achievements is at present, undoubtedly, the most acceptable. It combines elements of centralization of scientific research with encouragement of the activity of independent major scientific institutions, which is more easily subject to coordination than the scientific activity of individual enterprises. Most importantly, it makes the scientific product produced on an individual order basis generally accessible both to production and to science. At the same time, this path combines elements of the concrete practical attachment of research to a particular production operation, to the solution of specific production tasks.

1. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 23, p. 357. ↩

2. See: Yu. A. Tonkikh, “Science in the System of Socialist Reproduction,” in Organization and Effectiveness of the Scientific Work of Students of Higher Educational Institutions, Tomsk, 1967. ↩

3. See: A. B. Nikolaev, “Science in the System of Social Relations,” Voprosy filosofii, 1967, No. 2, pp. 15–26. ↩

4. The term “production relations of scientific activity” belongs to A. B. Nikolaev. See the work by this author cited above. ↩

5. See Pravda, March 28, 1968. ↩

6. See: Resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers of April 1, 1961, “On the Transfer of Sectoral Research and Design Organizations to Economic Accountability.” — SPP USSR, pp. 150–155; resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers of March 22, 1967, “On Changing the Procedure for Planning Expenditures on Research Work and on Expanding the Rights of the Heads of Research Institutions.” — SPP USSR, 1967, No. 9, pp. 230–232; resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers of October 24, 1968, “On Measures to Increase the Effectiveness of the Work of Scientific Organizations and to Accelerate the Use in the National Economy of the Achievements of Science and Technology,” SPP USSR, 1968, No. 18, p. 122. ↩