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Soviet Social Science: The Challenge for the American Academic Community, Summary of a Meeting (1990)

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Background The Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education held a meeting August 24-25, 1989, bringing together interested and knowl- edgeable people to exchange information and to think strategically about how the American social science community can best respond to new op- portunities in the Soviet Union. This summary follows the structure of that meeting: the first section provides background on the history and development of Soviet social science as well as of U.S.-Soviet scholarly exchanges. The next section focuses on current conditions and trends in Soviet social science. The next section summarizes a number of smaller group discussions on more specific topics. The final section addresses the implications of these changes and opportunities for the U.S. social science community. The agenda for the two-day meeting and a list of participants appear at the end of the summary. THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOVIET SOCIAL SCIENCE Blair Ruble, The Kennan Institute Ruble focused on the distinguishing features of Soviet behavioral and social science in the pre-1985 period and on the changes since 1985 in the rules of the game. He identified five organizational characteristics of Soviet social science, four of which distinguished it from U.S. social science. 1. Size of the enterprise. Soviet science involves an enormous invest- ment of people and money tens of thousands of people and thousands of institutions. The data for Soviet science in 1985 showed that there were over 5,000 scientific institutions, including 20 academies, employing 1.5 1

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2 SOVIET SOCIAL SCIENCE million scientific workers, about a third of whom had graduate degrees. A total of 5 percent of the Soviet gross national product was spent on science. Approximately 800,000 science workers were employed in research institu- tions, one-fifth of them in academic institutions and the rest in other state agencies. I~o-thirds of the science workers were employed in the Russian republic, which has 70 percent of the Soviet population. In the social sciences, there were 225,000 workers (compared with 316,000 in the United States). In economics, 35 percent of these had grad- uate degrees; in psychology, 53 percent; in pedagogy (possibly equivalent to educational research), less than 30 percent. By comparison, half of American social science workers have graduate degrees. 2. Hierarchical and centralized character. The structure of Soviet so- cial science has its roots in the 1920s and 1930s, and its development was ruled by bureaucratic logic. The Soviet Academy of Sciences established branches in the capitals of the non-Russian republics in the 1930s, which absorbed the research functions of the local universities. During the period between the 1940s and the early 1960s, these branches became republic academies, and academy branches were created in all the autonomous republics by the mid-1970s. The academic structure was thus tied to the political structure rather than to a system dictated by scientific considera- tions. Higher education followed the same pattern. Central institutions estab- lished branches, which grew into universities; there are now 800 institutions of higher education. This political logic produced a number of anoma- lies. Prestigious scientific research centers in Leningrad were under the organizational direction of Moscow, while full branches of the Academy of Sciences existed in much smaller places, such as Ufa. 3. Influence of e~ra-academ~c considerations. It is well known that research and personnel decisions were strongly influenced by ideology, anti-Semitism, and conformity and that research organizations were open to KGB influence and infiltration to a degree qualitatively different from anything in the United States. 4. Relative isolation. Between the 1920s and 1985, virtually no Soviet social scientists were trained in foreign graduate programs, and there was almost no cross-publication or joint authorship of scientific papers between Soviet scholars and foreigners. Although this isolation has been breaking down since 1985, there are still veIy few opportunities for Soviet citizens to study abroad. In a dramatic break from the past, for the first time, 17 Soviets entered graduate programs in sociology in the United States in fall 1989. 5. Uniforn~i) of research product. Although debates have always existed in Soviet social science, they have been conducted in obscure and

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SOVIET SOCIAL SCIENCE 3 Aesopian language. Public debates were conducted within a very narrow range of acceptable disagreement. Since 1985, the transformation of Soviet political life has been changing social science. Soviet social science is undergoing reorganization from top to bottom. Not only are the changes important in the Soviet context, but they also create opportunities for Americans. One major source of change is self-financing in the Academy of Sci- ences. For example, journal editors now compete for anti-Soviet articles because these increase readership. There is also a scramble for hard cur- rency that has led Soviets to look to U.S. foundations as potential sources of support. These pressures will probably accelerate the onenin~ of Soviet social science to the rest of the world. The new laws legalizing cooperative enterprises are providing a second impetus for change. Under these laws, academic entrepreneurs are orga- nizing consulting firms to do contract research for clients that include even foreign governments. Ruble concluded that, with the shift in emphasis from reliable govern- ment support to self-financing and entrepreneurism, the Soviet scientific behemoth has gone on a crash diet since 1985. The recent changes have created opportunities for normal international interaction between Soviet and Western scholars, although aspects of such relations, such as commu- nication by telephone and telefax, remain very difficult. The changes have also created chaos within the Soviet system. The crumbling of the central- ized system has eliminated the old rules of interaction without creating new ones. This meeting is important because of the pressing need to turn the present chaos into meaningful opportunities. THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF U.S.~OVIET SCHOLARLY EXCHANGES Allen Kassof, International Research and Exchanges Board Kassof distinguished two modes of working with the Soviets. In the anthropological model, a scholar visits a strange tribe of people who claim to be scientists but are not. Scholars may learn from studying these people but do not "do scholarship" with them. Under the "colleagueship" model, people seriously attempt to work together despite their different cultures. It has not always been clear which model applied to U.S. Soviet scholarly exchanges—each model seemed accurate at times, depending on the Soviets involved and on the political climate. Now it appears that in many cases the natives were really scientists dancing behind maslo;, which they have now dropped.

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4 SOVIET SOCIAL SCIENCE Kassof identified the following historical high points in social science contacts: From the mid-1930s until the mid-19SOs, the U.S.S.R. was closed to all foreigners except from Eastern Europe, which has long influenced the Soviet Union. The first group of American fellows went to the U.S.S.R. in 1956 on tourist visas. In 1958, the Inter-University Committee on Ravel Grants was established, and it evolved into the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) in 1968. In the early exchanges, most of the Soviets were expert in technical subjects and almost all the Americans were in the humanities and social sciences. IREX's first Soviet partner was the ministry of higher education; its partnership with the Soviet Academy of Sciences came later. The exchanges produced an underground estab- lishment in the Soviet Union, consisting of people in contact with the U.S. academic community. In the United States, most official and unoffi- cial sources opposed the exchanges, with the exception of the intelligence community, which considered them useful. The IREX Commission on the Humanities and the Social Sciences was established in the early 1970s, creating a legitimate framework for joint wore It grew quickly and eventually established subcommissions in all the participating fields. Thousands of American scholars from Soviet studies and other fields have been involved, creating networks of acquaintances across disciplines. Soviet scholars have shown strength in international relations and se- curity studies and in economics, in which there has been some good work despite the difficulties created by insufficient data. There has been more colleagueship with the Soviets than most Americans expected. Acquain- tances developed in the exchanges that have made possible quick action in the new circumstances, such as arranging for Soviet graduate students to study in the United States. The chief problem now for IREX is funding. It cannot support all the new activities, so other approaches are needed. IREX is in good shape to help define priorities and carry out seed projects. At present, the Soviets feel an urgency about developing the social and policy sciences. They are making a crash effort, and there is a real risk that they will overestimate what social science can accomplish. Although some areas, such-as demography and opinion polling, will have immediate payoffs in terms of gathering information, the search for policy answers is not destined to be fruitful. Although anthropologists may gain understanding of ethnic relations, they will not find solutions to ethnic problems. The Soviets may be looking for answers that are not there, and Americans need to be careful in presenting what social science can do. Americans should consider their long-term interests for the time when "Soviet chic" is behind us. Do we want data for our own research? Soviet techniques we have not yet developed? Influence in Soviet society? And

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SOVIET SOCIAL SCIENCE 5 if we want influence, should we try to gain it through social science? Americans are tempted by the idea that they can train a new generation of Soviet social scientists it is a national desire of ours to tell others (in a friendly way) how to run their lives, and the Soviets are the newest available objects of that desire. But do we want a new generation of leading Soviet thinkers to be identified with the United States? Among the other important issues confronting us is how to make contacts more multilateral in both the West and the East. We also need to do more with the non-Russian republics, yet it is not clear how to divide our efforts among them. Finally, the question of who will pay for the exchanges will be a central problem for current and future projects. Kassof concluded that in dealing with the Soviet Union today, we have a moving target. We need to proceed deliberately, be clear about what we want, and connect disciplinary interests with area interests. DISCUSSION Participants raised a number of ideas during the discussions: · The most important American contribution is standards, because Soviet social science has lost the mechanism for evaluation. Only by establishing standards can the Soviets identify and eliminate mediocrity and lack of expertise. Many of the 250,000 Soviet social scientists are not really social scientists; they study such topics as dialectical materialism and the history of the Soviet Communist Party and are immune to interactions with the outside world. · The most important U.S. contribution would be to teach Soviet social scientists the history of their own fields. · One observer commented that being identified with democratiza- tion is a danger to American social scientists. Many young Soviet sociolo- gists are interested in learning about society in order to help their country (which, for some, may be Estonia rather than the U.S.S.R.~. Although teaching research methods can be democratizing, that should not be our . . mission. · Funding is a great problem, particularly the problem of funding Soviet activities from U.S. sources. The issue relates to the question of whether the U.S. role should be to improve social science or to democratize the Soviet Union. The Soviets often ask the United States for all the money for a project; in one participant's opinion, we should always be asking what we gain from any activity and how it improves our understanding of human behavior. · How multilateral should the exchanges be? What are the benefits and costs of bilateral versus multilateral approaches? In one participant's opinion, although the United States can conduct exchanges by itself, it

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6 SOVIET SOCIAL SCIENCE should try to attach bilateral activities to the relationships developing between Western and Eastern Europe. He noted that, until recently, the Soviets and Eastern Europeans did not want to work together, and the Soviets did not want third parties in U.S.~oviet meetings.

Representative terms from entire chapter:

social scientists