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SCIENCE and education in the Soviet Union are in such a disastrous state
that the future of the Soviet Union is under threat, according to the resolutions
of the recent Congress of the country’s ruling Communist Party. According
to the Congress, leaders of the Party have failed to implement science programmes
and the reform of higher education.

The scientific and academic community is riddled with nihilism, apathy
and mistrust of the Party, and the brain drain of talented scholars leaving
the country poses an ‘especial danger’, said the resolutions.

To help remedy the situation, the Congress called for the establishment
of a special commission of the Central Committee to deal with issues of
science, education and culture, and proposed a number of ‘aims and principles’
for the science and education policy of the Party.

These began with a call for the raising of the ‘status of science and
the prestige of scientific work in the community and the state’.

The Congress identifies the main shortcomings of science as rigid centralised
government controls; neglect of basic research; restrictions on international
cooperation; and a failure to integrate Soviet science into the world scientific
community. The Congress called for ‘freedom of scientific creativity’, autonomy
for research teams, higher pay for scientists and academics (with pay related
to their results), and ‘competition between scientific schools’. The final
demand alludes to media reports that senior academicians had blocked promising
research contradicting the establishment position.

The Congress also condemned leading scientists whose ‘lack of responsibility’
had contributed to the Chernobyl disaster. The scientists’ insistence on
the ‘absolute safety of nuclear power’ had meant that there were no contingency
plans to deal with such an emergency, while the ‘prolonged and unjustified
secrecy’ imposed after the accident (in which the scientists at least tacitly
concurred) had exposed the public to unnecessary risk.

Delegates to the Congress called for documents on responsibility for
the disaster and the subsequent cover-up to be delivered to the public prosecutor.