Ideology and practice of planning fundamental research in the USSR (1920-1930)

Analysis of government regulation of the academic sphere in the USSR is a highly relevant area of research, enabling identification of the positive and negative aspects of the Soviet scientific model. The purpose of the study is to identify the main patterns of the transition to directive planning of academic science in the RSFSR/USSR in the 1920s - 1930s. In the context of this transformation of Soviet academic science, it is important to consider not only the institutional decisions of the authorities, but also the socio-psychological, as well as ideological motives that determined this transformation, which influenced the operation of the scientific community. This task methodologically required an interdisciplinary approach to its solution. This analysis is at the intersection of several related areas of research: history of science, science studies, and history of economics. The work employed comparative-historical, historical-cultural, and statistical methods to identify significant patterns of the phenomenon being studied. Methodologically, this is close to source studies and semiotic analysis. Concepts formed and institutionalized in the paradigm of directive planning of basic science - “scientist”, “thematic plan”, “thematic development”, “research plant” - form a contextual layer. The planning of basic science was conceived by its ideologists as a product of the industrial world. But, paradoxically, the ideology and methodology of directive planning implanted in theoretical science gave the opposite results - epistemological apathy of scientists, reduction, if not extinction, of huge areas of research activities. The state's attempt to adapt basic science to address strictly applied problems of industrialization ultimately resulted in a mere semblance of “planned science”. However, the internal compensation mechanisms of self-organization of the scientific community turned out to be quite effective in a long-term perspective, even under the conditions of “directive planning”. The conducted historical analysis allows us to draw significant conclusions in the context of the formation of Russian scientific policy at the present stage.