Come! Let’s read and discuss This Soviet World.

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Another fun chapter, with a great many excerpts. The one about delivering a childbirth in particular was very striking to me. I also really liked the anecdote about the locksmith with people taking an interest in science, this sounds lovely and really speaks to the overall mindset of society.

How many times can you say that a chapter shows history hasn’t really changed before it becomes tiring? Because this is yet another chapter.

Today it is Chinese that is becoming the scientific language, it is China that people will be going to, to study more. And again the United States is, well at least starting to, lack in university funds.

There are some that like to say that things have changed, especially in regards to Marxism being old and therefore outdated, but that isn’t the case, and you don’t even need to read and understand Marxism to see that it isn’t true, this book shows it.

Also regarding the suspicion of scientists, I was reminded of Newsholme and Kingsbury, 1933:

We had long looked forward to a visit with the celebrated Dr. Pavlov, but unfortunately for us the great investigator was absent. However, we were received by his son, a lawyer, who is now chiefly engaged in preparing his father’s works for publication. Mr. Pavlov, who spoke good English, gave us much valuable information. Through his kindness we were joined by Professor Orbeli, the distinguished physiologist, now professor in the Military Academy at Leningrad, who also spoke good English. Professor Pavlov and Professor Orbeli are not Communists, and it is generally known that they often disagree with the Government on the merit of measures taken, but in spite of this the Kremlin, recognizing the value of their scientific work, does not discipline them, but, on the contrary, they are given every facility to aid them in prosecuting their scientific research work.

Lastly, I wonder what the great pamir expedition was? It’s not something I could figure out when I shortly searched.

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Btw does anyone know why the audiobook is gone from YouTube and if we can find it anywhere else? Now I wish I had downloaded it.

Is there a mirror of the audio book? It’s been unavailable to me on YT for some time now.

Another anti-communist genre is that communism and communist governments are hostile to science and intellectual pursuits. From this chapter, not only does Strong demonstrate how the socialist mode of production not only does not impede scientific development, but actually produces a greater scientific fervor than in capitalist countries. In capitalist countries, scientific discovery must always come with the promise of greater profit or be in made in spite of profit from specific agencies or groups.

The opening of the chapter reminds me of how China’s own scientific development which can be argued to dwarf any other nation on Earth through its sheer size. In China, one can hope for a cure for cancer to be formulated and not have the dread of whether or not that cure will be stifled by capital by being prohibitively expensive or allocated only to the bourgeoisie and their servants.

The US has always been a hotbed of unscientific culture and thinking. Now with the current Trump period, we can see this scientific illiteracy be translated to direct de-funding of staple scientific organizations like those related to the environment and the over-funding of speculative, financialized research into Super Intelligence. The allocation of government subsidies is now withheld from agencies that don’t toe the rightist cultural line which is the exact slander being directed to socialist states.

Capitalism, whose early expansion a century or more ago encouraged and boasted its science, has already reached the stage where science is an embarrassment, since the possibilities of human development which it reveals are unrealizable under private ownership. Science itself under capitalism suffers from a lack of aim.

Strong articulating that capitalists see “science as an embarrassment” is really good. Science under capitalism is doomed to become its antagonist and be disciplined fiercely.

In Germany where a collapsing capitalism has taken the form of fascism, there is already a deep distrust of human reason and a propaganda against the very existence of science.

As always, since Marxism is a science, this book becomes a timeless observation of not only its conditions, but present conditions as well.

In Blackshirts and Reds (1997), Michael Parenti also goes over how in shock therapy and in the new capitalist, nationalist Russia, scholarships once directed to women in the sciences for example disappeared as there was no longer a sovereign state to give them.

Those doubters who fear that state subsidies for science interfere more with scientific freedom than do the subsidies of individual millionaires, and who promote abroad the idea that the Soviets “persecute scientists,” ignore the fact that a high esteem for science is quite consistent with a deep suspicion of individual scientists.

Since profit is so tied to the legitimacy of science in capitalist nations, it wouldn’t be a coincidence that people trust corporations to make scientific breakthroughs than their own government even though history has shown that state investment in the sciences is key for many of the scientific discoveries that the public takes for granted.

One of the largest of the scientific institutions is the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which correlates the work of nearly sixty institutes for research in soil chemistry, plant protection, livestock breeding, microbiology, agrometeorology and similar branches of science.

As we’ve mentioned before, the amount of envy I feel for the Soviet World only grows stronger with each chapter. Strong’s descriptions of the Soviet scientific institutions depict a scientific world that’s revered by society. Everyone is employed but no one is seeking a boss but to contribute to society and human scientific research.

The description of the school children and hikers going out to survey the land and make discoveries is also impressive considering that is basically a luxury to children in the US who are stuck in urban jungles or rotting rural countrysides covered in profit seeking corporate farms and concrete roads.

“My name Is Ivanov; Bach is the person sitting next to me,” he said, pointing to a man who had been attentively listening. “I myself am a locksmith from the ball-bearing plant.”

Can’t do this same sort of thing with the average seppo or you’ll get a conversation cut between them doomscrolling on their phones or about Spiderman and Spongebob ™.

This scientific tendency in human beings takes such varied forms,” said an editor, “that one cannot even classify them. In the past these scientific instincts often died stillborn because of poverty.

In addition to “science as an embarrassment,” scientific instincts “dying stillborn” is also another gripping description of how capitalism is anti-science. While capitalists may treat current high-profile scientists as celebrities, how many of those celebrities many childhood peers were ripped away from pursuing science due to purposefully un-affordable education and trauma caused by poverty?

Even under capitalism science breaks the boundaries of nations, steadily to lift the power of man. Under socialism it becomes the consciously applied and swiftly expanding strength of the whole population, conquering for man his world.

Another instance of Strong’s archaic wording is the idea of man conquering the world using science which reminds me of the Juche philosophy which also frames science in this way. Though this is less egregious than Strong’s problematic diction around race.

All Russia thrilled when a young ex-criminal, sent to the far north to “make himself over,” was reassured across three thousand frozen miles by the voice of his factory sweetheart urging him to make good.

Heartwarming tale, the Soviet World feels like a place where real redemption in a person’s life can be achieved rather than the multi-layered trauma of punitive incarceration that becomes a permanent marker of poverty. So many people want the chance to “make themselves over” but are never allowed to by a capitalist system that does not tolerate any failures despite being a system where the failures of the rich capitalists are forced upon humanity.

Another banger, we have better sex and better science under socialism.

Not much to add on this chapter, just yet another interesting juxtaposition between the golden years of the USSR and our modern day capitalist anti-intellectual brainrot.

Only got a bit of time to read this chapter so not really able to say much but also that the chapter really spoke for itself.

The Masses actively engaging with science compared to under capitalism being largely skeptical again showed the significant differences between life under socialism and capitalism. People really do want to be educated, intelligent and curious; and giving people that opportunity builds a stronger society.