Committee for Assistance to Scientists under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR as an Instrument for Managing the Soviet Scientific Community in 1931-1937

Abstract

The article is devoted to the historical trajectory of the Committee for the Assistance to Scientists (CAS) under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, which existed in 1931-1937. It is reported that the CAS replaced the Central Committee for the Improvement of the Welfare of Scientists (CCIWS), which had operated under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR since 1921. It describes the functions that were inherited by the CAS from the predecessor organization, and the new powers acquired by it. The author examines in detail the traditional areas of CAS activities inherited from Central Committee for the Improvement of Welfare of Scientists (CCIWS): food and commodity supply of the higher social group of the Soviet scientific intellectuals, elite housing construction for this category of scientists, the organization of medical and sanatorium-resort services for scientists, and their corporate leisure activities. It is emphasized that CAS was an organization for the Soviet scientific elite (1,500-2,000 people). It was shown that the selection of scientific workers was based on the nomenclature-official approach and formal signs of scientific achievements (leadership position, membership in the USSR Academy of Sciences and the academies of the Union republics, etc.). It is noted that the activities of the Committee were organized for the purposeful ideological subordination of a significant part of the scientific intellectuals in exchange for solving a set of its financial, welfare and professional problems.

Keywords

• 1930-е годы
• committee for the assistance to scientists under the council of people’s commissars of the ussr
• central committee for the improvement of the welfare of scientists under the council of people’s commissars of the ussr
• soviet science
• soviet scientists
• 1930s