ACADEMY OF SCIENCES IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE DECAY OF THE USSR

Abstract

On the basis of unpublished archival materials, the problem of finding the optimal strategy for the further existence of the Academy of Sciences in the context of the struggle for power between the Union and Republican centers in the last years of the USSR is studied. Particular attention is paid to the consideration of the ongoing discussions on the feasibility of reorganization of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It is concluded that the fate of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, as well as the fate of the country as a whole in the last years of its existence, largely depended on many subjective and objective factors. A significant part of the scientific community adequately and sagely assessed the events unfolding at that time. The decision to transform into the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Presidium's course to preserve it at all costs despite the very complex relations with the new government, which are now causing ambiguous assessments, allowed, in the author's opinion, to ensure the survival of the core of fundamental science in the 1990s in the conditions of deindustrialization and demodernization of the country.

Keywords

• academy of sciences
• fundamental science
• collapse of the ussr
• crisis