An Evolving Scientific Public Sphere: State Science Enlightenment, Communicative Discourse, and Public Culture from Imperial Russia to Khrushchev's Soviet Times

Abstract

ArgumentBy the late nineteenth century, science pedagogues and academicians became involved in a vast movement to popularize science throughout the Russian empire. With the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, many now found the new Marxist state a willing supporter of their goals of spreading science to an under-educated public. In the Stalin era, Soviet state officials believed that the spread of science and technology had to coalesce with the Communist Party's utilitarian goals and needs to revive the industrial sector of the economy. This resulted in a new Stalinist technologically oriented popularization campaign. In the Khrushchev era (1953–64), Soviet politicians became increasingly more aware of the competitive power of Soviet technology in the global arena and developed extensive campaigns to publicize Soviet feats for a broad domestic and foreign public audience. This was particularly true for topics such as the space program and big technologies such as nuclear power.