Technological Modernisation in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia: Practices and Continuities

Abstract

Focusing on the Soviet system of scientific and technical cooperation, the study analyses the structures and agency created on the basis of scientific–technical cooperation during the Cold War. The essay introduces a model of the process of East–West interaction based on agency created through scientific and technical cooperation. By encompassing a long temporal trajectory, the essay suggests that it is possible to recognise similar practices and continuities in the modernisation project in contemporary Russia.

Notes

¹ The Soviet military complex or spying and illegal trade are not treated in this study.

² The origin of the concepts of structure and agency is in Giddens’s structuration theory (Giddens 1984). In the essay, the system of scientific and technical cooperation is analysed as a structure created by the Soviet Union. The actors who participated in the scientific and technical cooperation are analysed as an agency. On structuration theory in the context of Russian modernisation, see Kivinen (2012). On the multidisciplinary approach to modernisation theories, see Kivinen (2013).

³ The Soviet modernisation project, based on technological progress, can be seen as based on an instrumental or technological rationality. According to Berliner, technological progress had proceeded more slowly in the Soviet Union than in the advanced capitalist countries. Technological progress was a source of growth of output: in France it accounted for 79%, in Italy 78% and in Norway 77% of the achieved growth of output. However, in the Soviet Union, between 1950 and 1962 technological progress accounted for only 42% of the growth of output (Berliner 1988, pp. 249–50).

⁴ These studies were conducted especially at CREES, University of Birmingham, UK. The major results of the studies are still applicable today. The researchers were, among others, Ron Amann, Julian Cooper and Phillip Hanson. About the materials produced by the CIA, see Hanson (2003, p. 68).

⁵ Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (hereafter, RGANI), fond. 5, opis’ 61, delo 55a, lines 219–21; RGANI, f. 5, op. 40, d. 52, ll. 1–6; 13–19; see also Wilczynski (1974, pp. 145, 296–97) and Taubman (2003, pp. 130, 423).

⁶ The transfer of technology is the process whereby a technique is substantially moved from one set of users to another or the process by which innovations made in one country are subsequently brought into use in another country (Nironen 1983, p. 161). Reverse engineering is the reproduction of another manufacturer’s product following a detailed examination of its construction or composition. Focusing on science and technology as a tool to develop production forces fits well into the Soviet understanding of the role of science and progress. For a more detailed analysis of the role of science in the development of production forces, see Kivinen (2002, pp. 225–48).

⁷ Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk (hereafter, ARAN), f. 579, op. 13, d. 162, ll. 72–73; for more detailed analysis of scientific and technical cooperation in computer science, see Autio-Sarasmo (2011a, p. 72).

⁸ On the military–industrial complex, see Bystrova (2006).

⁹ These are, for example, ‘Isledovaniya i razrabotki po prioritetnym napravleniyam razvitiya nauchno-tekhnologicheskogo kompleksa Rossii na 2014–2020’, order of the Government of the Russian Federation, 23 July 2012, No. DM-P8-4206; ‘Razvitie nauki o tekhnologii’, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, 20 December 2012, No. 2433-r; ‘Strategiei innovatsionnogo razvitiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii do 2020 goda’, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, 8 December 2011, No. 2227-r; ‘Issledovaniya i razrabotki po prioritetnym napravleniyam razvitiya nauchno-tekhnologicheskogo kompleksa Rossii na 2007–2013 gody’, approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, 17 October 2006, No. 613; all available at: http://www.i-russia.ru/all/docs/18780/, accessed 27 October 2015.

¹⁰ Dmitry Medvedev’s article, ‘Go Russia!’, 10 September 2009, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/5413, accessed 21 August 2015.

¹¹ Dmitry Medvedev’s article, ‘Go Russia!’, 10 September 2009, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/5413, accessed 21 August 2015. See also, Pynnöniemi (2010, pp. 16, 20), Pynnöniemi and Saari (2010, pp. 6–7) and Autio-Sarasmo (2011c, pp. 262–63).

¹² Asetus tieteellis-teknillisestä yhteistoiminnasta Suomen tasavallan ja SNTL:n välillä, 16 August 1955, available at: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/sopimukset/sopsteksti/1955/19550030, accessed 21 August 2015.

¹³ RGANI, f. 5, op. 40. d. 67, ll. 4–9; RGANI, f. 5, op. 40, d. 52, ll. 1–6, 13–19; RGANI, f. 5, op. 40, d. 121, ll. 29–30.

¹⁴ RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 59, ll. 45–55; Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki (hereafter, RGAE), f. 9480, op. 7, d. 805, l. 57; RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 55a, ll. 1–229.

¹⁵ ‘Executive Order on Council for Economic Modernisation and Innovative Development’, 18 June 2012, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/15690, accessed 27 October 2015; ‘Meeting of the Council for Economic Modernisation and Innovative Development’, 24 October 2012, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/councils/by-council/30/16708, accessed 27 October 2015.

¹⁶ ‘Research and Innovation Highlights in Russia’, Delegation of the European Union to Russia, September 2012, available at: http://www.tekes.fi/globalassets/global/tekes/venaja-raportit/innovation_policy_in_russia.pdf, accessed 27 October 2015; OECD (2015b); ‘Gosudarstvennoi programmy Rossiiskoi Federatsii “Razvitie nauki i tekhnologii”’, 24 December 2013, available at: http://www.i-russia.ru/all/docs/16412/, accessed 27 October 2015. The total budget for the programme was defined in the budget scenario as R1,603,000,000.

¹⁷ ‘Issledovaniya i razrabotki po prioritetnym napraveliyam razvitiya nauchno-tekhnologicheskogo kompleksa Rossii na 2012–2020 gody’, Decree of 21 May 2013, No. 426, available at: http://www.i-russia.ru/all/docs/18780/, accessed 27 October 2015.

¹⁸ On the federal target programme ‘Issledovaniya i razrabotki po prioritetnym napraveliyam razvitiya nauchno-tekhnologicheskogo kompleksa Rossii na 2012–2020 gody’, Decree of 21 May 2013, No. 426, available at: http://www.i-russia.ru/all/docs/18780/, accessed 27 October 2015; ‘Plana meropriyatiya (“Dorozhnoi karty”) “Razvitie otrasli informatsionnykh tekhnologii”’, Order of 30 December 2013, No. 2602-r, available at: http://www.i-russia.ru/all/docs/22036/, accessed 27 October 2015; ‘Ob utverzhdenii kompleksa mer po stimulirovaniyu vnedreniya sovremennykh effektivnykh tekhnologii v promyshlennosti’, Order of 19 March 2014, No. 398-r, available at: http://www.i-russia.ru/all/docs/22998/, accessed 27 October 2015.

¹⁹ RGANI, f. 5, op. 40, d. 67, ll. 104–15.

²⁰ RGAE, f. 9480, op. 7, d. 816, l. 57; Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv nauchno-tekhnicheskoi dokumentatsii, Samara branch (hereafter, RGANTD), f. P-18, op. 2–6, d. 204.

²¹ RGANI, f. 5, op. 40, d. 121, l. 38; RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 59, ll. 186–87; RGANI, f. 5, op. 66, d. 196, ll. 128, 130, 134–36. This also included families.

²² RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 55a, ll. 219–28; see also Autio-Sarasmo (2011a, p. 70). This is possible to see in the reports written by the Soviet specialists after their visits; see, for example, RGANTD, f. P-18, op. 2–6, d. 204.

²³ On the introduction in the State Duma of the bill prepared by the Ministry of Communications, aimed at facilitating the involvement of highly qualified foreign specialists in Russian IT-companies, see ‘O vnesenii v Gosdumu podgotovlennogo Minkomsvyazi zakonoproekta, napravlennogo na uproshchenie protsedury privlecheniya vysokokvalifitsirovannykh inostrannykh spetsialistov rossiiskimi IT-kompaniyami’, Order of 18 April 2014, No. 635-r, available at: http://www.i-russia.ru/all/docs/23239/, accessed 27 October 2015. The aim of the bill is to reduce the deficit of experts in the field of information technology. The bill proposes to establish a minimum threshold for payment for highly qualified experts and foreign citizens, at R1 million a year in total.

²⁴ The concept of demand-and-supply is usually used in classical economic theory (see Marshall 1920). Here the concept is applied to describe the process that activated the East–West interaction. The push-and-pull factors are used in migration studies; see, for example, Lee (1966, pp. 47–57). Here the concept is used to illustrate the factors that either were against or supported the East–West interaction.

²⁵ On the process of diffusion of knowledge, see Rogers (1983).

²⁶ During 2014 the Russian Academy of Sciences was reorganised and the Russian Scientific Foundation (Rossiiskii Nauchnyi Fond) was established to support the research, available at: http://www.rscf.ru/en/node/1138, accessed 28 October 2015.

²⁷ RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 55a, l. 226.