Vadim Birstein "The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science."
During the Soviet years, Russian science was touted as one of the greatest successes of the regime. Russian science was considered to be equal, if not superior, to that of the wealthy Western nations. "The Perversion of Knowledge," a history of Soviet science that focuses on its control by the criminal KGB and the Communist Party, reveals the dark side of this glittering achievement.
Based on the author's firsthand experience as a Soviet scientist, and drawing on extensive Russian language sources not easily available to the Western reader, the book includes shocking new information on biomedical experimentation on humans as well as an examination of the pernicious effects of Trofim Lysenko's pseudo-biology. Also included are many poignant case histories of those who collaborated and those who managed to resist, focusing on the moral choices and consequences.
The text is accompanied by the author's own translations of key archival materials, making this work an essential resource for all those with a serious interest in Russian history.
Comprehensive history of how Russian scientists were ruled by their government from the criminal Bolshevik revolution through its post-perestroika present, the volume focuses especially on doctors who conducted state-authorized experiments on political prisoners while developing poisons and chemical weaponry that were eventually used in a rash of political assassinations during the 1950s and '60s by way of covert weapons such as umbrella tips and poisoned bullets.
With over 100 pages of notes, biographical sketches and translated materials, the text is so finely detailed that it runs the risk of confusing readers with its sheer volume of information. Moreover, most of the original documents Birstein relies upon are still classified and "these documents are... frequently written in a special metaphoric language used by NKVD/KGB offices. Only since 1997 have three fundamental reference books been published in Russian that have allowed me to put the events in Soviet science into historical context.
Birstein emphasizes Stalin's favorite, the fraudulent geneticist Lysenko, and also the biochemist Mairanovsky, who in his poison lab experimented on prisoners, often fatally. Birstein graphically describes some of those experiments, as well as secret-service tortures, referring briefly to experiments on supposed volunteers in the U.S., Canada, and England.
Basic Books; 1st edition, 2001.
New book. Remainder mark on top. Book in excellent visual and technical condition.
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See also: Michael Meerson-Aksenov, Boris Shragin, Richard Haugh "The Political, Social and Religious Thought of Russian Samizdat: An anthology."