Soviet science

The President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the outstanding physicist Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov, rightly noted that “one of the many miscalculations that led to the failure of the fascist campaign against the USSR was the underestimation of Soviet science.

The USSR developed a coherent and effective system of management and development of science, which included the Academy of Sciences, academic and industry research institutes, scientific and production associations, and university science. In addition to the Academy of Sciences, the USSR established the Academy of Medical Sciences (1944), the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (1966), and the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASHNIL) (1929).

In 1989, the USSR Academy of Sciences had 323 full members, 586 corresponding members, 138 foreign members, and there were about 50 thousand doctors of science in the country.

Soviet scientists and Nobel laureates were: in the field of chemistry - Nikolai Nikolaevich Semyonov, physicists - Pavel Alekseevich Cherenkov, Igor Evgenievich Tamm, Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, Lev Davidovich Landau, Nikolai Gennadievich Basov, Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, economics - Leonid Vitalievich Kantorovich