Abstract
THE Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in 1725 by Peter the Great as an “assembly of the best learned men” who were supposed to carry on research, to train young men of science, and to study the country's natural resources. Under the old regime, the Academy devoted most of its energies to abstract research, surveys of natural resources and the study of Asiatic languages. Its character did not change immediately after the Revolution and it remained out of touch with the economic needs of the country for some time. The change came in 1929 when the function of the Academy was defined as the direction of the whole volume of scientific knowledge towards the reconstruction of national economy, and a number of members of the Communist Party, distinguished in various branches of technological science, were included in the Academy. In 1934 the Academy was made directly responsible to the Government of the U.S.S.R. and its headquarters were transferred from Leningrad to Moscow, in order to bring it into closer contact with central administrative bodies, particularly with the State Planning Commission. The headquarters of the Academy, its central administrative departments and its principal research institutes and laboratories are now in Moscow, where new buildings are being built to house the various sections. Under its new constitution, adopted in November 1935, the aims and functions of the Academy are defined thus: First, the Academy is not merely a centre for the passive registration of scientific facts, but also an active body for the development of scientific thought. Secondly, the Academy has to study and to develop world scientific achievements with the view of applying them to the work of construction. Thirdly, the Academy has to utilize the achievements of science to further the country's progress towards a classless order of society.
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The U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences and the Third Five-Year Plan. Nature 139, 122–123 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139122a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139122a0