Dr. Vadim J. Birstein

The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science

From Publishers Weekly

Russian-American geneticist and historian Birstein's first trade book is the story of "the state control of science in the Soviet Union." A comprehensive history of how Russian scientists were ruled by their government from the 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. But very little of this material reads like an Ian Fleming novel; it's more like a college textbook. 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." These shortcomings are unfortunate, as the subject of state secrecy and chemical weapons development is both important and timely. In uncovering the Soviet labyrinth of plot and secrecy, Birstein builds labyrinths of his own and casual readers might not be willing to wind their way through to the end.

From Booklist

Speaking from personal experience and aided greatly by archival materials and reference books made accessible in the 1990s, geneticist Birstein offers a comprehensive account of 80 years of governmental control and censorship of science in the Soviet Union. He describes how academic and research scientists in the nation's scientific institutions were replaced with political functionaries who often had no knowledge of the sciences they represented. He 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. Early on he says he wants readers to ask what they would have done in the same circumstances, and later he tells the stories of several scientists who took firm ethical stands and survived. Demonstrating how science, research, and education were frighteningly perverted, he provokes concern about Russia's current lack of support for science and how dangerous it may be. William Beatty

From Book News, Inc.

A geneticist who was a dissident member of the Russian Academy of Sciences for over 20 years (before moving to New York City) reveals the cruelty he suffered at the hands of the Soviet regime's control of science. He places the government efforts to control science within the larger attempt to control the Russian intelligentsia.

From Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
By David Holloway
January/​February 2003 pp. 69-70 (vol. 59, no. 01)
© 2003 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The great Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who was no supporter of the Soviet regime, once said: "You must give our barbarians one thing: They understand the value of science." It is true that the Soviet Union invested heavily in scientific research and in the education of scientists, but it also repressed scientists and destroyed entire scientific disciplines in the name of science. These two very welcome books throw light on different aspects of that complex history.

At the core of Vadim Birstein's The Perversion of Knowledge is Special Secret Laboratory No. 1, which was established in 1939 by the NKVD (the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, then headed by Lavrenti Beria) to develop poisons and test them on human beings. The experiments were done without the subjects' consent, caused great suffering, and sometimes led to death. The NKVD wanted poisons that would leave no trace and thus be useful for assassinations; the laboratory also tried to develop "truth drugs." Similar laboratories had existed before 1939, but apparently they did not experiment on living people.

Only since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent release of thousands of official documents, has Special Secret Laboratory No. 1 come to light. Birstein, a Russian-American geneticist and historian, draws heavily on this mass of new documents. But much remains obscure; we do not know, for example, how many people the laboratory "treated." Birstein compares the NKVD experiments with those of Nazi and Japanese scientists during World War II. He also mentions human experiments undertaken in the United States and Britain using radioactive materials and nerve gases. A more systematic comparison is needed, however, to draw out the similarities and differences between these programs.

Birstein argues that the NKVD laboratory was made possible by the willing collaboration of many scientists and the extensive system of party and police controls over science. Soviet leaders wanted the military and economic benefits that science could provide, but they did not trust the scientists. In the case of the poisons laboratory, party leaders came to suspect that scientists would use their poison concoctions against the political establishment.
The controls established by the party were not always effective, however; they could be counterproductive, as in biology. In 1948, Trofim Lysenko, with the support of Stalin, attacked work on genetics, which resulted in the dismissal of some 3,000 biologists from their research and teaching positions.

Although the author's focus is biology, he argues that science in general was perverted by the state's instruments of control. Even for the disciplines that did flourish, like physics, the moral cost was high. Birstein notes, for example, that prison labor was used extensively in building installations for the atomic industry, including the institute where weapons were designed.

The book raises some important questions: Can Russian science escape from its Soviet legacy? And what does the Soviet experience tell us about the relationship of science to its social context? Birstein correctly argues that the implications of Soviet history for science have not been squarely confronted in Russia. Although the ideological controls exemplified by Lysenko have disappeared, the role of the security services remain strong and there have been attempts to monitor contacts with foreign scientists.

An equally important question is whether biology is representative of Soviet science as a whole. Birstein suggests that it is, but I think that implies too uniform a picture of Soviet science.

The book's four chapter titles convey the outline of the author's argument: "Science under Siege"; "Deadly Science"; "Collaborators"; and "Resistance." Some people were brave enough to criticize Lysenko and defend those who were arrested, but the fact that there were so few resisters underscores Birstein's view that most scientists collaborated willingly.