Chapter 3 Data from Interviews and Other Primary Sources
3.1 Interviews
3.1.3 Insight from Both Systems
In concluding both subsections above of the interviews with those from inside and outside of the Soviet system, Timour Paltashev’s vision is provided in representing both Soviet/post-Soviet and Western systems as that of full professor of the department of computer science & engineering of National Research University of Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO),342 St. Petersburg, Russia, and professor of the Northwestern Polytechnic University in California,343 the USA, as well as a current AMD344 Radeon Technology Group senior manager, involved in applied and industrial technology research & development as well as in start-ups activity in the US, Russia, and Kazakhstan.345 He graduated from the Kazakh Polytechnic Institute346 (Alma-Ata, the Kazakh SSR, the Soviet Union, Paltashev’s hometown) in 1978 and obtained his both degrees of PhD and Doctor of Sciences in computer engineering at ITMO in 1987 and 1994 respectively.
According to him, investments in the development of fundamental science become immediately justified in dealing with natural and technogenic disasters providing the expertise required, as seen in the examples of Japan and the USSR. In the absence of the school of nuclear physics in Japan, the reactor in Fukushima after the 2011 accident keeps producing radiation whereas the Soviet Union could localise the source of radiation in Chernobyl in 1986 due to the deep Soviet expertise in this discipline.
Paltashev outlined that Soviet industry was based on and constructed by research. For example, in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the state policy brought exogenous research from the other developed parts of the USSR before and during, in particular, WWII to establish and develop the indigenous schools of basic research as the drivers of the industrial development
342 National Research University of Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics, St. Petersburg, Russia;
retrieved on 03.06.2018 from the Web, http://en.ifmo.ru/en/ .
343 Northwestern Polytechnic University, California; retrieved on 06.06.2018 from the Web,
http://www.npu.edu/.
344 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD); retrieved on 03.06.2018 from the Web, https://www.amd.com/en. 345 Paltashev.
346 The Satbayev Kazakh National Technical University; retrieved on 03.06.2018 from the Web,
and the centres of the knowledge and expertise in various fields including those dealing with natural disasters.
According to him, in Soviet development, the implementation of the principle of the particular importance of fundamental science for the industrial development received special attention during WWII. It occurred due to the need of the improvement of both the quality of the industrial research established mainly throughout the 1920s and 30s, as resultant from the industrial technology and production of the massive preceding technology transfer, e.g. in the steel industry and aviation turbines in particular. The problem became even more acute in the light of facing the nuclear weapon challenge of the creation of the own super-weapon as a counter-measure. It was the Soviet Atomic Bomb Project which was totally related to the development of fundamental science in general and nuclear physics in particular and in which Abram Ioffe [or Joffe], ‘the father’ of the Soviet physics school,played a crucial role of concentrating of the dispersed physicists’ knowledge in one place. During WWII and in the post-war period, for the USSR, unlike for the US, it was a matter of the nation’s survival, continued the scientist.
He emphasised that, in terms of the role of the technology transfer for this project, the development of the Soviet Bomb went in both directions, i.e. the implementation of the exact copy of the American Bomb (as an illegal technology transfer via intelligence service) and an own self-engineered Soviet device. Both of them exploded, noted Paltashev.
Regarding the technology transfer, in the industry, in general, it is impossible to reproduce both new technology and a new product simultaneously. Once the technology is transferred, an old product is produced first. Once the former is adopted, a new product could be developed and produced which is a widespread industrial practice, as stressed out by him:
During industrialisation, technology transfer was very important for Soviet development and the Government’s policy was correct in doing the following. It purchased a plant on turn-key-solutions or technology of full cycle and hired experts to launch it and teach Soviet personnel.347
According to Paltashev, a main technology transfer trap lies within a possibility of being refused with further import. Any credible government tries to get rid of the imported critical
parts and components in its telecommunications infrastructure. The latter means survival in the modern world. The same is relevant for the infrastructure electronics of all the critical industries, e.g. in the energy sector, machinery, and transport, etc. The price of the civilisation can be measured in two days without electrical power. The approach is based on the understanding that, in case of an emergency, 70 per cent of the functions in a particular infrastructure should remain working.
Brain drain can be performed in two ways: either by transferring the experts or by assigning them with own tasks. Technology transfer is important for establishing an original technology to reproduce goods and develop own new products in the next generation, in Paltashev’s view.
He outlined that technology transfer is limited in time. Once performed, it cannot function longer than for 30 years without being developed; it is a single-use action and useless if the overall industrial, marketing, logistics, research, and education infrastructure is not established. Universally, development of research and technology is driven by human capital which derives from education. Meanwhile, development of education requires a comprehensive social approach.
Paltashev emphasised the quality of Soviet education for science and technology at the example of Phystech, or MFTI, The Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology,348 established by Pyotr Kapitsa in 1946.349 Today there it is ordinary practice for its graduates to obtain their PhDs at leading global universities, including Princeton, Stanford or Berkeley in the US.
Paltashev noted that Kapitsa, Rutherford’s man, is an iconic figure in science. The fact that he could have made such a scientific and engineering career in both worlds of the West and the USSR demonstrated his incredible talent apart from his and his son’s contribution in science. His fate became the evidence of the non-dominance of the ideological approach for the Soviet leadership in the science and technology policy. Some of Kapitsa’s public views alternative to the official Party’s line on Soviet development were either ignored or forgiven by the system due to the prevailing importance of Kapitsa doing his business.350 The main contribution in
348 MIPT, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; retrieved on 04.06.2017 from the Web,
https://mipt.ru/en/; hereafter referred to as MFTI.
349 Appendix M. 350 Appendices L and M.
establishing the Soviet school of physics is credited to Abram Ioffe and Pyotr Kapitsa. The Soviet Atomic Project came from Ioffe’s school. The name of Kapitsa should always be associated with Ioffe, as it is in the US scientific community, where the former is not that known, and Ioffe is a leading and founding figure of the Soviet school of physics, concluded this Soviet/Russian/American scientist originally from Kazakhstan.
Paltashev’s interview concludes the section of the interviews. The next section of the data chapter is dedicated to the factual evidence obtained from primary literature relevant to address the research question.