0040- 165X/96/3701-0005$01.00 102 History of Technology and Science in the USSR 103 revising dogmas and reevaluating historical attainments provoked a sharp methodological debate over fundamental issues concerning re lations of technology and science to a sociopolitical context. He also expresses his thanks to Gregory Crowe and Gregory Clancey for their assis tance in the preparation of this article.© 1996 by the Society for the History of Technology. Staudenmaier, and the refer ees of Technology and Culture for their helpful suggestions and constructive criticisms. He is very grateful to Professor Loren R. He is currently working on his second doctorate in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in the his tory of cybernetics and artificial intelligence in Russia and the United States. from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1992.
Changes in research methodology developed more slowly, for they were touching deeper layers of the discourse. At the same time, the role of Marxist rhetoric began to de crease. New opportunities caused a drastic shift in the interests of Soviet scholars toward the recent history of Soviet technology and science. The policy of openness (glasnost') led to the weakening of ideologi cal censorship and opened the doors of some previously inaccessible archives. By the mid-1980s, the time of perestroika, this evolution had resulted in an internalist methodology of research, ideological servility, limita tions imposed on the sphere of discussion, and a scarcity of imagina tive analysis. Soviet scholarship in the history of technology and science evolved along the lines of the political and social evolution of Soviet society: from sincere and enthusiastic belief in Marxism to degeneration of the Marxist theoretical framework into an instrument of rhetoric.
Remarkable changes also emerged in Soviet research on the history of technology and science, both reshaping the thematic discourse and altering the methodological profile.
Something else, however, was recon structed: people’s thinking-their attitude to socialism, to their his tory, and to themselves. Perestroika of the History of Technology and Science in the USSR: Changes in the Discourse SLAVA GEROVITCH A great social reconstruction of Soviet society (perestroika) ended with the disappearance of the reconstructed object-the Soviet Union-in December 1991. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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