The campaign for domestic priorities in science and technology in 1947-1948 (based on materials from higher education institutions in Leningrad)

The present study is dedicated to the examination of the history of domestic science, specifically the late Stalin period campaign for national priorities. The issue is considered through the example of higher education in Leningrad. In preparing this work, unpublished materials on the activities of the organizations of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in Leningrad's universities, held in the Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documents of St. Petersburg, were widely used. It was the party structures that acted as initiators and organizers of most political and ideological campaigns during the Soviet period, which explains the importance of referring to this source. In addition, data from specialized periodicals ("Bulletin of the Ministry of Higher Education of the USSR" and "Herald of Higher Education") were actively utilized, which published legislative and regulatory documents, as well as journalistic articles by party leaders and university representatives. Among the methods employed in the research, interpretive analysis can be highlighted, which allowed for the reconstruction of discursive strategies through which a desirable image of the science of the past was created and transmitted, and a typological method that helped identify common features of the conduct and consequences of the campaign for various universities in Leningrad. As a result, it was concluded that the campaign for national priorities essentially amounted to crude scientific revisionism aimed at asserting the primacy of domestic scholars and achieving the autonomy of Soviet science, severing ties with the West. As a result, those who published abroad, recommended foreign literature to students, or otherwise displayed "fawning" and "subservience" were criticized and punished, textbooks and educational programs were rewritten. At the same time, despite all the negative consequences of the rude and largely destructive interference of ideology in science, it should be noted that the struggle for national priorities contributed to an increased attention to the study of the history of science and technology and the concentration of significant resources on the development of this discipline.

history of education, history of universities, struggle against cosmopolitanism, Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, Leningrad State University, History of science, Victor Danilevsky, history of technology, Cold War, scientific revisionism