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China Soviet Influence in the 1950s
After the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, China
reorganized its science establishment along Soviet lines--a system
that remained in force until the late 1970s, when China's leaders
called for major reforms. The Soviet model is characterized by a
bureaucratic rather than a professional principle of organization,
the separation of research from production, the establishment of a
set of specialized research institutes, and a high priority on
applied science and technology, which includes military technology.
The government's view of the purpose of scientific work was set
forth in the September 1949 Common Program of the
Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (see Glossary),
which stated,
"Efforts should be made to develop the natural sciences in order to
serve the construction of industry, agriculture, and the national
defense." On November 1, 1949, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was
founded, amalgamating research institutes under the former Academia
Sinica and Beijing Research Academy (the former Beijing Research
Laboratory). In March 1951 the government directed the academy to
determine the requirements of the production sector of the economy
and to adjust scientific research to meet those requirements.
Scientists were to engage in research with significant and fairly
immediate benefits to society and to work as members of collectives
rather than as individuals seeking personal fame and recognition.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences was explicitly modeled on the
Soviet Academy of Sciences, whose director, Sergei I. Vavilov, was
consulted on the proper way to reorganize Chinese science. His book
Thirty Years of Soviet Science was translated into Chinese
to serve as a guide. Soviet influence also was realized through
large-scale personnel exchanges. During the 1950s China sent about
38,000 people to the Soviet Union for training and study. Most of
these (28,000) were technicians from key industries, but the total
cohort included 7,500 students and 2,500 college and university
teachers and postgraduate scientists. The Soviet Union dispatched
some 11,000 scientific and technical aid personnel to China. An
estimated 850 of these worked in the scientific research sector,
about 1,000 in education and public health, and the rest in heavy
industry. In 1954 China and the Soviet Union set up the Joint
Commission for Cooperation in Science and Technology, which met
annually until 1963 and arranged cooperation on over 100 major
scientific projects, including those in nuclear science. When the
Chinese Academy of Sciences completed a draft twelve-year plan for
scientific development in 1956, it was referred to the Soviet
Academy of Sciences for review. In October 1957 a high-level
delegation of Chinese scientists accompanied Mao Zedong to Moscow
to negotiate an agreement for Soviet cooperation on 100 of the 582
research projects outlined in the twelve-year plan.
The Soviet aid program of the 1950s was intended to develop
China's economy and to organize it along Soviet lines. As part of
its First Five-Year Plan (1953-57), China was the recipient of the
most comprehensive technology transfer in modern industrial
history. The Soviet Union provided aid for 156 major industrial
projects concentrated in mining, power generation, and heavy
industry. Following the Soviet model of economic development, these
were large-scale, capital-intensive projects. By the late 1950s,
China had made substantial progress in such fields as electric
power, steel production, basic chemicals, and machine tools, as
well as in production of military equipment such as artillery,
tanks, and jet aircraft. The purpose of the program was to increase
China's production of such basic commodities as coal and steel and
to teach Chinese workers to operate imported or duplicated Soviet
factories. These goals were met and, as a side effect, Soviet
standards for materials, engineering practice, and factory
management were adopted. In a move whose full costs would not
become apparent for twenty-five years, Chinese industry also
adopted the Soviet separation of research from production.
The adoption of the Soviet model meant that the organization of
Chinese science was based on bureaucratic rather than professional
principles. Under the bureaucratic model, leadership is in the
hands of
nonscientists, who assign research tasks in accordance with a
centrally determined plan. The administrators, not the scientists,
control recruitment and personnel mobility. The primary rewards are
administratively controlled salary increases, bonuses, and prizes.
Individual scientists, seen as skilled workers and as employees of
their institutions, are expected to work as components of
collective units. Information is controlled, is expected to flow
only through authorized channels, and is often considered
proprietary or secret. Scientific achievements are regarded as the
result primarily of "external" factors such as the overall economic
and political structure of the society, the sheer numbers of
personnel, and adequate levels of funding. Under professional
principles, which predominate in Western countries, scientists
regard themselves as members of an international professional
community that recruits and rewards its members according to its
own standards of professional excellence. The primary reward is
recognition by professional peers, and scientists participate in an
elaborate network of communication, which includes published
articles, grant proposals, conferences, and news of current and
planned research carried by scientists who circulate from one
research center to another.
Data as of July 1987
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