Book review: Stalin and the Scientists by Simon Ings

SOVIET leaders’ love of science was as great as their ignorance of it. Communism was to be the epitome of modernity, a complete and final victory over backwardness and superstition.

Science, as the cutting edge of modern thinking and technology, was therefore to be encouraged and used to launch a backward Russia to the forefront of global development.

Soviet leaders committed vast resources to the development of science and gambled even more on scientific solutions to economic and social problems.