The Fall of the Soviet Union

“Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” This quote from Ronald Reagan has become a widely recognized line that signified the impending collapse of the Soviet Union (On the Media). Ever since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the USSR, collapsed in 1991 historians have been hotly debating its tremendous fall from power (Fall). After all, the Soviet Union, with the United States of America, was considered one of the two super powers of the world and ever since the end of the Second World War, America and the USSR had been stuck in a constant war of ideology, technology, and power (Fall). Some historians point the figure at Reagan, who took a staunch stance against Soviet Russia, but to give him all of the credit would be foolish. Others believe that the Soviet Union was simply worn too thin from many years of an arms race and military operations that drained the nation economically and lowered moral. However, upon a closer inspection, there is not just one event or reason that caused the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to fall. Though the Soviet Union did not technically collapse until 1991 (Fall), the events leading to its fall goes back almost a hundred years to the very rise of the revolution that would put a communist government into place. The very core of these ideas slowly worked away at the soul of the system leading to its ultimate destruction. The Soviet Union collapsed due to the nation’s low productivity caused by failing technological policies and the system of purging or killing “political enemies. These themes can all be found and backed up throughout Loren Graham’s book, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union.

The theme of Loren Graham’s book is that of an engineer, Peter Palchinsky, who was very critical towards many of the Soviet Union’s policies. For these beliefs, Palchinsky was taken prisoner and later executed (Graham). Was Peter Palchinsky right however? If so would the Soviet Union still be around if they would have taken his criticism, and that of others, to change and improve? Maybe, but that, we will never know. Throughout Peter Palchinsky’s short life, he witnessed three major technological disasters that failed due to unwillingness by the nation’s leaders to listen.

The first major disaster was that of the Dnieper Dam Power Plant. Peter Palchinsky, and many other engineers had repeatedly warned Soviet Russia not to rush the building and development of the Dnieper Dam. Studies had shown that the water flow of this damn would be much to slow and the flowing patterns of the water both on surface and underground was unsuitable for the use in a dam (Graham). However, the USSR was not in a listening mood. Therefore the project continued, and just as Peter Palchinsky predicted, it was an utter disaster. To build this dam, the USSR pushed approximately ten thousand farmers off of their land. To build this power plant, the USSR often forced citizens to work on the project. Due to the major lack of planning and disregard to criticisms, the plant’s construction quickly fell behind schedule and greatly exceeded the project’s budget (Graham). In a total lack of respect for basic human rights the power plant’s workers were forced to live and work in terrible conditions that also contributed to the inefficiency of the construction (Graham).  The Dnieper Dam Power Plant has since been destroyed, rebuilt, and expanded upon many times.

The next major blunder mentioned in The Ghost of the Executed Engineer Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union, was the construction at Magnitogorsk. In the year 1929, the Soviet Union began construction at Magnitogorsk, promising a “garden city” for the people. Peter Palchinsky however did not support this construction. In fact three years prior Palchinsky published an article criticizing the Soviet Unions’ construction plans. In 1927, Palchinsky wrote another piece expressing his concerns once more (Graham). In his articles, Palchinsky argued that the Soviet Union had not done proper research on the regions geological resources, labor availability, transportation economics, or come up with a suitable plan for work force housing (Graham). Upon completion of the Magnitogorsk project citizens found that they did not get the “garden city” they were promised.

Figure 1.0 Magnitogorsk after Completion

In fact, Magnitogorsk turned out to be the complete opposite by the time the project was finished. As seen in Figure 1.0, Magnitogorsk ended up being an industrial city devoid of gardens of any sort.

The third and perhaps the most atrocious example provide in Graham’s book is that of White Sea Canal construction. Palchinsky was, once again, an outspoken critic of the White Sea Canal’s construction (Graham). Yet once more, the Soviet Union ignored Palchinsky and all of his engineering principles. During the construction of the White Sea Canal, the waterways would freeze up during the winter and during the summer the waterways would dry-up. Due to these extreme conditions, more than two hundred thousand workers died during the construction of the canal. After these huge casualties, massive expenses, and allocation of resources, the canal was deemed a failure after World War 2 (Graham). The canal would later be rebuilt in a new location.

These three scenarios all revealed one massive weakness with the Soviet Union’s mindset. Despite their large amount of resources, population, and power, the USSR lacked even a basic level of productivity. The leaders of the Soviet Union’s refusal to take advice led to failed projects and wasted money and resources that could have been allocated elsewhere. If they would have listened to Peter Palchinsky’s criticism then perhaps these projects would not have been the epic failures that they were. How could the Soviet Union expect to have a high productivity rate when they cannot even effectively construct basic infrastructure projects such as dams and power plants?

               These failed projects also had a tremendous negative effect on the people of Soviet Russia. As previously stated, the government would force people off of their land, put people into forced labor, and force those people to work in inhuman conditions, often leading to a high casualty rate. Such practices undoubtedly lowered the moral of the Russians. After all, nobody likes to be pushed off of their land and abused. According to an article on PositiveSharing.com, entitled Top 10 reasons why happiness at work is the ultimate productivity booster,” backed by the research of Teresa Amabile, a professor at the Harvard Business School (The Power), states that happiness is one of the largest contributing factors to productivity (Top Ten).

Figure 2.0 – Happiness Increases Productivity

Figure 2.0, show above, is a simple chart which is “dumbed down” to clearly express the significance of being happy while working (Top Ten). PositiveSharing.com does a lot of writing on this subject matter and the owner, Alexander Kjerulf, is considered an expert in the field. Mr. Kjerulf spends a lot of his time consulting businesses and giving presentations to managers about boosting productivity simply by making their employees happier in the workplace (Top Ten).

With such inhuman and miserable working conditions, it is no wonder that every project implemented by the Soviet Union was such a huge failure. From the start every single aspect of these projects were done incorrectly. Expert advice from Peter Palchinsky, and others, was ignored and workers were forced to work and live in terrible conditions. After one failure the Soviet Union did not change their policies.

In fact, other similar bad policies were made, such as the collectivization of farms, throughout the Soviet Union. Lenin saw private farming as a threat to the communistic ideology that Russia was building its policies on. Therefore a policy of farm collectivization was implemented throughout most of Soviet Russia (Famine). The idea behind collectivization was that farming would be more effective and efficient if ran by the government and put into mass plots instead of many individual and smaller plots of land (Famine). However, once again, the leaders of the Soviet Union were wrong. Farmers were forced to work in unbearable conditions that killed an estimated three million people. The government of the USSR was also well known to interfere in the daily farming operations which built up resentment from the farmers. To show their displeasure, many farmers would break equipment or even totally destroy the crops they were growing (Famine). An article by Hedrick Smith, published in The Russians, in 1976, cited statistics that showed that 25% of the crop production of 1973 was grown on private land plots that peasants were allowed to retain (Smith). What is even more remarkable is that these private land plots made up less than 2% of the total land suitable for crop production in Russia. Once again the Soviet Union was continuing down a path of failed policy and human right violations which rendered them totally inefficient with a low rate of productivity (Smith).  This horrifying trend would continue throughout the entire reign of the Soviet Union so it is no wonder that the USSR would eventually fail as it was slowly crumbling from within.

During Stalin’s reign as the leader of the Soviet Union, an estimated ten million Russians were killed in what is now known as the Great Purge (Gendercide). During this purge nobody was safe from the threat of immediate execution or that of being sent to one of the many Gulags, or death camps as they are often referred to, throughout the wilderness of Siberia. In the year 1938 approximately eight million “enemies of the state” were detained in these Gulags. Figures have shown that of these eight million detainees only 10% survived (Gendercide). During this time frame, up to one million individuals were directly executed by the state. Social status and political beliefs meant nothing in the USSR’s purges and nearly every family was affected through this systematic method of wiping out all threats to Russia (Gendercide). In most cases all charges brought up were entirely fraudulent. Most often, the victims were charged with various political crimes such as; espionage, sabotage, conspiring coups, and anti-Soviet agitation (Gendercide).

In the case of Peter Palchinsky he was charged with acting against the interest of the Soviet Union. As mentioned earlier, Peter Palchinsky was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union’s handling of vital internal engineering projects, human rights, and infrastructure (Graham). Palchinsky was in fact a supporter of many of the Soviet Union’s original policies, but as time went on his support began to fade as the system repeatedly made the same mistakes (Graham). In April of 1928 Peter Palchinsky was arrested for his criticism of government policies. His wife would never see him again and within a year Peter was executed by a firing squad (Graham). In the time leading up to Palchinsky’s execution, the Soviet Union would publish multiple forms of anti-Palchinsky propaganda demonizing him for his beliefs (Graham).

So how did these purges cause the Soviet Union to collapse? A quote from The Great Terror: A Reassessment explains this matter perfectly,

“The snowball system [of accusations] had reached a stage where half the urban population were down on the NKVD lists,” and the proportion of the entire Soviet population arrested had reached one in every twenty. “One can virtually say that every other family in the country on average must have had one of its members in jail,” proportions that were “far higher among the educated classes. … Even from Stalin’s point of view, the whole thing had become impossible. … To have gone on would have been impossible economically, politically, and even physically, in that interrogators, prisons, and camps, already grotesquely overloaded, could not have managed it. And meanwhile, the work of the mass Purge had been done. The country was crushed.” Stalin now eased the pressure, dismissing Yezhov from his post (he would subsequently be executed) and declaring that “grave mistakes” had occurred, though on balance the results of the Purge “were beneficial” (Conquest  289-290, 440).

This passage highlights the strain that was being pushed onto the Soviet Union due to the policy of purging a large percentage of its population. The purge came at a great cost to the Soviet Union. The cost gradually began to add up from the trials, prisoner transportation, payments for the police force, camp operations, and more (Conquest). This great purge also left Russia without a lot of its top thinkers and innovators. People of higher intelligence and job levels were often targeted as their skills were seen as a threat to the nation (Gendercide). This was the case with Palchinsky as well. He was an engineer and could have been considered an expert in that field. The Soviet Union however did not want people thinking for themselves or to contradict their way of running things. Therefore everybody who could be considered a threat was swiftly taken care of. The Soviet Union even went as far to purge around thirty thousand members of the Red Army including most of the high ranked officials (The Great Purge). Near the end of the purges, Stalin would have several members of his secret police force executed as well to prevent them from divulging too much information on the inside workings of these mass killings (The Great Purge). The army was left in shambles, the workforce annihilated, and all skilled innovators and scientists killed. The Soviet Union once again was putting a lot of strain on its core once again.

By 1991, the Soviet Union had been through almost one hundred years of these failed policies. Yes there were a lot of contributing factors to the Soviet Union’s fall from power, but in the end the real cause was the low productivity and purges that ate away at the empire’s foundation. A nation can only go so much in debt and waste so many resources before the consequences begin to arise. By 1991, the people of the Soviet Union were ready for change and calling for freedom. By 1991, the Soviet Union was collapsing upon itself and the “evil empire,” as Reagan so eloquently phrased it was nearly over. The Bolshevik Revolution that changed the face of the world was coming to an end and a new era of prosperity was unfolding in Russia.

Noah Glaser

January 24, 2010

Professor Krupar

History of Technology

Galileo Galilei and His Innovations

Throughout history there have only been a handful of people who have had such a significant role towards the change of society and one’s respective fields of study. Galileo Galilei is one of those people. Galileo’s technological innovations allowed himself to revolutionize the way the earth was seen and more importantly expanded mankind’s knowledge and understanding of space and physics. Due to Galileo Galilei’s huge contributions to so many fields, he is often referred to as the “father of modern science(cite).” In fact, Steven Hawking, the famous theoretical physicist, has stated, “Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science (cite). On a similar note, Galileo has also been called the ‘father of modern astronomy,” the “father of physics,” and the “father of science.”  With such recognition, it is obvious that Galileo Galilei’s contributions to science have been huge. Afterall, he is the man who is most widely known for inventing the telescope and looking into space. However, Galileo Galilei did much more than that with his life. He also studied physics and revolutionized our very way of thinking.

In 1564, Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Tuscany. His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a highly successful lute player who also toyed around in the field of physics. Vincenzo Galilei was a man who believed in change and his outlook on his work showed this mindset. In fact, Vincenzo Galileo has been called by some as a “revolutionary musician” because he helped transform traditional church music into what would later evolve into the genre of Italian Opera. So there is no doubt that Vincenzo was a huge inspiration to his song, Galileo and a quote from Vincenzo himself shows the mindset that he possessed and no doubtingly passed on to his son.“It appears to me that those who rely simply on the weight of authority to prove any assertion, without searching out the arguments to support it, act absurdly. I wish to question freely and to answer freely without any sort of adulation. That well becomes any who are sincere in the search for truth” (cite).

With such an inspirational figure as a father it is no wonder that Galileo was able to achieve so much with his life. However, it would take more than just inspiration. At the age of 17 Galileo Galilei was accepted into the University of Pisa where he would follow his father’s wishes and study medicine. Shortly after being accepted Galileo turned his interests to mathematics and was actually tutored by Ricci, a famous designer of fortifications. Galileo would excel at mathematics and by his mid twenties, he wrote a piece on the centers of gravity of shapes. At the young age of twenty-five, Galileo Galilei would be appointed to the prestigious chair of Mathematics in his home-town of Pisa.

For the next several years, Galileo would further establish himself as a recognized mathematician and would work his way up to higher position jobs. His ambition, however, did not stop there. Galileo would continue his studies and begin doing independent studies based upon things Galieo himself would invent. At age of 46, Galieo would develop one of the first functional telescopes which he is now most famous for. The invention of this device opened the doors to a much larger range of studies for Galileo and would help put him in a struggle with the church.

Galileo through his life made enormous contributions to science, and because of these accomplishments he is considered a father to both modern physics and astronomy (Galileo).  He was the one that found the evidence needed to prove Copernicus’ theory that the sun was the center of the solar system (Galileo).  He also started to study the planets and the sun directly making detailed observations to what was actually out there.  He also started to study how objects on the earth behaved, which later Newton continued his work coming up with the laws of motion (Galileo).

Although Galileo did not invent the telescope, he was the first to use it to examine the heavens (Galileo).  Using the telescope he was able to see the planets in such a way to make detailed observations, which were later proved by modern science.  As stated before, Copernicus was the first to theorize that the sun and the planets did not orbit the earth, but rather the earth and the planets orbited the sun.  However, Copernicus did not have hard evidence that this was true.  That was until Galileo started to look through the telescope at Venus (Galileo).  When Galileo looked at Venus he saw something similar to what was happening to the moon, it was going through phases (Galileo).  The moon when it orbited the earth it went through the phases from full to new showing where the source light was coming from.  According to the Ptolemaic universe the earth was the center of the solar system, and if that were true the phases of Venus had to be only crescent (Galileo).  When Galileo looked at the phases of Venus it more resembled the moon going through all the phases showing that Venus orbited the sun (Galileo).

Galileo made many other discoveries about the solar system other then that the sun was the center of it all.  He observed Jupiter and found four bright dots that seemed to follow and orbit Jupiter, which then he realized that they were moons (Galileo).  Today those moons are considered the Galilean moons (Galileo).  He also studied the sun and saw dark spots on the surface, which today we know as sun spots.  Along with finding these spots he saw that the sun rotated on an axis making the spots move along the surface (Galileo).  He saw that the planets were not just points of light but circular discs, which was again disproving the Ptolemaic universe (Galileo).  While observing the Milky Way Cloud he discovered that it was made up of many stars which were not seen before (Galileo).  In looking at Saturn he discovered that it seemed to have ears, but we know now that he saw the rings of Saturn (Galileo).  Lastly when he looked at the moon he saw craters and mountains showing that it was not a smooth surface (Galileo).

Even with all these discoveries about the universe, Galileo was not done studying how everything interacted.  Through his many experiments he finally was credited with two major theories.  These theories were that the force of gravity is constant no matter the size of the object, and the concept of inertia.

Newton’s first law as we know it is the law of inertia.  An object in motion stays in motion and an object at rest stays at rest unless a force is acted upon it.  While Newton is credited for the law, the concept came from his predecessor Galileo (Galileo).  He saw when doing experiments in pushing a block across a table that it stops when he stopped pushing.  He then theorized that the block did not move unless he pushed it (Galileo).  So he said that objects at rest needed a push to be put into motion and that the force of friction stopped the block after he stopped pushing (Galileo).  This was to be the cornerstone of Newton’s first law of motion.

Contrary to common belief there is no evidence that Galileo dropped two items off the Tower of Pisa, however the concept of the falling objects was true.  He most likely did smaller experiments to prove his concept (Galileo).  There was one flaw in his observation and that was a feather fell slower than most objects.  He stated that if there was no air resistance that the feather would drop as fast (Teachers).  This concept remained unproven until Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott dropped a hammer and a feather on the surface of the moon, which is a vacuum (Grayzeck).  When he dropped them they both fell at the same rate (Grayzeck).

Though Galileo would accomplish many things in his life, he would not receive the recognition that he deserved. In fact, Galielo’s scientific achievements would shove him in the middle of a controversy with the church that would rob him of his freedom for the last several years of his life. In 1642, after Galileo’s publishing of his book, the Dialogues on the Two Chief World Systems, which highlighted his theories on the solar system, Galileo was called to Rome by the Holy Office of Inquisition. In early 1633, Galileo made the trip to Rome where the Holy Office charge him with heresy. Contrary to popular belief, the church was not so much angry with his beliefs. In fact they actually supported his studies to a degree. The church was however, had a contract with Galileo barring him from teaching his findings. The charges of heresy were brought upon him for this very reason as he was charged with teaching Copernican model of the solar system. The doctrine of the Copernican model had been ruled heretical against the church decades before which put his teachings as a threat to the religious establishment

The lead up to Galileo’s trial was filled with a lot of controversy, both in regards of the validity of the charges and in the legality of the procedure. At the time such notions were considered to be heresy and had been for years. So the church did not particularly act without justification.  In fact, Galileo himself had also been warned by Cardinal Bellarmine previously so Galileo was not without knowledge of the possible consequences of his teachings. Historians have also contributed his charges to a variety of political factors including; the 30 Years War, Urban VIII, and the Counter Reformation. Whatever the reason, Galileo was charged with heresy for his beliefs and teaching those beliefs.

At Galileo’s final hearing, he was taken to the Santa Maria Church where he was sentenced and declared to be guilty of heresy. As his sentence was delivered he was made to kneel on the ground and recite the following statement, “I have been judged vehemently suspect of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the sun in the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the earth is not at the center of same, and that it does move. Wishing however, to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church” (Shea and Artigas 194).

As punishment for his crimes of heresy, Galileo was ordered into house arrest for his remaining years of life. Late in the year of 1633, he started his time in house arrest at his house in Arcetri, Florence. During his time in house arrest, Galileo finished his final piece, the Discourses on the Two New Sciences. This book had no reference to the Copernican model of the solar system and would be published in 1638. Later that year, Galileo would go completely blind. This has often been accredited to his observations of the sun through his telescopes. Galileo would later suffer from an agonizing hernia that would enable him to travel for medical attention. At the time of his death in January 1642, Galileo was very ill from a fever and heart problems, but even with his death his work has yet to be forgotten.

Galileo’s scientific knowledge has had an impact on the world and our way of thinking. He has made inventions, such as the telescope and concave lens. He was the first person to invent science.  He “ began certain experiements around 1592.”(cite book) Before he was born,” there was no such thing as science, yet by the time he died science was well on its way to becoming a discipline and its concepts and method a whole philosophical system.”(cite). Without his foundings of  science, people would have no way of thinking.  Closer to his death, he had gone through problems. He has published a book that supported the Copernicus theory in 1632, called . Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems , which is stated in (cite) However, he got into trouble with the Catholic church, because of his belief in the Copernicus system. He was then “called before the Inquisition and this time was found guilty of heresy.”(cite) That means that he had to go to prison, for the sentence of life imprisonment in 1633.  His book was “placed on the Index of prohibited works and remained there for two hundred years.”(cite) That means the book was not appropriate at that time and had to return to Florence, “to be under house arrest for the rest of his life”(cite). Gallieo then became heartbroken. He could have continued his life of scientific theory, but Gallieo died of blindness in 1642. Gallieo scientific works and knowledge has and will not be forgotten.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/galileo/

http://galileo.rice.edu/bio/narrative_7.html

http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/telescope.html

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/galileo.html

Cites

1. “Galileo: the Telescope & the Laws of Dynamics.” Web. 28 Jan 2010.

1. “Teachers’ Domain.” Galileo on the Moon. 2010. Web. 28 Jan 2010. <http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/phy03.sci.phys.mfw.galmoon/>.

1. Grayzeck, ed. “The Apollo 15 Hammer-Feather Drop.” 12 February 2008. NASA, Web. 28 Jan 2010. <http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo_15_feather_drop.html>.

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