The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-12-26
Soviet Union Blazed Broad Road
OF Science, Research and Invention

opment of hinged two-piece bail
bearings for the main shafts of
tractors, with enormous saving of
formerly wasted time during which
tractors we're dismantled to change
such bearings. These are but two
of the more than 10000 patented in
ventions recorded last year, and in
addition to that there we're here
over 100000 workers suggestions in
factories, some of which led to the
invention of totally new machines.
At the top of the Soviet scientific
structure is the Academy of
Sciences. 1t moved during the sum-
mer of this year from Leningrad to
Moscow. New premises covering
1850 acres are to be built for it.
The very best of the old and new
scientists belong to it; to be in
vited to become a member of the
Academy is, of course, one of the
highest honors in the field of
science that anyone can have.
At a recent social evening ar
ranged between the members of the
Academy and their new neighbors.
the workers of Lenin raion, or
borough, in Moscow. Academician
Gubkin took the floor and re-
marked.
How did it happen that the
country that had Jagged far behind
America and the rest of Europe in
its development is now on the
heels of and already in some ways
surprising the leading industrial
countries of the world?"
Then he told how, before the Rev.
olution, the Academy, consisting of
but 20 scientists, kept these men in
classical calm behind the walls of
their laboratories, cut off from the
rest of the World. Whereas now
over 100 members of the Academy
are leading as many different ex-
petitions and branch stations of the
academy in all the most distant as
well as the nearer and more popul-
ated parts of the Soviet Union, mix
ing with people of all races and
occupations. tying their work up in
timately with the work of the
masses.
Arctic Investigation
myself, while on trip last
summer north of the Arctic circle
in the Kola Peninsula, bumped into
such a branch of the Academy,
housed in lone building on a wind
swept Polar hillside, where a group
of scientists were industriously and
successfully studying and providing
plans for the useful development of
local agriculture and mineral
wealth, and at the same time doing
lot Of pure scientific" investiga-
ton of Arctic climate, electrical
earth currents, radio effects, and
other things.
Gubkin called for still closer re-
lations between the scientists of the
Academy and the toiling masses.
For the scientists of the Soviet
Union nothing but good can come
Of such an alliance. The workers
state cheerfully finances such
scientific stations and expeditions.
1t finances and helps to organizs
expeditions, not only like the ones
that scour the Pamir mountains
and bring back hardy frost resist
ing vegetable growths, but the ex-
petitions that have unearthed the
palaces of Genghiz Khan. The So
Wet scientist is not. like his con-
temporary in capitalist countries,
dependent on the good will and
caprice of some rich philanthropist
for the sometimes very large sums
needed for expeditions and investi-
cations.
Not only special expeditions but
the regular construction work of the
Soviet Union is made to serve the
scientist. During the digging OF
the Moscow subway, archeologists
were attached to the joe and sc
many objects of ancient culture
were found that a special exhibit
ton is now being arranged of them
to be called Moscow Old and New.
Ancient Memorials
The same thing is happening ir
the digging of the -Volga