On Education in a Real Merit System

Essay from Satanist from the USSR.

First, the way the whole Soviet scientific hierarchy worked:

Kandidat Nauk (Candidate of Science) ~ PhD

Next:

Doktor Nauk (Dr of Science) ~ DSc (Only with this title you can become a Professor by being Elected as one)

Next:

Chlen - Korrespondent Akademii Nauk (Corresponding Member of The Academy of Science) ~ more than a professor, but not a full Academician yet.

Next:

Deistvitel'niy Chlen Akademii Nauk = Academician.

The educational system during the Soviet time was not based on equality in the sense of "trying to get equal results" like the Western one I observe here. It was VERY competitive. There was always a CHANCE to show your abilities and it didn't matter what your background was." THAT is what "equality." (Note: that is the way it was intended to work in the USA, but due to discrimination on the one hand and then the later reaction to it, it never quite worked out as well and true meritocracy was never achieved for EVERYONE to have a chance at it.)

The competitions were divided by 3 groups: 1. Olympics; 2. Practical conferences; and 3. Team tournaments. All of this applied to hard subjects mainly, including Biology. Team tournaments were a new form of competition that appeared only 5 years before everything collapsed. The steps/levels for each competition exempt team tournaments were the following: 1. Rayon = equivalent to a small town or a group of villages or a separate area in a large city. 2. Oblast' = County. Team tournaments started here, as it was not expected that a small town could pull a decent team. 3. Republic. 4. Union.

Olympics were straightforward - solving logical tasks, calculating the algorithms. But conferences were different - they are practical, based on real research DONE BY HANDS, and it did not matter what your age was. And you could earn respect (and more than just a respect!) by presenting valuable data or novel ideas; it did not matter how old you were, who your parents were or where you came from. Obviously you had to do this research somewhere and with the help of someone. Also, someone has to coordinate this all, provide this all. Thus, there were MANs.

MAN stands for Malaya Akademiya Nauk = "Little" Academy of Sciences. One MAN was usually providing its services for a group of counties or a single large county in some cases. There wasn't a populated territory in the former USSR not covered by some MAN. The main aim of MANs was stimulating PRACTICAL research giving REAL results here and now. Thus, it was very material - having its physical basis in what were called Young Technologist Stations (Stanciya Yunyh Tehnikov, SUT.) and Young Naturalist Stations (Stanciya Yunyh Naturalistov, SUN) for biological research. Also, there were strong links to local Universities and Polytechnic Institutes and, the most important, NII's (Nauchno - Issledovatelskie Instituty, Scientific = Research Institutions) that were government centers with traditionally important links to VPK (Voenno - Promyshlenniy Kompleks = Military - Industrial Complex ), KGB (State Security) and MVD (Internal Security).

Obviously, there was a hierarchy running MANs. The adults running MANs included: a) MAN President. MAN president was usually an Academician in charge of some important local NII. b) Full Time Instructors, having a PhD equivalent (Kandidat Nauk), usually two per each subject covered by MAN (a group covering each subject was called a Section - Sekciya). But the true organizational structure was based on the young researchers themselves. Obviously, as the measures of practical merit were the conferences mentioned, the main denominator of your position in MAN was your performance on the conferences.

Then there were camps.

This is how it worked: There were two main levels for MAN participants: 1. Candidate Member. To get it (a gray certificate) one needed to win the step I (Rayon Level). All winners on this level (1st, 2nd and 3rd places) were going further on the County Level. 2. Full Member. To get it (red certificate) one needed to win the step II (County Level). Only 1st and 2nd place winners are transferred to the Republic level further on. Only 1st place winners at the Republic level are transferred to the Union level. It used to start from school or by personal initiative of a participant. Anyone simply knocking at the door of the MAN section of interest at local SUT or SUN was accepted and could work on ANY TOPIC S/HE LIKED in the SUT/SUN lab under the guidance of an Instructor providing that necessary equipment was available. SUTs/SUNs, I remember, were well equipped, even by Western standards. In several months one could fetch sufficient data to present on rayon level, usually in December. The county level conferences followed in late February or March and they were BIG EVENTS, only to be surpassed by Republic (late March/April/May) or Union (summer time). The jury for a county conference was made up of the best local experts in corresponding fields, local university officials and educational ministry representatives. The assessment was based on two separate things: quality of the data presented plus quality of the presentation and the ability of the presenter to handle questions directed to him/her from ANYONE present - jury, other participants and competitors or, basically, anyone walking into a conference hall. After each presentation there were compulsory 15 minutes of question bombardment.

So, what is the outcome of it all and why would one do it instead of goofing off?

1. Research. Any winner at the county level was given a right to conduct future research in a proper center: NII, industry or State University based. This right was granted personally by the MAN President. In reality, researchers were coming to these conferences to pick up whom they like for their labs, many were picked by the researchers acting as jury after they "immolated" the very same person with questions. In fact, that is how many found their jobs for the rest of their lives, carrying on working in the same lab through their university time and later.

2. Higher Education. Getting into University at that time was more than difficult. Considering University entry - it was based on following things.

a) Successful "unfinished secondary education" at school - 8 years, 6 days a week, up to 8 hrs a day gives you an opportunity to get finished secondary education => 2 more years. No choice of subjects through the whole thing, about 15 subjects - all marked, all compulsory, strict discipline. Only those who finish all 10 years successfully are permitted to apply for higher education.

b) Entry to the university is determined by the results of entry exams set by the university in accordance to it's specialization. The only way your school results can influence it is getting golden (all ~15 subjects with first) or silver (all ~15 subjects with first exempt 2 seconds allowed) medal. If you have a medal, getting first while passing the first entry exam will give you a place automatically, otherwise you proceed further just like anyone else.

But with the competition system there was a basic principle (that equally applied to Olympics, Conferences and Team Tournaments): win the County level and you get into the University in the county (in your subject, obviously), win the Republic level - anywhere in the republic you live in, Union level - anywhere in the USSR. For males: considering Soviet military regulations - win once and you don't face conscription and you get your lieutenant's epaulettes as the time comes.

3. Camps. To provide team work, collaboration and information exchange between young scientists, camps were run, again - on three levels: county, republic, and All-Union. County camps were for all participants of the conference, candidates and full members alike, all subjects represented. Republic and All-Union camps were subject-based. County camps were gathered twice a year: winter camp and summer camp. Republic and All-Union camps were summer camps. There were lectures by well-known scientists, good food, cinema, theatre, transport provided, instructors to answer your questions - all FREE. Also, there were internal camp conferences and olympics - just for the sake of initiating arguments and practice. The time I spent in these camps would remain the best time in my life - forever.

4. MAN hierarchy. Each MAN section was run by a Section Chairman. Any Full Member belonging to the section could get elected to the Section Chairman. The elections used to take place in winter camps. During these elections, any Section Chairman successfully running his/her section for at least a year could get elected as a Vice President of MAN by the rest of the Chairmen (his/her position would be immediately replaced by a newly elected Chairman of that section). Vice President works very closely with the President of MAN. Newly elected Vice President then can pick up MAN Secretary to help with extensive bureaucratic work. A Secretary chosen should be a Full Member approved by the majority of Chairmen.

5. Travel. Exchange of delegations between different MANs or even countries (inside of the Warsaw Pact) during conference time or camp time was a common practice. That also included "Guest Presentations" on conferences - a right of any Full Member sent as a part of the delegation. "Guest Presentations" were always appreciated and rewarded by special certificates and prizes, even though they did not participate in the competition itself. They were bombarded by nasty questions, too. Obviously, all traveling expenses were met from MAN funds.

6. Getting spotted by special services/military. This is pretty obvious and depended on the nature of research one performed. There were two general rules: a) the higher you go - the more chance you will have of being spotted. Quite for sure, anyone reaching the Union level was likely to be "approached." b) position in the MAN hierarchy helps. If you have it, then you do know something about practical research but also are a good organizer/coordinator/teamworker. The KGB was looked for such a combination.

Coming to my personal experience, I grew up pretty quickly, joined the school at 5 instead of usual 6, around 11-12 found some chemistry reference books and got obsessed with explosives, in fact - turned a total young pyromaniac! (a day without a BOOM!!! and huge clouds of smoke is a day wasted, used to wander around chemical plants, research centers and fertilizer shops never missing an opportunity to get all components I could use and I had quite an imagination for that use). Many times burnt, hated by neighbors, avoided by local kid gangs (they thought I was nuts ...) I would definitely have trouble and only trouble in the West and finish off in some prison, but not there. Chemistry started at the 7th form, I just turned 13 at that time and I was lucky to have the chemistry teacher I had. I used to approach her after lessons and talk with her about... well, you know, ammonites, hexogen, trinitroglycerol, ICBM fuels, blah blah and even ask her for compounds from the school lab - probably I was nuts! But... she didn't think so, we had wonderful conversations and I found a lot from her - I was never suppressed, discouraged etc. even though she knew what I was going to buy in a local fertilizer shop after classes :))

To move away from the topic - what the FUCK is a SCIENCE TEACHER? I had math teachers, physics teachers, chemistry teachers, biology teachers, astronomy teachers etc. [So did Americans of the 1940's and 1950's era when education was excellent. -ed.] How the hell one can teach ALL of that on any serious level? What quality of teaching would it be? I guess I can teach biology, after some revision - chemistry, but me teaching geometry or physics is nonsense.

Anyway, that chemistry teacher of mine after about a month of us talking introduced me to a nice guy called Max and Max brought me to SUT. It also happened that Max was a Vice President of MAN - I wonder if Obi wan Kenobi was right saying that "there is no such thing as luck." I went to the SUT lab and that was it! They were the right people there - ALL of THEM, fanatics of chemistry who did not give a shit about anything else and who did know a hell of a lot about things like how one makes potassium chlorate if one runs out of that useful salt and where to get some red phosphorus to mix with freshly made potassium chlorate - wonderful! The instructor at SUT was a very nice lady with a degree in biochemistry and it is from her I started to gain the idea that "chemistry of life" could be more fun than even the "chemistry of BOOM." Max was a synthetic chemist and a biochemist too - doing some serious work in the Bogatskiy's NII on modifying some human brain peptides, mainly vasopressin derivatives. But then, there was a guy also called Andrei (and he looked similar to me as well) and he was very much into toxicology at the time, also working in the same NII. His project was on synthesis of anticancer porphirine derivatives with a transition metal as a chelation centre - give it to a patient with some skin tumor and they will cumulate selectively in it. Then irradiate the tumor with strong UV, the metal gets excited, free radicals produced, puff - tumor destroyed! So, I was talking to him one cold evening, and we were talking about (only talking) psychodelics - not some lame hippy banter but a serious discussion on synthesis of some of them and opportunities to play very dirty tricks with them - on neighbors, particularly irritating schoolteachers etc. :) And then he gave me the forbidden book of Siegfried Franke - only for one night.

That book (entitled "Chemistry of Warfare Agents") is still banned even though it is pretty old - 1973 edition. Franke was an East German officer who got his higher military degree from the Supreme Soviet Military - Chemical Academy, returned back to GDR and published that book based on what he was taught before. Somehow, both Stazi and KGB missed the publication and it went out, two tomes, albeit in two weeks they started to remove the books from all libraries, shops etc, and plaster "sovershenno sekretno" ("top secret") on them - but it was too late. So, I didn't sleep and swallowed the book overnight. I could never imagine before that there are compounds powerful enough to exterminate whole armies in full protection, toxins that would probably never be traced in the nearest 500 hundred years or so with a possibility to set up the delayed time of action with precision of seconds and... many of them are easy to synthesize even in SUT lab :)) I got "poisoned" by that book - once and for all. Since that 12 years passed, and an old poor quality photocopy of Franke is still lying by my bed - some things die hard. I started reading all I could find around that was related to toxins, chemical warfare and so on.

At that time the coastal line was badly polluted by industrial/agricultural dumps/wash-outs etc., and red tides were quite menacing. I knew that all the fish during the red tides were killed by mixture of saxi - and goniatoxins produced by blossoming dinoflagellate / pyridinium / hymnodynium monocellular seaweeds, and, you guess, I used to find it pretty fascinating. Thus there was my first serious work under the guidance of the SUT instructor - I tried to predict red tides by measuring concentrations and consumption speed of oxygen in the sea water. I made the portable kit to take the probes of water and was wandering with it along the beaches, sitting next to fisherman and putting down a string with a beaker instead of fishing hook, taking it up, closing from direct light in a foil and adding manganese sulfate then a strong base to fix all oxygen in the half of the flasks. The second half was going to get fixed and measured 5 and 10 days later to see how fast the living microflora in the water would consume the oxygen dissolved. Within a couple of months I succeeded in building up a curve using which it was possible to say whatever there would be a red tide in 2-3 days or not. Also I found that the protective coastal construction lines strangle the beaches depriving the water of oxygen, stagnating it and strangling the fish. Fisherman also got used to me and were asking whenever there would be a red tide or not so they would know if they should stay at home and whenever there is less oxygen in the water here or there so that they would know where there is less fish, as it seems to leave the low-oxygen zones. That was my first serious work, it won 1st place at the rayon level and I went further on for a county.

On the county level, all was bombastic and there were works (some mentioned above) far superior to mine and done in proper large centers - NII's, State University, institutions and industry. But I was aggressive, articulate, answered all questions shot at me, brought several people down with my questions and got 3rd place. 3rd is just 3rd, but it means (WOW !) a full membership from the first try!, the red card with golden "PROMETHEUS" on it (the name of a local MAN) - something that many tried to get for two or three years. Then there was my first winter camp... fun ... fun.... fun.... a lot of BIG BOOMS, crazy nights, incredibly attractive girls who also knew a damn a lot about their favorite subjects and nothing about soap operas, and - chances to meet real scientists doing real work - a total "lamer-free zone"! After about a month I was contacted through my SUT instructor who told me that there were people in the Bogatskiy NII that would like to work with me in it's Department 5, that was under personal control of NII head Academician Andronati and was devoted to synthesis and evaluation of various biologically active compounds. The proposed topic was synthesis/modification of flat aromatic hydrocarbons with strong DNA-intercalating properties and possible immunomodulant actions, especially induction of synthesis and secretion of interferons. There were other applications too, but I did not know about them - until later.

Obviously, I accepted the proposition. The lab was run by Prof. Litvinova, she was a disciple and a good friend of Ac. Andronati, there was also her research assistant, Dr. Lyahov, who spent quite a lot of his personal time explaining to me the techniques of organic synthesis and compound purification plus a lot on chemistry of aromatic hydrocarbons down to the quantal level - he was very good at it and I was never looked at as "some dumb kid" - the relationships in the lab were EQUAL (and I just turned 14 when I joined it). I was also trained in safety practice and given right to work with toxic and radioactive compounds. Every day after my school I was taking a bus, rushing into the NII, showing my special entry card to stone-faced machine-gunners guarding the entrance and working like crazy until 10-11 PM. When I was leaving the NII building at night, the majority of lab windows were lit up - enthusiasts working for their enjoyment. No one was forced to do anything - no one NEEDED to be forced, the time-table was very flexible and the holidays quite long - but many did not take them at all. Quite soon I synthesized a couple of dozen of new hydrocarbons, purified them, did the preliminary structure checks, boiling point/solubility/metal chelation checks and so on. Meanwhile I got some guest invitations for several conferences and presented the first parts of my new work in the summer camp. There I got elected as a Chairman of the Chemistry Section and got more guest invitations. So, the work was going on and on, same applied to my obsession with explosives, we used to visit various industrial complexes too (and pinch chemicals as we visit :)), deliver propaganda of popular science to younger school kids etc. There were competitions - as usual. My work on aromatic hydrocarbons was good - it went up to a Union level. I did reasonably well in Olympics too, Chemistry Section was blossoming taking up to a half of all publications in the annual MAN Bulletin, we did several articles in local newspapers (mainly on ecology - linked topics), our members were pouring into universities without any real entry exams - no one could ever foresee any sign of approaching collapse. After one and a half years I got elected as a MAN Vice - President.

During my time all was perfect: I started to expand MAN (which, at the time, had 500 Full Members and 2000 Candidate Members). I always had the notion that art, philosophy, poetry and mythology could be as important in hard research as statistics and computation were. Before MANs were only for hard sciences - I launched two new sections: archeology and applied psychology/linguistics. As far as I know that was the first case of more - or - less humanitarian MAN sections in existence. Another characteristic of "my time" was very bombastic camps. We rented a privileged "Molodaya Gvardiya" (Young Guards) camp for young Party leaders, a posh resort building, whole ships to have fun on, sent and received dozens of exchange delegations all around the USSR but also Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. Talking about camps, I should mention the Republic and Union-level ones. There were camps for any MAN - pursued subject, but I can only talk about the chemistry camps from my personal experience. The Republican chemical camp for Ukrainian SSR was located nearby the industrial center of Dneprodzerzhinsk and called "The Oak Forest" (Dubovaya Roscha) , it was supervised by DHTI (Dnepropetrovsk Institute of Chemical Technology) under the guidance of Academician Kirpichnikov. The All-Union camp was located in Tatarstan, 80 kilometers from Kazan deep in the wild forest. It was called The Orbital (referring to the electron orbitales) and had enormous painting of atom structure with a golden psi-square in the middle of it hanging above the entrance. The Orbital was supervised by KHTI (Kazan Institute of Chemical Technology) under the guidance of Academician Ahmetov. His textbook of general and inorganic chemistry was a university standard in the USSR and one of the relics in my collection is a trophy copy of it signed personally for me by the author.

Both camps had buses attached, exellent food, computing facilities, conference halls and so on. All instructors to "look after kids" had PhD levels and there were professor and academician-level guest lecturers. The campers, well... it is difficult to describe. The only thing that mattered was your very personality and goods/ideas you came up with - there were no normal names in use, only nicks (usually corresponding to various explosives/toxins/etc - everyone was a young James Bond villain at heart!) No one used to sleep there - the close social contact among thinkers alike was so potent that there was no time to sleep. But there definitely was a lot of time for fun (obviously including fantastic ground-shaking, window-smashing fireworks or weird hallucinations attacking this or that victim of pharmacological experimentation). The interesting thing is that people there were not just intelligent - practically, pragmatically intelligent, but also physically beautiful. How would you feel about your perfect feminine ideal approaching you and asking: "if i heat up nitrogen trichloride to 60 centigrade, do you think this oily liquid will detonate?" Huh? There were internal competitions, and not only in the subjects but in anything one can imagine including out-joking the other team, tied-up football, beauty contests and so on, also improvised concerts etc. Two (self-written) hits of the season of my Orbital time were "We'll sink the world in ethylmercaptane" and "Like a white table-cloth the Lewsite vapor crawls..." - their lyrics could give your average black metal fan cold sweats and nightmares for the rest of his life!

Talking about "the glorious times", the biggest trick I pulled apart from building two new and unsual sections and great camps was making my city a site of the annual All-Union Team Tournament and winning it (I was a team captain, and one of the winning factors was my idea to enchance the speed of thinking and social interaction in the team by a combination of Pantokrine (40 drops) and Glutamate 0.5 g. - 20 minutes before the competition kicks off) I remember well closing of the tournament, me presenting the team members through the hailstorm of applauds in the old university lecture hall, the same hall where a hundred years ago Mechnikov, Sechenov and Mendeleev were applauded to!

Honestly, I did not see any economical problems around - many members of the section were getting cash rewards (something like a fifth of an average salary per month), all industries were busy producing something, often they were giving free equipment and books for SUT lab etc. I have to say that I was the last Vice President before "the end of it all." After me there was a young lady, beautiful and energetic, brilliant mathematician, classic guitar player and poet - she tried hard to keep everything together and I used to fight with her side by side - all was futile.

//END//

Editor's commentary:

-ed.