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SUMMARY:A struggle for the Soviet future: the birth of scientific forecast
 ing in the Soviet Union - Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (Kingston University)
DTSTART:20171019T120000Z
DTEND:20171019T130000Z
UID:TALK85051@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:This paper argues for the importance of Soviet forecasting and
  scientific future studies in shaping Soviet governmentalities in the post
 -Stalinist period. The de-Stalinization of Soviet governance not only invo
 lved the abolition of Iosif Stalin's personality cult but also led to wide
 r intellectual changes in conceptions of the nature\, possibilities\, and 
 tasks of governance. Some of these changes\, such as the impact of cyberne
 tics after its rehabilitation in 1956\, have been explored by historians o
 f science and technology. However\, although cybernetic control is based o
 n prediction and therefore principally oriented toward the future\, a new 
 branch of scientific governance\, scientific forecasting\, has been overlo
 oked\, despite its transformative role as an applied policy science. Scien
 tific forecasting sought to generate knowledge about the future states of 
 the Soviet economy and society\, becoming a field of reform\, innovation\,
  and power struggle\, one that needs to be rediscovered by scholars. This 
 paper (recently published in Slavic Review) lays the groundwork for such r
 ediscovery\, outlining a brief history of Soviet scientific forecasting an
 d drawing out its relation to east-west intellectual and governmental inte
 raction.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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