NEW DEVICES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 144, 14 December 1935, Page 16

NEW DEVICES

.ENCOURAGED BY SOVIET

INVENTION IN RUSSIA

, . The development of technology and industry in.Soviet Russia of necessity implies the encouragement of invention, writes the Science editor of the "New York Times." , Hence those who attended'the seventeenth congress of the Communist Party last May found it natural enough for Stalin thus to recognise the important position of the inventor in1 the Communistic industrial State: ..- ~. . : ' - . It, is time to understand that: of all kinds of valuable capital' in the world the most valuable and the most cisive is man. ' -, The old slogan that technology will solve all problems must give way to" a new one: Man will solve all problems. Of inventors he had this to say:— Invention should be an essential part of the new technology ■ and of contemporary life. • The party demands that we protect and encourage, our inventors. These were not'empty words to be carried away by the wind. Hardly had the congress ended when the-.Central Committee of the Communist Party organised a section to foster the scientific interest and inventive ability of the workers. The vice-president of the Commit-tee-of the.. People's Commissars, V.^Y. Chubar, called' a\ meeting at which, he discussed with . inventors • the best; methb'd of'aiding them. If vive may judge,by the accounts published in the Soviet organ, "The Inventor," Commissar. Chubar's conference brought, out the human'qualities of Russian Morses, Bells, and Edisons. Inr capitalistic countries there .has been a; steady trend towards organised invention and research carried out in industrial;;.-;;laboratories. by x ' trained scientists^nd;: technicians; -Team work is considered of more importance than individual glory. As a result it is hard to tell who invented.& riew'turret lathe or who is responsible for the newest streamlined train. THEY SEEK CREDIT. It might be supposed that in a Communistic State, where the individual throws his ability into the common pot, this anonymity would be accepted as something axiomatic. Not so. At Chubar's conference inventors clamoured for individual recognition. Some strong language was used. It was even declared that it was a crime —literally and not figuratively—to deprive an inventor; of glory and monetary reward. Chubar was impressed and promised to punish the guilty. The incident is instructive. How often do we not hear the charge in capitalistic countries that the inventor who gives the world a new machine that earns millions is deprived of his just deserts? He is no better off under Communism. The demand for personal recognition is apparently not;inconsistent with- the pooling of ideas for the -benefit of the State. ;It is a cardinal principle of the Soviet.Union; that ■/every invention is of necessity a composite." Everywhere the original inventor—if "original" can be applied to any piece of engineering—develops something already known or at least applies well-known principles. Even if he works alone the' resultant machine is invariably improved reduced to commercial or practical form by others with more experience. Hence the tendency in Soviet Russia, as in capitalistic countries, to encourage organised research and invention. Industrial problems are given to groups of technologists to solve. Even then the solution finally arrived at must be approved, and possibly further developed by the Experimental Laboratory in Moscow—an institution founded in 1931 to invent machines and processes to. order. How Chubar hopes to give credit where credit is due with,such a system it is hard to see. ■! SCHOOLS FOR INVENTORS. Systematic invention is so important in the upbuilding of Soviet Russia that schools for the training of the ingenious have been established. These are more than • institutions where the principles of science and engineering are taught. ' To. be sure, the usual lectures on chemistry, mechanics, and electricity are given.. But in addition the older mechanics, men who have given evidence of inventive power, are urged to give their younger comrades the benefit of their experience and methods. The-result of all this; is a deluge of practical books where only four years ago there-was hardly, one. ; Incredible as it seems, we are assured that the 4000 members of the Inventors' Union or Guild are all in some way aiding the authors of these works. The character of this rapidly-flowering technical literature may be judged from the praise lavished on I. T. Kalinin for a textbook which embodies his experience of thirty-eight years in the making of high-grade steel and on I. S. Zaytzev for a practical guide on the construction and operation of printing presses. In Western - countries. women have not manifested technical ingenuity of a high order, though a woman's name appears now and then in the patent records of every country. In Soviet Russia women are presumed to have inventive ability. They also are to be taught how to invent. They, too, are to write on invention and impart the knowledge that they have gained in Soviet factories. Thus an able woman, Kemenskaya, probably stands alone in the world as the author of a textbook on the manufacture of rubber shoes—the crystallisation of an experience acquired in nearly a quarter of a century.