Statistics, one of the founders of the discipline, Francis Galton, argued, "are the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bare the path of those who pursue the science of man and society." Despite the value of statistics for modern governments, the discipline of statistics in the Soviet Union has followed a history of wide swings in official acceptance, following, in its way, the checkered history of genetics in the Soviet Union. Professor Kotz, under this grant, will examine these dramatic events in order to gain a better understanding not only of the turbulent history of this discipline and the difficulties it encounters in absorbing and harnessing modern technologies but also of how the Soviet Union uses science in the pursuit of governmental policies. The history Soviet statistics has gone through essentially five periods: a "Golden Age" (1919-1930) when Soviet statisticians were at the forefront of the discipline in the world and provided important information for the Soviet State; Stalinist repression (1931-1952), including the disastrous War years and an imposition of a rigid, ideological suffocation and isolation for statistics; a period of slow, erratic recovery under Khrushchev (1953-1964); stagnation under Brezhnev (1964-83); and a current period of substantial reassessment and even upheaval under Gorbachev (1985- 1988). Professor Kotz will trace the developments through these periods by following the careers of four prominent Soviet statisticians. He will carry this research out through analysis and synthesis of the existing scattered, fragmentary publications (in both Russian and English) available at the Library of Congress.
