One thing that has struck me as unique about Russian history is the people’s dedication to a scientific manner of thinking even in inappropriate contexts. Somehow, even artistic venues for thought were broken down systematically with a direct objective and means of achieving said goal. To me, this is a very scientific way of thinking. Socialist Realism, for example, could be seen as something of an equation. Russians always had an end goal in mind, but the means of achieving these goals were often unfinished, sloppy or simply flawed.

In some ways, Russia appears to be very ahead of it’s time. A want to understand cause and effect or system and function is a sign of an intellectually developed country. However, science was still at an extremely limited state even in the 1930’s (by comparison  of course, to science since the 1990’s). I think Russian societal culture is a perfect allegory for human scientific progress in the early 20th century. We had ideas, concepts that were understood but yet so much was left in a void. Russia was influenced so intensely by the push in science (such as Darwinism) that they themselves became a perfect representation of it’s faults within that era.

Perhaps every single aspect of life can be broken down into a system with rules (“recommendations”) for success. But there is still a level of humanity that science and Russia in the early 20th century failed to address, or rather work around. Even now there are many doors closed, but I will be curious to see how science effects the progress of Russia in the upcoming decades during our class.