Graham ch. 2

what was Palchinsky's strategy?
engineering ethics and examples

We pick up the story with Palchinsky under arrest for being a part of the provisional government (democratic socialist)
but the Soviets decide they need experts from the previous government, and he was a prime example
how does he make sense of working for a government he disagrees with?

feared Soviet meddling in science

• decisions about which scientific theory is right being made on political grounds
• by non-scientists
• by scientists by their own opinion
  
• by scientists under pressure (eg. in the Soviet Union)

believed in central planning but with room for regional variations
opposed giant factories for low technology goods

felt that treating workers well was crucial for success

• criticized Taylorism, wanted to replace it with humanitarian engineering
• educate the workers so they can figure out the efficient way
• but he also saw experts such as engineers as making the big decisions, rather than the workers
• the Bolsheviks (communists) believed they were a movement of the working class against capitalists and experts, but they wanted to show off rapid development even if it came at the price of mistreating workers
  

 wanted engineers to take on a broader role, thinking about social issues rather than just providing technical solutions
did not want engineering organizations controlled by the party (people whose opinion would be based on political rather than technical considerations)

this fit less and less well as Stalin increased his power and paranoia

• Stalin feared that engineers who didn't believe in communism would sabotage projects
• in 1928 Palchinsky and other engineers were arrested and accused of conspiring to overthrow the government and restore capitalism. That wasn't true but they criticized the government too much
  
• Palchinsky was seen as the ringleader and was secretly executed, others were tried in a show trial called the Industrial Party Trial
  
• The prosecution stated that "the Industrial Party consisted of the top old engineering-technical intelligentsia, of major specialists and professors, who held privileged positions during the capitalist regime" (Wikipedia)
• they were accused of slowing progress by the decisions they made, a more subtle form of sabotage. They were scapegoats who could be blamed for those times when rapid industrialization didn't work
  
• about 30% of all Soviet engineers were arrested in the period--some were sent to labor camps where many died, other to special prisons to continue their work
  

technocracy: scientists and engineers should make rational decisions instead of democracy
if you are going to do central planning the advantage should be experts can make the decisions
in the USSR centrally planned decisions were made by political leaders rather than experts

how to use experts well

• competing experts
• decisions about values are political, not solvable by experts