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p A consideration of scientific and technical progress with all its internal and external interconnections shows that we are dealing with a complex system, so that the systems approach needs to be used in investigating the problems it tends to produce.

p How are /we to understand the term “system”? I think that a system should be seen as a physical (or conceptual) aggregation consisting of interrelated, interdependent and interacting parts and elements. Every given system is usually a component—a subsystem—of another, broader system.

p A system is something that is greater than a mere sumtotal of its constituent elements. Science, technology and production are key elements shaping scientific and technical progress. However, all its parts which are included in the whole do not themselves yet constitute a whole. Similarly, workers, machine-tools and tools, materials and technological charts are key elements of production, but do not in themselves constitute production as such. “Structure” and “organisation” are two other closely and organically interrelated categories that need to be taken into account in the process of systems analysis, because it is they that constitute each given system, transforming its isolated elements into a functioning (and so interacting) complex, that is, a system. The latter cannot function or even exist at all unless it has a definite structure and (especially when it comes to a dynamic system) organisation. Although these two concepts are interrelated, structure is more of a static concept and organisation (and control, which is closely connected with it) a dynamic concept.

p Structure is one of the key substantive characteristics of any system, reflecting its inner makeup, the correlation and interrelation of its subsystems and elements, the interdependence and subordination of its constituent parts, their functional and linear connections, proportions and the conditions in which they are combined. Only a definite structure transforms the aggregation of elements and subsystems into a specific system and determines the possibility of its preset, purposeful functioning. The structure of a given system 22 largely predetermines the nature of its organisation, the latter being regarded as a process.  [22•1 

p The specific approach to economic planning ultimately starts from the structure of social requirements (and definite elements of these requirements) and is aimed to shape an adequate structure of social production. Still, structure is not identical with organisation. Organisation is a process ensuring the functioning of the system with its inherent structure. Organisation ensures the flow of impulses setting the system in motion and the realisation of its inner interconnections and interactions. It ensures the system’s connections with the external world at the input and output terminals, and maintains the system in the state of functioning which is aimed to fulfil the tasks set before it.

p Every system, like its component elements, has its specific features, its response to control and controlling action, its forms of possible departure from the ordinary norms of its development, its specific features of responses to diverse effects like interferences and disturbances. All of this together can, in fact, be called the behaviour of systems or subsystems.

p Each unit, which is a subject of scientific and technical progress (whether a scientific institution, a technical institute, a laboratory, a production unit or any other object which in practice realises this or that scientific and technical solution) is functioning in the conditions of extremely dynamic development of science and technology, constant changes in the structure of requirements (productive and non-productive), changes in the economic situation, and so on. All of this exerts a multilateral influence on the behaviour of all the parts of the major system. The prognostication and planning, to say nothing of control of such a system, undoubtedly will not be fully effective without an analysis of the structure of the system and the peculiarities of behaviour of each of its components.

p Before going on to elucidating the material content of the current STR one has to determine the features and 23 structure of scientific and technical progress as a system. There are complex and diverse links and interactions between science and technical development projects. The sphere of science and research, like the sphere of technical development projects, may be regarded as complex systems and also as subsystems of a more global system, of scientific and technical progress as a whole.

p If we regard science and technical development projects not only as a product of men’s intellectual activity but also in terms of the implementation of scientific discoveries and technical projects in the sphere of material production and non-production sphere, scientific and technical progress will appear to be an even more complex system. We shall then also have to analyse its interconnections with the growth and improvement of the material elements of the productive forces. It will also turn out that the physiological and intellectual qualities of men, which are themselves the creators of scientific and technical progress, also tend increasingly to be influenced by it.

p Accordingly, there will be a need to consider a broad complex of interconnections of science and technical development projects with production and all its elements, and also with man, the subject of scientific and technical progress.

p Having made all these preliminary remarks, let us get down to considering the structure of the object before us. First of all, there is a need to draw a distinction between two of its component parts: research and technical development projects  [23•1  (R & D) which are the two subsystems of the first order.

p Science and technical solutions are the product of men’s intellectual activity. Science is all-round research and a complex of scientific discoveries which have been brought up to a structural characteristic reflecting a definite aggregation of objects and phenomena active in the real world, in nature and society, and determining the uniformities governing the formation and development of these objects and phenomena.

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p By technical development projects is meant the complex of engineering solutions based on the use of the results of research and making possible the construction and functioning of definite elements of production: machinery, objects of labour and production techniques (methods), and the creation of the goods and services required by society. The production and final consumption (productive and non- productive) of the goods produced as a result of scientific and technical progress may be most closely connected with the latter, but are, nevertheless, not its component parts. These are special socio-economic systems with their own extensive range of ties.

p Each of these two subsystems of the first order has a complex inner structure (that is, it includes a number of subsystems of second, third, etc. orders) and is accordingly characterised by an intricate complex of external and internal, direct and feed-back connections.

p Without giving the details of all the subsystems, let me list merely the subsystems of the second order:

p I. Research

p 1. Mathematics

p 2. Physics

p 3. Mechanics, cybernetics and control processes

p 4. Chemistry

p 5. Biology and allied sciences

p 6. Medicine

p 7. Earth sciences

p 8. Social sciences  

p II. Technical and other applied development projects

p 1. The energy basis of production

p 2. Instruments of labour

p 3. Means of transportation and movement

p 4. Devices for data processing

p 5. Means of protection of the environment

p 6. Means of communication

p 7. Objects of labour

p 8. Techniques

p 9. Organisation of production and labour (industrial
engineering)

p 10. Control

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p The complex inner structure of each of these subsystems of the second order will be seen from the fact that physics contains (as subsystems of the third order) the following:

p 1. Atomic and nuclear physics

p 2. Plasma physics

p 3. Quantum physics

p 4. Solid-state physics, etc.

p For its part, solid-state physics, for instance, has a number of important branches, i.e., subsystems of the fourth order. The same multiplicity will be found in the complex of chemical, biological and other sciences.

p As I intend to show in subsequent chapters, each secondorder subsystem within D, like an instrument of labour, for instance, also has complex inner hierarchical structure.

p When considering the Technical and Other Applied Development Projects subsystem, one should specially look at the three latter subgroups: techniques; organisation of production and labour; and control. While, in contrast to the first six subgroups, these are not direct material elements of modern production, they have nevertheless become its immediate key elements, having an ever more active role to play and exerting a highly radical influence on the instruments of labour and other material elements of production.

p This is most clearly seen in techniques. At the end of the 19th century, this was almost entirely determined by the product of labour, i.e., the kind of article that had to be produced, on the one hand, and the object and instrument of labour, on the other. Subsequently, techniques became increasingly multivariant, and today it is perhaps techniques that is the basic point of application of the results of research. The penetration of science into production increasingly occurs through techniques, and through the latter it exerts an influence on the instruments of labour. Thus, techniques becomes an active element of the production process.

p As an example, take the method of the continuous pouring of steel, which has been developed with the advances in solid-state physics. It eliminates gigantic machinery like blooming mills.*Advances in the methods of welding fhave gradually helped to eliminate giant facing lathes, and so on and so forth.

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p The multivariant and the growing multioperational nature of techniques naturally enhances the role and importance of the organisation of production and control, which are designed to select the best variants and realise these in the process of production. It goes without saying that organisational and management decisions exert a considerable influence on the material elements of production and especially on their use and the efficiency of their functioning.

p Consequently, within the limits of each of the two firstorder subsystems—R & D—there are numerous and highly complex direct and feed-back connections.

p One need merely refer to the role of mathematics in the development of all the natural (and lately also the social) sciences, of physics and chemistry in the development of the biological sciences, and of cybernetics in the development of all the sciences; there is also the ever more tangible impact of the social sciences—philosophy, political economy and sociology—on the development of the natural sciences and even on mathematics. Indeed, more and more new frontier sciences tend to arise at the junctures of the -traditional scientific disciplines.

p As I have already shown, there are also internal connections in D between the individual functional elements of production. The instruments and objects of labour exert a diverse influence on production methods. With the emergence of synthetic materials with pre-set properties, the objects of labour also begin to play an active role, determining changes in technology and frequently stimulating radical changes in the instruments of labour. The instruments of labour, the objects of labour, techniques, the organisation of production and job and management are influenced by a data processing, the methods used in decision-making, the means of transport and communication facilities.

p Mathematics, electronics, automation and cybernetics, the biological sciences, the study of the brain and higher nervous activity, the economic sciences and sociology directly shape and improve the organisation and control of production.

p One could take a somewhat different approach in defining the structure of scientific and technical progress.

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p Scientific and technical progress is essentially a purely dynamic phenomenon. If we regard it as a system moving in time and, accordingly, its time structure and origins, we shall discover a deeply echeloned complex which includes, at least, the following elements: first, general education and special secondary and higher education; second, complexes of research (in the basic and applied sciences) and technological design institutes, together with their experimental and engineering facilities; third, material production proper, in which scientific and technical progress is materialised; and fourth, the sphere of production and non-production consumption in which the new technology is used in accordance with their ultimate purpose.

p The first echelons consist of the subjects of scientific and technical progress, the personnel working in science, technology and production. In the middle echelons, intellectual activity by this personnel results in scientific discoveries and technical solutions, and finally, in the last echelons (according to our scheme) scientific and technical progress is realised and applied in practice.

p One of the key advantages of the socialist economy is the possibility of state planning and financing and, accordingly, of the proportional and balanced development of all the abovementioned elements in the progress of science and technology, and also the possibility of shaping a balanced sectoral structure of material production and the inner structure of its basic subdivisions, on which largely depend the pace of development and especially realisation of scientific and technical progress.

p Complex direct and feed-back connections exist between the above-mentioned echelons of scientific and technical progress. Each preceding element creates the prerequisites—material and spiritual—for the development of subsequent elements, and above all for steady progress, scientific discoveries and technical solutions. At the same time, each science and each industry have their own inner logic which largely determines the trends of their development. Thus, the nature of general and, in particular, of special education must reflect the perspectives of science and technology and the changing demands which these will naturally make in the immediate and long-term perspective on the training of personnel and their specialisation. This does not rule out the need for periodic extension courses and retraining for specialists at every level, but the basis of 28 general and special education needs to be constantly analysed with an eye to the steadily changing trends in scientific and technical development.

p Let us note that the effort here is inadequate, despite the fact that the workers of the 1990s and the year 2000 are already going through various stages of education. And, of course, there is a need constantly to “verify” the nature of the education with the requirements these cadres will have to face in the foreseeable future. Consequently, in shaping the first echelons one has to start from a definite conception of technical policy, and also from a conception how this policy exerts an influence on the structure and nature of the labour functions and, accordingly, on the structure and specialisation of the personnel.

p As STR accomplishments are applied in production there is evidently a tangible change in the nature and content of the skills of workers at every level. New trades emerge while the traditional ones are altered. At the same time, it is safe to say that with the progress and complexincation [of technology the requirements on the skills of workers grow. This entails a combination of growing requirements on the level and scope of general educational training with the need to adapt fairly rapidly to special activities, which, for their part, tend to change their content relatively fast. In these conditions, extensive general education must go hand in hand with a virtually continuous process of improvement and raising of skills and a retraining of personnel.

Such are the basic structural characteristics of scientific and technical progress and the main internal interconnections of its constituent subsystems.