Candida Moss is a Catholic who grew up in England and is confident in her life. As a child in church, she was often told that Christians had been persecuted from the very beginning. Now, having become a theologian, she wants to clarify this issue. In her recently published book, The Persecution Myth: How the Early Christians Invented a History of Martyrdom, she argues that this sad fact, which is so disturbing to modern Christians, is just a fiction.

Despite widespread anti-Christian prejudice, she writes, persecution of Christians was rare and short-lived in the first 3000 years.

We asked Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame, to talk about the suffering of early Christians and how this fact is used today. The interview has been published in full.

Question: You are claiming that the modern myth of the persecution of Christians is rooted in an ancient myth. In this case, you refer to Pliny, a Roman who lived in the I-II centuries. and the manager of the territory that is now part of Turkey. Why exactly on Pliny?

Answer: Pliny is the first Roman official to leave messages about Christians. In a letter to Emperor Troyan, he writes: "What am I going to do with them?" They don't do anything wrong, but when they go to court they become very stubborn. " An accusation like this in the Roman Empire would cost you your life. Pliny also has other arguments: Christians did not purchase meat associated with Roman temples. He believes that Christians are not a religious group, but people prone to prejudice, which the Romans perceived as a kind of madness that could spread like a disease.

Pliny and Troyan agree that Christians will not be assassinated, but if they find themselves in court and behave obstinately, then he will give them three chances to renounce Christ and sacrifice in a Roman temple - If they refuse, they will be executed.

I am not claiming that Pliny's account is accurate, however, it is very different from the stories of persecution of Christians that I was told as a child.

Question: Isn't this persecution? They were not attempted, but if they appeared before the court, then, most likely, they were expected to die.

Answer: Well, is this persecution? I would say that a lot depended on luck, but I don't think that was fair. In those days in Rome it was considered illegal to belong to a secret society, or to be disobedient towards a judge. Christians were not persecuted for recognizing the Trinity, but for breaking the law.

I want to understand from the ancient Roman point of view what the problem was with the Christians.

The Romans were tolerant of many religious groups. They only opposed them when they thought they were dangerous. And Christians talked about their new emperor Christ. They spoke of their disrespect for the Roman government. Many of them refused to serve in the army. Their activities were destructive. But in that world, religious freedom was not a right, then there simply did not exist such a concept.

Questioner: Critics of your book - even if they agree that there was no concerted, long-term campaign in Rome to eradicate and exterminate Christians - argue that it was nevertheless a dark, dangerous time for them. Does it make any difference?

Answer: The situation was dire and we should be careful when studying it, but here we need to make a distinction. Emperor Decius (who in the 3rd century demanded that everyone in the empire make sacrifices to his divine spirit) did not know what his edict would mean for Christians. He didn't try to attack them. In essence, he was simply trying to strengthen the Roman Empire.

Catholics these days take very close to their hearts the Obama administration's stance on contraception. President Obama does not want to offend Catholics and Christians in general. He only cares about promoting health care. Catholics may disagree with him, but if he does not attack Catholics and we believe that he is concerned about health issues, we can continue the discussion with him.

There have been many different controversies between the Catholic bishops and the Obama administration. However, the situation in this country is different about those countries where there is no justice and Christians are forbidden to have a Bible and go to Church.

Question: Who makes money from the myth of the persecution of Christians?

Answer: When people say that they are being persecuted in America today, I think it is dangerous. I'm talking about everyone from Rick Santorum to Mitt Romney and Catholic bishops, and Bill O'Reil is talking about the Easter war. The problem is that it breaks the dialogue. The persecutors have no reasonable complaints and therefore you cannot have a productive dialogue. But you can disagree with someone about your religious beliefs without accusing them of persecution.

If you say that they are persecuting you, then you, in essence, accuse them of joint actions with Satan.

Q: Are you going to run away from people like Bill O'Reilly to stop talking about American Christians being persecuted?

Answer: In the book, I try to talk not about controversial issues, but about rhetoric. I give examples of people who stopped believing and I criticize them. We should all look at the reasons and say, "I'm not going to do this. I want to think that people have good intentions." Only in this case you will have a truly productive dialogue with people.

Question: But do you believe that there is indeed persecution of Christians in the world today?

Answer: Yes, of course. This is the "boy howling wolf" situation. One of the reasons we don't hear them is because all the screams are universal.

We need to hear stories about Christians in other parts of the world, and we need to be sure that instead of talking about a global war against Christianity - as many Christian and Catholic journalists do - we will tell stories about Christians in a way that does not provoke violence. other persecuted groups.

For example, Christians are living in a very difficult situation in China. But the Chinese government's attitude towards religions in general is a small part of the global war against Christianity. If we only talk about the war against Christianity, then we will betray a people like Falun Gong, who is being severely persecuted in China.

Answer: The problem with religious rhetoric, if we are talking about the battle between God and Satan, is that the stakes are much higher here. If we say: “God requires you to do this,” then the dialogue will not work, because religion is a kind of lightning rod and therefore whenever we talk about religion or use religious expressions, we should be especially sensitive to power these concepts.

Translation: Catholic Information Service Agnuz

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(Moscow: Kraft +, 2008)
Scan, processing, format: Zed Exmann, 2009; Htm format: Georg Lukas, 2012

• TABLE OF CONTENTS:
  Glossary of Social Understanding (3).
  The mythology of counterrevolution: 1953-1956-1987-1991-1993. How we all lost the battle for history (4).
  To the reader (4).
  From the author. Our youth is a beggar Soviet Soviet Union with missiles and a handsome Captain America in jeans (7).
  Chapter 1. A brief background to the question of terror (15).
  Communism is a model program of the society of the future (45).
  Chapter 2. The myth of the red terror! Was he there? (49).
  Chapter 3. Legend about the Constituent Assembly, which was dispersed by the Bolsheviks (68).
  Chapter 4. Dirty story about the robbery of the people by the Bolsheviks (86).
  Chapter 5. The myth of a great and wealthy Russia before 1917 (117).
  Chapter 6. The dirty legend about the lawlessness of the Bolsheviks (133).
  Chapter 7. The great myth about the terror of the Cheka, which did not shoot anyone or imprison anyone (136).
  Chapter 8. The reality of Russia is the fierce hatred of parasitic groups (162).
  Chapter 9. The myth of comparison with the United States (172).
  Chapter 10. Military-industrial complex (182).
  Chapter 11. New Russia (190).
  Chapter 12. God is with us (204).
  Chapter 13. Enemies in stock (213).
  Chapter 14. Peacemaker. A little about the real executions of the Cheka and the Revolutionary Tribunal (222).
  Chapter 15. The first "Soviet" famine. Food detachments. The first kulak terror. War in the rear (228).
  Chapter 16. White terror de facto and red terror de jure (241).
  Chapter 17. White about the White Terror (260).
  Chapter 18. Bellum civile (279).
  Chapter 19. The West helps us. Foreign invaders on the territory of Russia (areas of action) (286).
  Chapter 20. 1920-1921 (296).
  Chapter 21. The great famine of 1921, missing from the history of Russia and Europe (304).
  Chapter 22. The West Siberian uprising of 1921, which disappeared from the history of Russia (309).
  Chapter 23. Was there a Red Terror at all? Or is it white? (319).
  Chapter 24. Famine in Ukraine in 1933 (326).
  Chapter 25. Repression! What it is!? Educational program for compatriots from the doctor of sciences (344).
  Chapter 26. What is Russian spirituality in the XX century (356).
  Chapter 27. The geoclimatic tragedy of Russia: the land that could not feed anyone (358).
  Chapter 28. Where did the total terror of the Asian wars disappear from the memory? (399).
  Chapter 29.1921 (402).
  Chapter 30. Forgotten education system (411).
  Chapter 31. The great theoretician and anticommunist historian # 1 in the world (424).
  Chapter 32. Parasites of the big lie (452).
  Chapter 33. Detectives - journalism - history - shocking (466).
  Chapter 34. The nobility has gone from social memory (481).
  Chapter 35. Theoretical hara-kiri (486).
  Chapter 36. Historical enemies of Russia, well-known, but invisible to everyone (501).
  Chapter 37. The nobles were the real enemies of the people (507).
  Chapter 38. How easy they still won (510).
  Chapter 39. Myths about the unnecessary rates of industrialization, the lack of housing for the citizens of the USSR and Kanalstroy (525).
  Chapter 40.1924-1934: The people of nature (545).
  Chapter 41. Here the tram got on the rails - a fascist got under the tram: fascists, fascists, only fascists all around (550).
  Chapter 42. The defeat of the anti-state in 1937 (551).
  Chapter 43. Savior of the USSR - President of Czechoslovakia Benesh (557).
  Chapter 44 1937: Leon Feuchtwanger and Civil Pest Proceedings (566)
  Chapter 45. The myth of the great purges (579).
  Chapter 46. Moscow 1937. Life as such through the eyes of L. Feuchtwanger (586).
  Chapter 47. Civil processes (594).
  Chapter 48. Enemies about a conspiracy (605).
  Chapter 49. Legalized Lies (614)
  Chapter 50. Polyesterotic (622).
  Chapter 51. Restoration (629).
  Application. Le Kazaken (643).

Publisher's abstract: According to the author, "perestroika" is the most banal bourgeois coup. It was not new if such an assessment was given by the "left". But the author - in the past a dissident radical, the founder of a religious society, who retained a mystical-religious system of perception - views this event from an unusual position.
According to his hypothesis, that the whole people would support the coup, the great epic “about the bloody past of the USSR, which was the“ Empire of Evil ”, was brilliantly thrown into the public consciousness. This epic included no less great myths of lies: the myth that Russia was a rich, strong, industrial power before 1917, the myth of the persecution of the church, the myth of the Red Terror, Stalin's dictatorship, the Gulag archipelago and the inefficiency of the Soviet economy.
Everyone, following the linear pattern of the possible development of the "great" country before 1917, believed that Russia could be the leader of the planet, but the dynamic path of the empire was stopped by the Jewish Bolshevik experiment. Myths destroyed the system ...

During the sultry summer of 64 AD, on the evening of July 18, a fire broke out in a shop under the Circus Maximus in Rome. The fire quickly spread to nearby houses and shops, as well as to the Circus itself. The fire lasted six days, devastating the city. Only four of the fourteen quarters of Rome remained intact. The reigning emperor Nero, a man known for his cruelty and love of the theater, shifted the blame for the misfortune onto the shoulders of Christians.

According to tradition and later historians, as punishment, Nero invented grotesque executions for Christians: they were sewn into animal skins and after that they were tormented by dogs, and they were also doused with resin and used as living torches to illuminate dark nights during the festivities. According to Christian tradition, it was because of the fire that the most important Christian apostles - Peter and Paul - were arrested and executed. But while the fire in Rome is a harsh historical reality, can the same be said of Nero's persecution of Christians?

A significant part of the evidence of Nero's persecution of Christians has come down to us thanks to the works of the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote in 115-120. AD, at least 50 years after the events he described. According to Tacitus, the population of Rome blamed Nero for the fire, and he, in turn, turned all the arrows to Christians. Tacitus writes: "To stop the rumors, Nero found the guilty and subjected the people who were hated for their abominations to the most severe torment." Christians were arrested and tortured in order to obtain information about other Christians in the city itself, and, in the end, “countless Christians” were accused and killed.

It is known from Roman biographies that Nero killed his own mother, he was beyond any doubt capable of such atrocities, however, this does not at all mean that the story of Tacitus is reliable. In a recent issue of the journal for the study of the history of Rome, there appeared an article by the famous Princeton antiquarian Brent Shaw entitled "The Myth of the Persecution of Nero", in which the author proves that the story of Tacitus is a late fiction (for completeness: I tend to agree with Shaw, because I myself prove something similar in his book The Myth of Persecution).

Brent Shaw points out that the Roman historians prior to Tacitus have no references to Christians. Cassius Dion, another Roman historian who discussed the Great Fire, never mentioned Christians, and the rest of the later Roman sources mentioning fire relies entirely on Tacitus. Suetonius, the only Roman historian of the second century besides Tacitus to mention Nero's ill-treatment of Christians, does not in any way connect these punishments with the Great Fire. He writes that they were punished because their teaching was "a new and evil prejudice."

Perhaps the most overwhelming evidence comes from the use of the term "Christians." The first followers of Jesus were Jews. By the time Tacitus began writing his texts in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) of the second century, they had adopted the naming of Christians and attracted the attention of the Roman authorities, however there is no evidence that Christians called themselves in this way or were known as Christians in the 60s. x years of the 1st century. Paul, for example, never used this word.

As David Horrell, a professor at the University of Exeter, has shown, the earliest written evidence of the name "Christians" appears to be in the biblical First Epistle of Peter, which was written at the very end of the 1st century. Someone might argue that the Acts of the Apostles (the book of the Bible that contains the history of the apostles after the death of Jesus) states that Christians were first called Christians in Antioch in the 50s of the 1st century. But how accurate is Acts? Clara Rothschild, professor of theology at Lewis University, argues that while “experts usually date Acts between 56 and 140 AD. AD ... the fundamental research of Richard the First convinced the majority that Acts was composed ca. 115 g. " This means that Christians were not yet Christians in AD 64. They were Jews. Nero couldn't pursue a group that didn't even exist yet.

So what really happened? Brent Shaw claims that after the fire, rumors spread about Nero's involvement. Nero responded by punishing several of the arsonists, but these people were not really Christians, even if they were most likely innocent of the crimes attributed to them. In the half-century between 64 and the time of Tacitus, these individual people, who were punished by Nero, began to be associated with Christians, since by the time of Suetonius and Tacitus Christians were associated with all sorts of troublemakers.

What does this all mean for the story of the deaths of Peter and Paul? As I show in my book The Myth of Persecution, the earliest versions of the story of the deaths of Peter and Paul contain no mention of the Great Fire at all. In reality, it took centuries for these two events to merge into one narrative. The earliest evidence of their death (the Christian text referred to as the First Letter of Clement) states that they were executed out of "envy." Some experts suggest that the word "envy" in this case refers to intra-church disputes, which means that Peter and Paul were arrested and executed due to denunciations of other members of the Christian community.

Brent Shaw concludes his article with the conclusion that neither Peter's death nor Paul's death had anything to do with the Great Fire, adding that in neither case, the executions had anything to do with the perpetrators being Christians. He suggests they were accused of disturbing the peace.

This does not mean, of course, that the Great Fire of Rome was not historically significant beyond its devastating consequences. According to Sara Bond of the University of Iowa, this is an important episode in the history of firefighting. But much of what we know about this fire is the fruit of the legends of the tyrant emperor. The expression “play the violin while Rome burns” is still used, which shows the attitude of Nero. However, as we know, violins were invented only in the 11th century, and when the fire started, Nero was in his villa 35 miles from Rome. It's a great adage, but a very crappy story.

Candida R. Moss. Nero, the Execution of Peter and Paul, and the Biggest Fake News in Early Christian History

Do you believe in the myth of the persecution of the church under the Bolsheviks? and got the best answer

Answer from Cowboy [guru]
The persecution took place under the clink of glasses and a splash of champagne
Any Bayan (s) can be tyrit without any permission - there is no copyright holder as such.

Answer from 2 answers[guru]

Hey! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: Do you believe in the myth of the persecution of the church under the Bolsheviks?

Answer from Mrs. FATE[guru]
Hey))
I don’t believe any Myths, no matter how good they are ... =))
Myths will always remain Myths ...

Answer from Ўliya[guru]
There is no smoke without fire.
My great-grandmother hid the icons in the house and did not speak to my grandfather when she hung that Soviet flag on her house on holidays ... were afraid of something, apparently.

Answer from My illusion[guru]
And you do not read myths, but history.

Answer from Light[guru]
I do not believe ... I know that there was persecution))

Answer from Throat[guru]
Where do the words come from - we will open the candle factory, we will drink a liqueur.

Answer from Alexey Tikhomirov[guru]
There was no persecution, if only for separately snickering priests or priests who openly blaspheme Soviet power.

Answer from Irina sabelina[guru]
Under the Bolsheviks, I don’t know, they say that there were. But under Brezhnev - it certainly was not. If you believe the older generation, then in the last years of Stalin's life and under Khrushchev, too.

Answer from Equal Anna[guru]
A good anesthetist of conscience, it seems that you were your first patient and are looking for followers. With such a look at the bloody Bolshevik history - conscience will not hurt.

Answer from Alexander samoylov[guru]
this is not persecution, but a judgment for not accepting Christ in the second coming. Roman bayonets (communists) came and swept away the entire old Christian faith together with the priests into the river into the fire in the ground they were buried alive. They thought for faith, but it turned out for betrayal and went all believers in the Valilonian captivity for 70 years according to the scriptures

Answer from .... [guru]
Why did you climb into the grave of aibolit?
and in it why do you continue to beg for death?
why do you need all this?

Answer from It's finished![guru]
... may your kind dry up. Amen +
Amusing mood aibolite crusader +

Answer from May[guru]
priest Gapon is to blame for everything, he muddied the revolution, so the myths about Lenin - the inspirer and other persecutions do not correspond to the realities of that time

Answer from Church watchman.[guru]
Bp. Vasily (Zelentsov) Priluksky was shot in the basement of the Lubyanka, according to another version - he was thrown alive into the prison cesspool. In the early 1920s, he organized (as opposed to the Komsomol) the Pokrovskoe Christian Society of Youth at the Holy Trinity Church. Was in exile in Solovki.
8.4.18 When resisting the seizure of the property of the church with. Gnezdov of the Tver Diocese, laymen Pyotr Zhukov and Prokhor Mikhailov were tortured to death. There are 30 more parishioners with them.
11.4.19 Pavel Voinarsky s. Yurievka Berdyansky u. , Tavricheskaya lips. , brutally killed (11 bullet wounds and several. bayonet). Brothers Pavel and Aleksey Kiryan were also shot with him.
12.4.79Trial of nun Valeria Makeeva in Moscow for the manufacture and sale of several thousand belts with the text of Psalm 90 "Alive in Vyshnyago's help." Sent to a special psychiatric hospital for forced. treatment.
13.4.17 Abbot Eugene, present Alexander-Svirsky mon. Olonets city and with him 5 people. the brothers were shot. They opposed the plundering of the monastery. They themselves dug the grave, singing "Christ is Risen" at its edge.
18.4.21 Prot. Serapion Chernykh was thrown into the bay during the consecration of the willow in the city of Nikolaevsk on the Amur.
20.4.20 Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars signed by Lenin: all located within the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and Zagorsk ... buildings and / values ​​/ ... are turned into a museum.
4/20/18 Killed prot. Alexey Andronnikov, present Boriso-Gleb c. in Kostroma. Father Alexei was 87 years old.
22.4.31 Shot: Archpriest Alexander Dolzhinsky, dean of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev; Archpriest Vitaly Bogdan of Skorbischenskaya c. in Kiev.
24.4.44 Prot. Alexander Gutarevich from the village of Slipche Grubeshevsky u. , Kholmskaya lips. , killed by the Bolshevik partisans along with her daughter Angelina and her friend Yevgenia.
26.4.22 Beginning of the trial in Moscow in the case of church values. 11 people - to be shot.
4/30/18 On Easter, under the Holy Matins priest. O. John Prigorovsky of the village of Nezamayevskaya Kuban diocese gouged out his eyes, cut off his tongue and ears; behind the station, having tied them up, they buried the living in a manure pit.
April 1918. John Krasnov of the village of Dolzhanskaya Kuban region. after being tortured alive, he was thrown into the furnace of a steamer.

Answer from ? a?[guru]
"Let us raise our thanksgiving prayers to the Lord, who so favored our Holy Church. Let us publicly express our gratitude to the Soviet government for such attention to the spiritual needs of the Orthodox population, and at the same time assure the government that we will not use the trust placed in us for evil."
This is how they drove them ..)

Answer from Atheism won't work![guru]
Archpriest Smirnov complained very much that it was humiliating for him to receive 500 rubles from the Bolsheviks, they say, it was not enough. ... Well I say the priests will ruin us.

Answer from Volodya Matviychuk[guru]
Maybe someone. but very little

Answer from Yergei Handus[guru]
Undoubtedly, they were in the 20s of the last century, well, the priest's offspring itself is to blame for this))) And if you take a later time ... in my city a temple was built in 1968, what persecution is there already))

Answer from Compensator_X[guru]
Why is it a myth? They pressed the church, they pressed it. The Church was seen as an instrument beyond the full control of the CPSU. He influenced the poorly educated, most of all - the village often society, which could be dangerous. Therefore, they pressed.

In the early 1950s, a number of critical articles were published in the Soviet press against cybernetics, which gave rise to the existence of persecution of this science. However, at the same time, the Soviet leadership made great efforts to develop computers in the USSR. Where, then, did these critical articles come from? Read about this in an article by Nikita Pivovarov, chief specialist of the Russian State Archives of Contemporary History (Russian State Archives of Contemporary History).

The first decades after the end of World War II were called by contemporaries "a new wave of rationalization" and compared them with the Renaissance. The Cold War and the arms race demanded breakthrough discoveries in science. The new system of scientific knowledge was named "cybernetics".

The essence of cybernetics has been interpreted in different ways. Some called it a science that studies mathematical methods and control processes. Others - the science of transmission, processing, storage and use of information. There were also those who saw its essence in the study of methods of creation, disclosure, structure and identical transformation of algorithms that describe control processes in reality. Cybernetics was based on the achievements of mathematical logic, the theory of probability and electronics. It made it possible to identify quantitative analogies in the operation of an electronic machine, the activity of a living organism, or a social phenomenon.

Since the commissioning of the first electronic machine, the American ENIAK, in 1945, cybernetics has entered a new phase of development. Mathematical machines have become an important tool in science. They made it possible to perform automatically, efficiently and quickly a large amount of calculations required in aerodynamics, nuclear physics or artillery. The appearance of this invention was so significant and strategically important that this fact was kept in complete secret at the Pentagon for a year and a half. But as soon as the creation of an electronic machine became public, its advantages began to be used precisely in the field of weapons. For example, the American company "Hughes", one of the pioneers of the world electronics. In the late 1940s - early 1950s, she was engaged in the production and implementation of the A-1 electronic sight, which made it possible to solve ballistic problems associated with shooting, bombing and launching missiles. Sperry designed the equipment for one of the first drones. However, the possibilities of electronics were far from limited to its use in the arms race. Quite soon, the achievements of cybernetics and, first of all, electronic computers, which became its symbol, began to be widely used in science and economics.

Academician Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentyev

The USSR did not remain aloof from the latest achievements of science, but its view of the expediency of cybernetics was not immediately established. So, in 1948 the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution on the need for the development of computer technology. However, under pressure from the director of the Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computer Science, Academician N.G. Bruevich, the main emphasis was supposed to be placed on the creation of mechanical and electrical computing devices, while the real work on the creation of digital machines was postponed indefinitely 1. As noted several years later, the future founder of the Novosibirsk Academgorodok, academician M.A. Lavrentiev: "Bruevich, in all possible ways for him, tried to direct the efforts of scientific workers to create computers of continuous operation, which objectively delayed the creation of electronic digital machines" 2.

At the beginning of 1949 M.A. Lavrentyev even sent a now widely known letter to I.V. Stalin, in which he wrote about the need to accelerate the development of computer technology and its use in the Soviet economy. As a result, in April of the same year, a new decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the mechanization of accounting and computing work and the development of the production of calculating, calculating-analytical and mathematical machines" 3 was approved. In particular, according to this decree, the Academy of Sciences (AS) of the USSR was entrusted with the task of developing circuits for the design of mathematical machines 4.

In 1950, MESM was created in the USSR, which was developed by S. A. Lebedev's laboratory on the basis of the Kiev Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Its performance was 50 operations per second.

During 1950 - 1952. The Council of Ministers adopted a number of decrees, such as, for example, "On the design and construction of an automatic high-speed digital computer" (dated January 11, 1950, No. 133), machines "(dated 1.08.1951, No. 2759)," On measures to ensure the design and construction of high-speed mathematical computers "(dated 19.05.1952, No. 2373) and others.

In 1951, a government commission reviewed sketches of digital computers developed by the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Ministry of Mechanical Engineering and Instrumentation (MMiP). In the fall of 1952, the BESM-1 (High-speed electronic calculating machine) was put into trial operation, at that time it was the fastest in Europe (8-10 thousand operations / s). It, like MESM, was created under the leadership of Academician S.A. Lebedev.

At the beginning of 1954 "Strela" was published, created by the designer Yu. Bazilevsky in SKB-245 MmiP. By the middle of the year, the so-called. small electronic machine EV-80 (designer V.N. Ryazankin). And in 1955, another small-sized machine AVTsM-3, designed by Corresponding Member I.S. Brook at the Energy Institute. Krizhanovsky.

In the early 1950s, the first publications about Soviet electronic technology began to appear. So, in 1951 in the journal "Vestnik Mashinostroeniya" was published an extensive article by engineer N.А. Ignatov, which, along with a detailed coverage of the new Soviet calculating machines, spoke about the creation of electronic machines. However, the popularization of the topic in mass journals also had negative consequences for the development of cybernetics. In the first half of the 1950s, a number of articles were published in the Soviet press against cybernetics. Here they are:

2. Bykhovsky B.E. Cybernetics - American Pseudoscience // Nature. 1952. No. 7.

4. Gladkov T.K. Cybernetics, or longing for mechanical soldiers // Technology of youth. 1952. No. 8.

5. Bykhovsky B.E. Science of modern slave owners // Science and Life. 1953. No. 6.

6. Materialist (pseudonym). Who does cybernetics serve? // Questions of philosophy. 1953. No. 5.

7. Article "Cybernetics". A Brief Philosophical Dictionary. Edited by M. Rosenthal and P. Yudin. 4th edition, add. and rev. 1954 g.

8. Gladkov T.K. Cybernetics is a pseudoscience about machines, animals, man and society // Bulletin of Moscow University. 1955. No. 1.

Basically, these articles criticized the philosophical theses of cybernetics about the identity of the human mind and the computing machine, but at the same time, the "anti-cybernetic" articles did not deny the need for the development of computing technology, the introduction of automation into the economy of the USSR. As an example, we will cite quotations from the article "Whom Cybernetics Serves".

The propaganda of cybernetics has become widespread in the capitalist countries. Dozens of books, hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles spread false ideas about the "new science." Since 1944, conferences of cybernetics have been held annually in New York, in which scientists of various specialties actively participate. Cybernetic conferences were also held in France and England. Even to India, American exporters brought this rotten ideological commodity.

Apologists for cybernetics believe that its field of application is limitless. They argue that cybernetics is of great importance not only for solving issues related to telemechanics, self-adjusting devices, reactive mechanisms and servo mechanisms, but even in such areas of knowledge as biology, physiology, psychology and psychopathology. Cybernetics enthusiasts admit that sociology and political economy should also use its theory and methods.

What is this new science - cybernetics? In ancient Greek, the word "cybernetos" means helmsman, and "cybernetikos" - capable of being helmsman, that is, capable of managing. Defining the content of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener said without undue modesty: "We decided to call the entire theoretical area of ​​control and communication cybernetics, both in a machine and in a living organism."

So, first of all, cybernetics sets itself the task of proving the absence of a fundamental difference between a machine and a living organism. A task, to put it mildly, ungrateful in the 20th century. But, nevertheless, drawing an analogy between the work of complex computing units containing up to 23 thousand radio tubes that automatically switch, cybernetics argue that the difference between the work of such a "smart" machine and the human brain is only quantitative. University of London professor John Young enthusiastically warned the world that "the brain is a giant computing machine containing 15 billion cells instead of 23 thousand radio tubes found in the largest computer ever constructed." And this is by no means a metaphor, but a statement that claims to be scientific!

A more circumspect Harvard professor Louis Radenauer expressed himself more cautiously from this account: "The most complex modern computing machine corresponds to the level of the nervous system ... of a flatworm."

What is essential in these statements is not that they note the difference between the number of "reacting cells", but that they ignore the qualitative difference between a living organism and a machine.

In the same article, the benefits of a computer are not denied at all:

The use of such computers is of great importance for the most varied areas of economic construction. The design of industrial enterprises, residential high-rise buildings, railway and pedestrian bridges and many other structures requires complex mathematical calculations that require highly skilled labor for many months. Computing machines facilitate and reduce this work to a minimum. With the same success these machines are used in all complex economic and statistical calculations.

All these publications gave rise to a number of researchers to assert that in the USSR in the last years of I.V. Stalin, another political anti-scientific campaign was organized, comparable, if not in scale, then in character with the persecution of genetics. Thus, contemporary authors claim that publications in the Soviet press were coordinated 5.

Article by B. Bykhovsky "Science of modern slave owners" from the journal "Science and Life", No. 6, 1953.

However, the myth of the persecution of cybernetics is refuted by the absence of any documents deposited in the funds of the highest party bodies - the Politburo (from the end of 1952 - the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Apparatus (primarily in the departments - propaganda and agitation, science and universities, natural and technical sciences, philosophical and legal sciences, economic and historical sciences) of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) / CPSU. We searched for documents in RGANI (Russian State Archive of Contemporary History) and RGASPI (Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History), which would have initiated this company, but no such document was found. This allows us to say that these publications in the Soviet press were not initiated by the Soviet leadership. Rather, it can be assumed that the editors of the journals, trying to catch the current ideological trends, published articles at their own peril and risk. Those. each such article is an initiative of either the author himself or the editorial board.

At the same time, if criticism of the philosophical foundations of cybernetics did not have any negative impact on its development in the USSR, then the publication of E. Obodan's article "Computing technology in the service of technical progress" 6 had far-reaching consequences. It led to the classification of any developments in this area, and, consequently, the lack of opportunities to conduct open scientific discussions. After the publication of the article, Academician M.A. Lavrentyev and Professor D.Yu. Panov sent a note to the Central Committee. In it, scientists argued that the article could cause a qualified reader to conclude that the Soviet Union lagged behind Western countries in the field of digital technology production by about 10 years 7. Perhaps, the note to the Central Committee is the only document in which criticism was not made on the philosophical foundations of cybernetics, but on the texts on computer technology. It is clear that M.A. Lavrentyev and D.Yu. Panov criticized the article by E. Obodan for ignorance, for not knowing how Soviet electronics developed. Having started this dispute, they hoped to acquaint the “wide Soviet public” with fundamentally new achievements in the creation of computer technology. However, the note to the Central Committee was used by the Minister of Mechanical Engineering and Instrumentation P.I. Parshin. He also appealed to the leadership of the party, but with a proposal not to publish any mention of computers in magazines and newspapers. As a result, due to the article by E. Obodan on electronics, it was forbidden to write until 1955.8

RGANI. F. 5. Op. 17.D.512. L.25... See the appendix to the article.

The number of computers and their types in the USSR and the USA in 1954 F. 5. Op. 17.D.512. L.29... See the appendix to the article.

It is another matter that the fact of classification itself did not become the main obstacle in the development of cybernetics. Departmental disagreements between the MM&P of the USSR, on the one hand, and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, on the other, became more significant reasons that slowed down the organization of the production of Soviet computer technology. The essence of the conflict boiled down to what kind of computer - "Strela" or BESM - should be launched into serial production. Thus, the secretary of the party bureau of the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering of the USSR Academy of Sciences E.I. Mamonov, in his note to the Central Committee at the beginning of 1955, wrote about one of such conflict situations: “During the acceptance of the BESM machine built at our Institute and recognized as more modern than Strela, the members of the state commission from MMiP did not behave like supporters of technical progress, which caused surprise and indignation of the majority of the members of the commission. [...] When after the delivery of the BESM there was a proposal to present it to the Stalinist Prize and to award the designers no less than the designers of Strela, they expressed doubts about the advisability of such an award ”9. MMiP did not supply the USSR Academy of Sciences with cathode-ray tubes, which are so necessary for the construction of the machine. Therefore, during the initial commissioning of the BESM, it had a much lower speed - only up to 800 operations per second, instead of 10,000 operations declared in the project 10.

These differences reached their peak in 1953-1954. They proceeded against the background of the unfolding political struggle between the Council of Ministers of the USSR, headed by G.M. Malenkov and the Central Committee of the CPSU with the first secretary N.S. Khrushchev. Representatives of the USSR Academy of Sciences sent numerous notes and certificates to the Central Committee, in which they asked to declassify the fact of the existence of electronic computers in the USSR, and also to publish in print the general principles of the construction and operation of such machines, including circuits, blocks and programs for calculating elementary functions. Scientists believed that “all these questions do not contain any elements of secrecy, since general principles of construction and general characteristics of existing electronic machines have long been known and are widely published in foreign scientific and technical literature, and it is these principles that are used in the design of the machine of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR ”11. In a note to the Central Committee of Professor D.Yu. Panov dated December 11, 1954, it was reported: “At present, electronic calculating machines are so widespread and so widely used that their presence in a technically developed country is assumed by itself. To declare that in a country like the USSR there are no electronic calculating machines means approximately the same as if to declare that we have no railways, electricity, or we cannot fly through the air [...] As an argument Against declassification of the existence of electronic calculating machines in the USSR, the argument is put forward that with the help of these machines, calculations related to secret work can be performed. Of course, such calculations are performed everywhere on electronic calculating machines, including in the United States, and in England, and in other countries. These countries publicly publish data on their machines, even advertise them, wanting to once again show their technical power, and do not publish information about the calculations that are performed on these machines. It is absolutely impossible to form an idea of ​​what calculations are performed by this machine according to its description ”12.

The secret status of BESM created international difficulties for the USSR. In 1954, an active diplomatic dialogue began between the USSR and India. In 1955, the Soviet Union was to visit J. Nehru, and India - N.S. Khrushchev. On the eve of these major international meetings, it was planned to exchange delegations of various levels. Thus, in July 1954, prominent Indian scientists, professors Mitra and Mahanobis, arrived in the USSR. They were introduced to leading scientific developments, including BESM. Representatives of the Soviet leadership promised to help the Indian side in the design and creation of a similar computer for the Institute of Statistics and Planning in Kolkata 21. Later, a special agreement was concluded on the supply of the necessary equipment to India for 2.1 million rubles. Soviet specialists, together with Professor Makhanobis, drew up lists of equipment to be sent. However, there was no official appeal from the Indian government to the USSR about the construction of a computer. The Indian leadership appealed to the United Nations Organization for the Provision of Technical Assistance to Developing Countries in order to legally conduct Soviet equipment. The UN sent two experts to India to clarify the conditions for using the equipment - Soviet professor V.A. Ditkin and a representative from England. The Indians objected to the arrival of the Englishman. However, the Soviet embassy in its cipher telegram reported that the Englishman had nevertheless arrived in Calcutta, although after V.A. Ditkin. Then the situation was saved by Professor Mahanobis, who met the Englishman and said that he did not see the need for his work as an expert, but was glad to see him as a guest 22. So the fact of the existence of the Soviet computer was kept secret.

But scientists of the USSR Academy of Sciences took advantage of the situation. At the end of July 1954 S.A. Lebedev, M.A. Lavrent'ev, V.A. Trapeznikov and D.Yu. Panov turned to the vice-president of the Academy of Sciences K.V. Ostrovityanova with a request to declassify BESM, general standard circuit and machine blocks, as well as programs for calculating elementary functions. In their note, the scientists noted that “all these questions do not contain any elements of secrecy, since general principles of construction and general characteristics of existing electronic machines have long been known and are widely published in foreign scientific and technical literature, and it is these principles that are used in the design of the machine of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR ”23. Traditional arguments were also made that the facts known to Indian scientists can be published in the English or American press. “Such a publication could complicate our relationship with scientists from the People's Democracies and China, to whom we have never reported anything about the machine, despite direct questions. Meanwhile, it is known that electronic computers are being developed in Czechoslovakia and Poland. As it turned out at the congress of mathematicians in Amsterdam, the Dutch demonstrated their electronic machine to the Polish mathematician Professor Kuratovsky, which may entail the provision of “technical assistance” to the countries of people's democracies from, for example, Philips, which is closely associated with the Americans ”24.

However, the management of MMiP was categorically against the declassification of information about the BESM, as this would allow the computer to be put into mass production. For example, the Ministry insisted on the withdrawal from the press of the article by Academician S.A. Lebedev, which showed the benefits of using electronic computers in economics, but without describing a specific model 13. Only after the final commissioning of Strela did the MMiP management change its tone in the most unexpected way, and in October 1954 came up with an initiative to publish data on its high-speed digital calculating machine 14. An article entitled "Soviet Mathematical Machines" was prepared for publication in the Pravda newspaper. However, the main reviewer of the article, Academician M.V. Keldysh, opposed it, arguing that it did not say anything about BESM. In addition, as the academician noted, “it would be wrong to start with the publication of an article, which is mainly of an advertising nature” 15. Head of the Department of Science and Culture of the Central Committee A.M. Rumyantsev in the information for the secretary of the Central Committee P.N. Pospelova reported: “We consider it necessary to state that it is not the first time that Comrade Parshin has shown a biased attitude towards the coverage of the role and significance of work on the development of calculating technology, which is being carried out outside the Ministry of Mechanical Engineering and Instrumentation. For example, he spoke negatively about the possibility of publishing an article previously submitted to the Central Committee of the CPSU about the computer of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and then submitted to the Central Committee of the CPSU an article advertising the machines of the Ministry of Mechanical Engineering and Instrumentation ”16.

This interdepartmental conflict led to the need to declassify the existence of a computer. By the decision of the Council of Ministers, a declassification commission was formed under the chairmanship of Academician M.V. Keldysh, which was supposed to finish its work by January 1, 1955. A few days later, a declassification commission was formed at the Secretariat of the Central Committee, consisting of V.A. Malysheva (chairman), A.N. Nesmeyanov and N.I. Parshin, who was instructed to make a decision within two weeks 17. This haste in declassification was dictated personally by N.S. Khrushchev. So, on one of the files of the Central Committee apparatus about the activities of the commission, there is a characteristic note made by the assistant to the first secretary V.N. Malin: “Comrade. Khrushchev got acquainted. Comrade Malyshev was ordered to speed up the work of the commission. "

As a result, already on December 13, 1954, the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Central Committee decided to declassify the works related to the principles of the mathematical and engineering structure of automatic high-speed digital computers. It was now possible to openly publish in print data from mathematical machines (such as electronic circuits, machine performance parameters). The department also decided to prepare textbooks and teaching aids for printing in the specialty "mathematical and calculating devices" 18. This was the final recognition of the merits of electronics and a kind of victory of the Academy of Sciences, which was supported by the Apparatus of the Central Committee, over MMiP. The latter only in the summer of 1955, after the approval of the note by A.N. Nesmeyanova, A.V. Topchiev and M.A. Lavrent'ev approved a decree on the development and manufacture in the second quarter of 1956 of an automatic high-speed machine with a counting rate of up to 20 thousand operations per second, as well as the creation of a small-sized machine based on semiconductor and ferrimagnetic elements 19. In January 1956, the Ministry of Instrumentation and Automation Means was formed, one of the key tasks of which was the development and design of calculating and mathematical machines.

Cybernetics soon became one of the mechanisms of the Soviet ideological machine. So, at the XXII Congress of the CPSU, the provision on cybernetics was included in the party program: “Cybernetics, electronic computing devices are widely used in the productive processes of industry, the construction industry and transport, in scientific research, in planning and design calculations, in the field of accounting and management "20. The development of cybernetics, according to Soviet propagandists, was to become one of the necessary conditions for achieving communism.

Thus, an analysis of the documents of the highest authorities of the USSR at the turn of the 1940s - 1950s quite convincingly demonstrates the entire inconsistency of the myths about the persecution of cybernetics. The Soviet government was extremely interested in the development of this direction of science, but the conservatism of some scientists, an excessive secrecy regime and interdepartmental squabbles became factors that objectively hindered the development of cybernetics during this period.

Application. A survey on computers carried out by the Institute of Scientific Information of the USSR Academy of Sciences. March 2, 1955

1 RGANI. F. 5. Op. 47. D. 53. L. 118-119.
2 Ibid. L. 119.
3 Resolutions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for April 1949 First part. Resolution of April 6, 1949 No. 1358, pp. 196 - 202.
4 Ibid. S. 201.
5 See: V.A. Kitov, V.V. Shilov. On the history of the struggle for cybernetics // Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology named after V.I. S.I. Vavilov. Annual scientific conference dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the birth of S.I. Vavilov. 2011, Moscow, 2011, p. 540.
6 Obodan E. Computing technology - at the service of technical progress // News of the Soviets of Working People's Deputies of the USSR. 1951. No. 201.
7 RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 133.D. 174.L. 129 - 133.
8 Ibid. L. 147.
9 RGANI. F. 5. Op. 35.D. 6.L. 114.
10 RGANI. F. 5. Op. 17.D. 512.L. 36.
11 RGANI. F.4. Op. 9.D. 520.L. 218.
12 RGANI. F. 5. Op. 17.D. 509.L. 34 - 35.
13 RGANI. F. 5. Op. 17.D. 458.L. 100 - 106.
14 RGANI. F. 5. Op. 40.D. 3.L. 90.
15 Ibid, L.99.
16 Ibid. 104. In the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the publication of the article MMiP P.N. Pospelov wrote in pencil: “I doubt the usefulness of this publication. 10.01. 55 g. " [ibid. L. 105].
17 RGANI. F. 4. Op. 9.D. 138.L. 100.
18 Ibid L. 97.
19 Ibid. L. 40.
20 Program of the KPSS. 1961.S. 71.
21 RGANI. F. 4. Op. 9.D. 520.L. 217.
23 RGANI. F. 5. Op. 17.D. D. 509.L. 31.
24 RGANI. F. 4. Op. 9.D. 520.L. 218.
25 Ibid. L. 219.