Volume 37, Number 3 · March 1, 1990
The Scientist and the Tyrant
By David Holloway
Pis'ma o nauke [Letters on Science]
by Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa, edited by Pavel Rubinin
Moskovskii rabochii, 400 pp., 1 ruble
The publication in Moscow last year of 155 letters by the famous Soviet physicist Peter Kapitsa on science and the organization of science was one of the more dramatic benefits of the policy of glasnost. Most of the letters are addressed to Stalin, Molotov, Beria, Krushchev, and other Soviet officials; they cover the years between 1930 and 1980, though most were written between 1934 and 1956. These letters have been drawn from Kapitsa's own files, and have been carefully edited with helpful annotations by Kapitsa's longtime assistant, Pavel Rubinin. They provide a fascinating portrait of a remarkable man who was the hero of numerous legends during his lifetime.
Review, 3857 words
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