Academic Experts and Scientific Expertise in Trials of Soviet Dissidents

Visegrad Lecture Series

Academic Experts and Scientific Expertise in Trials of Soviet Dissidents 

by Dmitry Dubrovskiy (PhD, Charles University, Svobodny University) 

The USSR was a society of scientism, where even the official ideology—Marxism–Leninism—was institutionally framed as a science.

A little-studied institution situated between Soviet law and the Soviet academy was the institute of special academic expertise, employed in trials against dissidents. As a rule, this involved either “scientific-ideological” expertise—in which case specialists from the relevant university or Academy of Science departments were called in—or “scientific-atheistic” expertise, for which experts in “scientific atheism” were used.

Thanks to the OSA Blinken Archivum, a complete text of one such experti report has been uncovered, along with numerous references to it, including substantial quotes and discussions of these expert findings during the proceedings. Dmitry Dubrovsky, PhD, of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, will explain the nature of this very specific institution.