Remember: you have to know much to be useful to your homeland!": Some problems of the popularization of science in the USSR (a case study of the activities of the All-Union Society "Znanie")

In the article the author reviews the activities of the All-Union Society for the Distribution of Political and Scientific Knowledge (the society "Znanie" [knowledge] since 1963) as one of the main educating organizations of the USSR in the second half of the 20^th century. In the study, the author concluded that the idea of establishing a mass educating organization in the Soviet Union was popular and perspective; however, the methods were not always thought out. On the one hand, the author highlights the positive aspects of popularization of science in the USSR. An extensive network of city, district and primary organizations in the structure of science educating could cover almost all the inhabitants of the Soviet Union. Large-scale publishing and lecture activities allowed each person to acquire new knowledge, regardless of social status, income and educational level. Materials published by the society "Znanie" gave real help to teachers, engineers, workers and farmers, to all who wanted to expand their political, scientific and general cultural outlook. The main ideas of all the educating activities of the society were the ideas of necessity for every person to constantly acquire new knowledge, improve work, the ideas of patriotism, the sense of duty and responsibility. On the other hand, the author specifies essential shortcomings. Being actually incorporated into the network of the party and government institutions, the society had no independence and initiative and tried to carry out the "order" of the Party on the mass involvement of all the population in the educating and propaganda activities. The constant increase of the number of propaganda activities, the involvement of a great number of people who did not always have sufficient education and qualification to give public lectures deteriorated the quality of the educating events and reduced the interest of the population to the popularization of science. The author pointed out that biased and often negative attitude of the part of population to educating lectures has remained to this day. Emphasizing the relevance of the study, the author points out that the necessity of a high-quality system of popularization of science is recognized today by the state authorities, the scientific community and the public in general. According to the author, comprehension of the Soviet project of science popularization can help to design an effective model of science popularization and to avoid the mistakes that were made in the Soviet times.

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