An examination of the early Soviet period of the Russian (Soviet)
Academy of Sciences which focuses on the reactions of individual members
of the academy to the new situation in which they found themselves after
October 1917. Based on the extensive use of documents from the Archives
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the author discusses how the
academicians justified their cooperation with the Bolsheviks and the
ideological basis of the regime's policy towards the academy in the
1920s.