7. Probability and Statistics Soviet Essays - Sheynin, Oscar

phenomena. It is self-evident that any antagonism between these two branches of theessentially indivisible science of mass phenomena is out of the question. On the contrary,they most indispensably supplement one another. Romanovsky is one of the most productiveSoviet scientists and the remoteness of his city from the old scientific centers does not hinderhis uninterrupted close ties with scientists the world over working in this sphere. It is difficultto name any considerable area in current mathematical statistics in whose developmentRomanovsky did not actively, and, moreover, weightily and authoritatively participate.The Soviet theory of probability also includes separate workers in other scientific centersof the nation (Zhuravsky in Leningrad, Persidsky in Kazan, et al).[8] In an overwhelming majority of the other branches of mathematics the Russian prerevolutionaryscience (excepting its separate representatives who embodied those exceptionsthat confirm the rule) lagged considerably behind their European counterparts, lacked its ownflavor and was even unable to follow the world science in a sufficiently civilized way. Weare glad to observe a flourishing of nearly all of these branches, but skeptics will perhaps beapt to explain this away as a peculiar illusion: Since nothing was available before, and atleast something is present now, it is easy to assume the something for very mush. In thetheory of probability the matter is, however, different: here we had much already in the prerevolutionaryperiod and what we have now we cannot compare with a blank space.Nevertheless, here also, as we see, the Soviet science wins this comparison totally andundoubtedly. The scientific accomplishments of the Soviet period are incomparably widerand much more versatile, but we see the main and decisive progress in the management ofscience which certainly explains the successes of the Soviet theory of probability. The prerevolutionarymathematics was unaware of scientific collectives working orderly and inconcord; nowadays, we have them.The pre-revolutionary mathematics stewed in its own juice, and, in spite of all itsaccomplishments, was barely able to influence the world science. The Soviet theory ofprobability rapidly secured one of the leading positions in the world science and achievedsuch an authority about which the pre-revolutionary science could not have even dreamt.Non-one can say that my statement is an exaggeration since it is completely based on facts. Itis a fact that the most prominent scientists the world over publicly recognize the authorityand the influence of the Soviet stochastic school. It is a fact that in a number of cases foreignpublishers apply to Soviet authors when compilation of treatises and monographs onprobability is required and that before the Revolution there were no such cases. It is a factthat Soviet scientists were charged with delivering the leading plenary reports on the theoryof probability at the two latest international congresses of mathematicians (in 1932 and 1936)and that no such cases had happened at the congresses before the Revolution.Thus, if even before the Revolution the Russian theory of probability, owing to its specificweight, might have by right claimed to be a leading force in world science, the Soviet theoryof probability has not only totally confirmed this right and justified it even better. For us, it isno less important, however, that our branch of mathematics has exercised this right andcontinues to exercise it ever more persistently. The power necessary for this is certainlydrawn exclusively from the inexhaustible source of cheerfulness contained in our newSocialist culture.Notes1. {It is possible that Khinchin did not dare to mention sociology, an exclusive domain ofthe Marxist dogmas.}2. {The method of least squares is a peculiar field in that many leading mathematicians(for example, Chebyshev, Lévy, Fisher and Koomogorov) formulated unfounded or evenwrong statements about it. here, Khinchin indirectly and wrongly declared that the method