Authors

Discussion

Sociology reappeared in the Soviet Union from the late 1950s as part of the rehabilitation of disciplines banned under Stalin. The field was gradually institutionalized at the Academy of Sciences and an institute for sociological research was established in 1972.  

The history of the development of late-Soviet sociology outside the Academy is less well known. This paper focuses on how the sociologists’ work in industry shaped Soviet sociology as a research domain in the 1960s and 1970s, and how this under-studied topic contributes to the social histories of the period.  

The sociologists’ work in industry grew rapidly especially in the second half of the 1960s. Industrial sociology became the pre-eminent specialist area within the newly revived sociology. Key to these developments were the sociological institutes and laboratories established by higher education institutions outside Moscow. These local institutes entered into numerous economic contracts with individual industrial enterprises to carry out specific projects. At the same time, the factory sociologists, a new occupational role, appeared among the industrial workforce and they worked within the factories' own sociological laboratories. The sight of the sociologists with their questionnaires and pencils became commonplace in the factories at the vanguard of these developments and more widely.