Inventions According to Russian Textbooks

WARisCRIME Note: The following article had been published in 1955, but, having lived and worked in Russia for 38 years, I can confirm: all this fake information had kept on staying in Russian school and university textbooks during the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and today, in 2018, is is still there, and not only in the textbooks but also the minds and memory of already several generations of Russians.

INVENTIONS. Most of the machines that move or work on the land or the sea or in the air seem at some time or other to have been claimed as Russian inventions. So too do most scientific techniques and original ideas. This propaganda is for the most part aimed at home audiences, presumably to instil self-respect and national pride by convincing them that they belong to ‘the most technically advanced country in the world’ (Moscow Radio, December 1950). Detailed claims, with the evidence adduced for them, are listed below:

Aeronautics. Peter Nesterov first looped the loop on 9 September 1913; the manoeuvre has since been called ‘The Nesterov Loop’. He was also the first to ram an enemy aircraft. (Tass, 9 September 1953.)

Aeroplane. Made by Mozhaisky in 1882, twenty years before the Wright Brothers. This is a recent claim; Mozhaisky is not even mentioned in the 1938 edition of the Soviet Encyclopaedia.

Airship. Capt. I. S. Kostovich built the dirigible in 1900; Count Zeppelin stole and later used his designs. (Krasniy Flot, 7 April 1951.)

Animal. The Palaeontological Museum of the USSR Academy of Sciences showed a complete skeleton of the ceratosaurus, ‘the oldest type of animal’. ‘A whole graveyard’ of them had been found in Mongolia, refuting the ‘erroneous assumption’ that this animal lived only in North America. (Tass Agency, 7 March 1951.)

Antarctic. ‘Russian sailors under the command of Bellingshausen and Lazarev in 1819–21 discovered the Antarctic.’ (Soviet Encyclopaedia, 1949–50, ‘Atlantic Ocean’.)

Antibiotics. ‘The foundations’ of antibiotics were laid in the 1870s when penicillium glaucum was used in medical treatment. (Moscow Radio, 2 July 1952.)

Artificial Insemination. First used in a fish hatchery by the Russian biologist Vladimir Vrassky in 1857; he used a ‘dry fertilisation’ method. (Soviet Information Bureau, London, 8 February 1952.)

Atomic Fission. ‘Spontaneous fission of a uranium atom’ was discovered by the Soviet physicists G. N. Flerov and K. A. Petrzhak. (Soviet Encyclopaedia, 1949–50, ‘Atom Bomb’.)

Calculating Machines were invented and manufactured before 1750 by Yakobson, a Minsk watchmaker and mechanic; his invention did ‘all sorts of calculations’ up to a million. (Moscow Radio, 7 March 1951.)

Chemistry. ‘The science of physical chemistry was founded by Lomonosov in May 1752.’ (Moscow Radio, 28 May 1952.)

Cinema Projector. Invented by a mechanic and a professor of Odessa University in 1893. (Tass, 5 September 1953.)

Crystallography. ‘The founder of crystallography’ was E. S. Fedorov. (Moscow Radio, 22 May 1952.)

Desert. The Gobi Desert, in Outer Mongolia, is ‘the only territory in the world that has not been covered by seas for more than a hundred million years.’ (Tass Agency, 7 March 1951.)

Detergents. Invented by G. S. Petrov in 1913. (lzvestia, 17 October 1954.) Marketed in 1954 under the trade name Novost (Novelty).

Dyestuffs. ‘The whole modern dye-manufacturing industry is based on N. N. Genin’s synthesis of aniline, made in 1842.’ (Moscow Radio, 27 May 1950.)

Electric Arc Welding. The phenomenon of the electric arc was discovered by V. V. Petrov on 29 May 1802, seven years ahead of Davy; he is thus ‘the founder of electro-metallurgy’. Electric arc welding was invented in Russia. (Tass Agency, 6 June 1950 and 29 May 1952.)

Electric Light Bulb. Invented by A. H. Lodigin in 1875, three or four years before Edison. (Moscow Polytechnic Exhibit.)

Electrical Measurement. Units of measurement for electrical current intensity and resistance, ‘later given the foreign names of ohm and ampere’, were invented by ‘the Russian electrician’ Yakoby and used in Russia for some years before being adopted elsewhere. (Moscow Radio, 27 May 1950.)

Electric Motor Boat. The same ‘Russian electrician’, Boris Yakoby, was said by Literary Gazette during 1948 to have invented the first electric motor, which he applied to a boat on the river Neva. A memorial plaque has been erected to him in Leningrad University.

Flying Boats. The Russian engineer Yakov Gakkel received a silver medal for his ‘naval type monoplane’ at the St. Petersburg International Aviation Exhibition in 1911, a year before Curtiss (USA) produced his first amphibious aircraft. (Tass Agency, 9 June 1951.)

Gas Turbine. World’s first constructed for use in a small launch in 1897; idea of using them in aircraft also originated in Russia, and a patent was taken out by Gerasimov in 1909. A proposal for a turbo-propellor engine followed in 1914; and in 1923 the Soviet inventor Barazov worked out the theory of an aviation gas-turbine engine ‘containing all the essentials of the machines which exist today’. (Moscow Radio, 3 February 1954.)

Helicopter. ‘I, as a pupil of Zhukovsky, succeeded in 1912 in building a one-propeller helicopter.’ (B. Yuriev in Literary Gazette, 9 September 1952.) Lomonosov, however, demonstrated a model helicopter, ‘prototype of today’s machines’ on 12 July 1754. (Tass, 11 July 1954.)

Hydrogenation Plant. ‘The first in commercial use’ was established in Russia in 1908. Mendeleyev was the first to advance the theory of catalysis. (Moscow Radio, 4 April 1952.)

Hydroplane (see Naval).

Internal Combustion Locomotives. USSR was ‘the pioneer’; mass production began in 1947. (Moscow Radio, 24 June 1952.)

Interplanetary Flight. K. E. Tsiolkovsky (died 1935) ‘worked all his life on problems of interplanetary communication by means of jet-propelled airships’ (Moscow Radio, 18 September 1950). He was ‘the first man in the world to prove’ that rockets could develop tremendous speed if they could carry adequate stocks of fuel. Soviet science and technology will overcome ‘the wide spaces beyond the clouds’. (Moscow Radio, 9 April 1951.)

Jet Aircraft. (These first appeared officially in the USSR on Aviation Day, 18 August 1946.) ‘The first flight in the world in a jet plane was made in the Soviet Union in 1942.’ (Moscow Radio, December 1950.) ‘The first to work out the project of a jet aircraft’ was called Kibalchich, while in a prison awaiting execution for attempt on the life of Alexander II (died 1881). He worked on a project for burning gunpowder in a cylinder. This, by emitting gases, would propel the cylinder upwards. (Moscow Radio, 9 April 1951.) However, K. E. Tsiolkovsky is ‘the founder of the theory of the jet engine’. (Pravda, 20 June 1954.)

Mines (see Naval).

Mining. Russia had ‘the first mechanised mine’ in the world. (Moscow Radio, 4 August 1951.)

Naval. Russians invented—naval tactics for steam warships; sea mines; torpedoes; several types of ships, including the trawler; hydroplanes (by D. P. Grigorovich, 1913). (Russkoe Voenno-Morskoe Iskusstvo, Russian Naval Art, by Capt. R. N. Mordvinov. Moscow, 1951.)

Oilwell. ‘The world’s first oilwell’ was drilled near Baku in 1846. The Russian engineer Shukhov was the first to use compressed air in wells to force the oil to the surface. (Moscow Radio, 18 April 1952.)

Parachute. Invented by a Russian called Kotelnikov. (Pravda, 20 June 1954.)

Penicillin. ‘Everyone knows’ that this, ‘one of the most mighty instruments of contemporary medicine’, was discovered by three Russians (Komsomolskaya Pravda, 13 March 1949) ‘half a century before Fleming’ and used for septic ulcers, wounds, boils, and syphilis. (Pravda, 17 March 1948.) The London Daily Worker was unaware of this, and referred to it as ‘entirely a British discovery’. (27 November 1952.)

Quartz Crystal Clock (has for some time been a standard instrument in most modern observatories throughout the world; it is used to control the frequency of an alternating current within extremely close limits). ‘Recently invented by Soviet scientists.’ (Echo Kraowa, Cracow, 25 June 1952.)

Radio. ‘Invented’ by Alexander Popov, in May 1895. (‘The world’s first radio apparatus—Popov’s wireless telegraph’ is in the Moscow Polytechnic Museum.) Invented a morse receiver in May 1898, applied it in 1899 by using radio to correct artillery fire at Kronstadt and for communicating with balloons. Invented ‘walkie-talkies’, first used in June 1900. Russia was thus the first country to possess portable radio sets, and radio was first successfully applied in the Russian Navy. (Moscow Radio, 22 February 1951.) (Not, apparently, with much influence on the course of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905.) The first man ever to communicate by radio was, of course. Sir Oliver Lodge, at Oxford in 1894.

Radiolocation. This out-of-date and thoroughly English word for what is now known as radar was used by Soviet News, 9 May 1950, and described as ‘the product of Russian scientific and technical thought’. Popov was its ‘discoverer’, noting the reflection of radio signals exchanged between two ships in 1897. (Moscow Radio, 6 and 7 May 1951.)

Railway. ‘The first railway in the world’ was laid down in 1753 in ‘the first mechanised mine in the world’ (in the Urals). The Tsars obstructed engineers who wanted to build steam-driven carriages, so the first steam locomotives were not built until 1834 nor the first railway for them until 1836. (Moscow Radio, 4 August 1951.)

Rockets, ‘first made in Russia in 1620’. (Moscow Radio, October 1950.)

Rubber, Synthetic. The world’s first experimental factories were built in Russia in 1930. The method now used was invented by S. V. Lebedev: alcohol is distilled from potatoes or sawdust and then converted into divinyl by means of a catalyst. (Kryuchkov, Synthetic Rubber, Technical Theory Press, Moscow, 1951.) Lebedev evolved ‘the world’s first varieties’ in 1926. (Moscow Radio, 8 February 1952.)

Seismology was ‘founded’ by Boris Golitsyn (b. 1862); he opened his first seismographic station at Leningrad in 1906. (Moscow Radio, 2 March 1952.)

Steam Engine. Polzunov (d. 1766) invented the first stationary steam engine ‘twenty years before James Watt’. (Tass Agency, 25 May 1951.) (Watt’s invention was made in 1774.)

Submarines have been described as a development of the method used by the medieval fishermen of the Crimea, who swam below the surface, using reeds through which to breathe.

Telegraph. Electro-magnetic telegraphic apparatus demonstrated by P. L. Shilling in 1832 (five years before Morse). (Caption in Moscow Polytechnic Museum.) Descriptions of the duplex and quadruplex system of electric telegraphy were published in Russia in 1859. (Krasnaya Zvezda, 19 August 1952.) (These systems were invented respectively by Stirnes, 1871, and Edison, 1874, both Americans.)

Telephony. The idea of telephony through cables was invented by Vlasev and used between Odessa and Nikolayev in 1893. (Soviet Encyclopaedia, 1952.)

Telephony, High-Frequency. ‘First proposed by Ignatyev in 1880.’ (Soviet Encyclopaedia, 1952.)

Television. B. L. Rosing, of St. Petersburg, ‘demonstrated the practical possibility’ of cathode telescopy television in May 1911. In May 1951 the Gorki House of Scientists (Leningrad) met to celebrate the ‘40th anniversary of the world’s first television broadcast’. (Krasniy Flot, 26 May 1951.)

3-D. The stereoscopic cinema was ‘invented by the Soviet designer Ivanov and first introduced to the public in Moscow in February 1941.’ (Moscow Radio, 17 October 1953.)

Torpedo (see Naval).

Tramcar. A pamphlet was issued in Moscow in April 1952 by the Russian Publishing House of Municipal Economy under the title of The Tram is a Russian Invention. B. Yakoby (see Electric Motor Boat) was the first to suggest them, but the many galvanic batteries needed to supply current proved too expensive. When dynamos were available, the idea of transmitting electric current through rails ‘took shape in the mind’ of I. A. Perovsky (this idea appears to have come to him in September 1874—Tass, 6 September 1950); and in 1876 ordinary railway tracks were used for current transmission (Tass, 6 September 1950). A double-decker carriage was run along rails, propelled by electric power, in a St. Petersburg park on 22 August 1880; but the Society of Horse-Drawn Railways saw a dangerous rival in electricity and saw to it that the invention was ‘buried’. Siemens’ electric railway from Berlin to Lichterfeld, built in 1881, ‘wholly copied Perovsky’s design, except for certain differences which made Siemens’ carriage inferior to the St. Petersburg one’. (The story of the tramcar not only illustrates how the Russians think of everything first, but also how the stupid foreigner is unable to profit by experience.)

Tractor, Caterpillar. Patented by F. A. Blikov, a Russian farmer, on 20 September 1879. A steam ‘waggon with endless bands for carrying freight along highways and rural roads’ (Moscow Radio, 23 July 1952).

Turbines. Russians ‘first studied the possibility of generating electricity by means of water turbine’. Leonard Euler, of St. Petersburg, first formulated the theory; Ignaty Sofronov built one in 1837. (Moscow Radio, 13 February 1952.) Kuzminsky built the first gas turbine in 1897; Gerasimov took out a patent for a gas turbine for aircraft in 1909 (see Jets); Nikolsky produced a turbine to propel an airscrew in 1914. (Lyapunov, Gas Turbines, Moscow, 1951.)

Underground Boat or ‘Mechanical Mole’, invented by Engineer Tribelev, who first ‘carried out many observations on moles which, as is well known, have no equals among animals for their speed in moving underground’. The Boat is shaped like a cigar, with a cutting drill in front and four jacks at the back to press on the side of the tunnel and push the machine ahead. It scoops about 40 feet of tunnel, 4 feet in diameter, every hour. (Moscow Radio, 5 January 1952.)

Vaccination. Jenner had his information from the British Ambassador in Constantinople, whose source was a book, published in 1713, describing the practice in Georgia, where it had been carried on ‘since the earliest times’. (Moscow Radio, 2 February 1951.)

Viruses. Filtered viruses were discovered by Gamalyeva (1886) and Ivanovsky (1892) who thereby founded ‘virusology’. (Soviet Encyclopaedia, 1952, ‘Viruses’.)

Vitamins. Lunin was ‘the first to gain any knowledge’ of them (about 1881). In 1951 the Soviet Ministry of Health set up an annual Lunin lecture to deal with the theory and practice of ‘vitaminology’. (Moscow Radio, 17 April 1951.)

Wooden Paving. Archaeologists have found that the streets of Novgorod were paved with wood over 200 years before French or German cities, thus proving it was originally ‘the leading town in Europe for public order and amenities’. (Moscow Radio, 8 January 1952.)

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Russian priority is also claimed to some extent in connection with the rise of British naval and mercantile power, for the naval stores sold ‘at very low cost’ by Russia—timber, pitch, sails and rigging—‘enabled’ the Royal Navy to win ‘its brilliant victory’ over the Spanish Armada. (News, 15 November 1953.) Modesty appears to supervene in one case only. In a popular book, Talks about Magnetism, by a Mr. Bosman (Moscow, 1951), the author admits that ‘it was the Chinese who discovered the compass’. Turning this generous admission to good account, he adds that it is ‘a fact which Western scientists are hushing up’.