See if this resonates with you:
Source: This Soviet World (1936) by Anna Louise Strong
Take for instance propaganda against the study of climate change, or staying at home during a pandemic, or simply the tobacco industry muddying health research for their profits; in worst cases even the theory of evolution is thrown out the window and race realism is brought back again.
Dismantling the underlying profit motive leaves science up to people's needs and desires.
For the Soviets, this was an even sharper break with traditions. Consider peasant life in the Russian Empire: voiceless, exploited, robbed by the higher castes, seeing no point in working more than absolutely necessary as they would see no fruits of their own labor.
Source: Rude and Barbarous Kingdom (1968) by Lloyd Eason Berry
Quoting: Of the Russe Commonwealth (1591) by Giles Fletcher
Between the 1600s and the 1800s the situation improved but not drastically: serfdom only ended in 1861 and even that, formally. Serfs were made to "reimburse" their former owners before they could leave their hold, in quantities that meant many had to labor for decades. Stuck in that purgatory of poverty, pursuing science was unthinkable.
The shift from complete illiteracy to widespread scientific curiosity was so drastic that Strong even invokes Marx's concept of socialism blurring the line between mental and manual labor:
It's worth remembering that these gains are not theoretical predictions, we see them again and again after popular revolts around the world. Socialism works.
