Born to Jewish millers in 1920, Исаак Озимов (Isaac Asimov as he is known to the Western World), it appeared that he had nothing to to look forward to except for a modest life continuing the family tradition. Indeed, according to sources, the family was so desperate for escape from their dire straits that they were actually contemplating immigrating to America in 1923 (with the idea, according to one source, of smuggling baby Isaac in a bag across the border).
One is led to wonder what the world would have been like had they succeeded.
In any case, fortune smiled upon the Asimov family when teachers at his school noted Isaac's keen intellect and creative abilities. Due to his high grades (and enhanced by the many glowing recommendations from his teachers), Isaac Asimov quickly moved up the academic ladder and had a promising future waiting for him in university.
Then WW2 came along.
Drafted into the army, Asimov witnessed the carnage and horrors of war first (a factor that some say molded his beliefs on war and diplomacy for the rest of his life). After the war, the Soviet Union desperately needed to rebuild. It desperately needed bright, creative minds to help it catch up to the rest of the world. It desperately needed young articulate individuals who can make sense of difficult subjects and concepts and explain it to others. And it desperately needed patriots who wanted to protect the Soviet Union from ever suffering such carnage again.
All three could be found in Captain Isaac Asimov.
Of keen intellect (he obtained his first PhD in 1949; his second two years later), it is rumoured that he played a small but nevertheless important role in the Soviet nuclear test at Semipalantinsk in August 1949.
'Retiring' from the Army in 1953, Dr. Asimov become a professor at various small but distinguished universities in the Soviet Union. Being a brillant intellectual and hero of the Motherland in the Soviet Union in the 1950's was considered the pinnacle of achievement (comparable to being a Rock Star in England or a Sports hero in America) and as long as one gave no indication of disloyalty to the State, certain 'idiocyncracies' and 'eccentricities' were 'unofficially' accepted by the upper echelons of the political structure (made far easier after Stalin's death in 1953, no doubt).
Doctor Asimov had two. One was a roving eye for the ladies. The other was writing science fiction stories.
His first novel 'Nightfall' (1955) which has been described as one of "the most famous science-fiction stories of all time" put him on the literary map. Indeed, a copy of this novel was smuggled out of the Soviet Union in 1956 and translated into English. By 1958 this landmark novel was influencing not only writers in the Soviet Union but even in the land of their enemy--America.
Nightfall" is an archetypical example of social science fiction, a term coined by Asimov himself to describe a new trend in the 1950s, led by authors including Asimov (U.S.S.R.) and Heinlein (U.S.), away from gadgets and space opera and toward speculation about the human condition.
A prolific writer, Asimov completed two trilogies (Foundation and I, Robot) in a space of 5 years, further enshrining his fame.
But his biggest coup was in his public denouncing of the Soviet 'scientist' Lysenko. Lysenko was considered a crank by many other scientists in the Soviet Union but his former close ties with Stalin made him (supposedly) immune to criticism.
Asimov had very little patience with what he called 'superstitious and ignorant fools' and--due to his connections and status--was one of the few scientists who could publicly denounce Lysenk--which he did on August 19, 1958.
He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists
The political fallout from this statement was extraordinary. The Soviet press was soon filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles and appeals for the restoration of scientific methods to all fields of biology and agricultural science. Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills (the Institute itself was soon dissolved).
Asimov, however, paid a price for this. While Asimov no doubt saved the prestige of Soviet science, he had publicly mocked an important figure in Soviet politics--and by extension, everyone who had supported Lysenko. While everyone was quickly distancing themselves from any contact with Lysenko, an example had to be made of Asimov lest his actions inspire other scientists and writers to start denouncing other important figures and Asimov resigned from his position at the university due to 'family issues'.
His science career was effectively dead.
However he was at heart a patriot and when Khrushchev himself asked him to become the new science advisor in 1960, he leaped at the chance.
After Khrushchev’s ouster in October 1964, Brezhnev retained Asimov on the science committee. The two became close friends and Asimov soon proved to be as adept at the political field as he was in the science field, cultivating numerous friends and colleagues and allies. When Brezhnev himself died in 1982, he was replaced with Yuri Andropov. When Andropov died in February 1984, after 16 months in office, Chernenko was elected to replace him, despite concerns over his health. Chernenko himself proved to be a short-lived leader and died a mere 13 months later.
Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Isaac Asimov, at age 65, was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party on 11 March 1985, defeating Mikhail Gorbachev who was considered the other favourite.
He became the Party's first leader to have been born after the Russian Revolution of 1917. As de facto ruler of the Soviet Union, he tried to reform the stagnating Communist Party and the state economy by introducing glasnost ("openness"), perestroika ("restructuring"), and uskoreniye ("acceleration", of economic development), which were launched at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986.
His attempts at reform helped to end the Cold War, and also ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and dissolved the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
This is his story....