Soviet Study Institute Fears Cuts

Harvard's Russian Research Center will be forced to eliminate some of its major programs within the next several years if it does not receive a substantial infusion of outside financial support, scholars associated with the prestigious study center said yesterday.

The center's recent financial difficulties, which reflect a national trend among elite Soviet studies institutes, have prompted officials to organize a crucial private fundraising drive and to redouble efforts to win competitive foundation grants.

"After next year, unless additional funds are received, it will be impossible to continue to run [the center] in the future," said Economics Professor Abram Bergson, who gave the most pessimistic prognosis for Soviet studies at Harvard.

Problems Ahead

Other professors predicted that the center will survive in some form, although all agreed that research programs are threatened by a sharp decrease of interest in the field among universities, the federal government and private money-granting foundations.

At Harvard, which had until recently boasted the nation's preeminent Soviet studies curriculum, the major problems include a lack of fellowship money to train young scholars and a shortage of funds for general physical maintenance.

Having surrendered clear leadership in the discipline to Columbia University, according to most experts, Harvard must also battle against the perception that as a university it no longer considers the Soviet Union a key subject for research.

Replacements Needed

Fewer American scholars have chosen to specialize in Soviet studies recently, professors said, and replacements are badly needed for those who have been leading authorities since the 1950s.

Without funds to support junior researchers, however, centers such as Harvard's have failed to attract large numbers of graduate students.

Marshall Goldman, associate director of the Russian Research Center, said the organization now sponsors fewer than 10 master's degree candidates each year, compared to about 30 a year in the 1950s.

"The money we have now, about $35,000 a year, is enough for one" graduate researcher, said Goldman, "but here it has to be divided among 10 people."

The center, which includes seven faculty researchers, receives that $35,000 from a share of the interest from Harvard's endowment. Like other branches of the University, however, the center must survive on an independent budget for all additional costs other than professors' salaries.

A special $5 million fund drive for the center is scheduled to begin this school year under the auspices of Harvard's $350 million capital funds campaign. "The drive is necessary in order to bring us back to our original strength of 20 years ago," said Adam Ulam, the center's director.

Professors here downplayed the role of Harvard's decentralized financial system as a factor in the center's recent struggles, although other small institutions within the University have in the past criticized the structure.

"Harvard has made significant contributions to the center, such as faculty salaries and building space," Bergson pointed out.

But crucial outside sources of support may have already changed their perceptions of the status of Soviet studies here. John J. Stremlau, assistant director of international relations for the Rockefeller Foundation, said many major academic donors now assume "that Harvard doesn't care about Soviet Studies."

The Rockefeller Foundation has indicated privately in recent months that it will give two American Soviet studies centers grants of $1 million each to bolster the struggling field, and Harvard professors said they will actively compete for a share of the money.

Crucial Grant

"We have a good chance of winning one of the grants," said Goldman, but he added, "If we don't win it, it shows we have fallen behind."

The Russian Research Center was founded in 1948 with a grant from the Ford Foundation. It rose to prominence in the discipline during the 1950s and 1960s, when the government and private organizations encouraged intensive research on the Soviet Union and its relations with the United States.

Goldman explained that since the mid-1960s a variety of factors have led to decreased support for Soviet studies, here and elsewhere. Among them is lessened fear of the Soviets and a related decline in interest in studying competition between the two super-powers, he said.

In addition, Goldman added, other regions of the world, including the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have received increased attention from American scholars, drawing funds and manpower previously devoted to Soviet research.

Many major foundations, such as the Ford, have also diverted grant programs away from regional studies altogether and toward the study of domestic problems, Goldman said.

Columbia University this week received an unusual $1 million grant for Soviet studies from W. Averell Harriman, a former New York governor and ambassador to Moscow.

The gift was prompted by Harriman's concern for growing weaknesses in the field nationally, according to reports in The New York Times.

Goldman emphasized that Harvard desperately needs "someone to come along and do for us what Averell Harriman did for Columbia.