KAIWZA 6§ Laurence Badash focuses, as the very title of his book suggests, on the fact of Kapitza's retention dramatised right in the beginning by quoting the banner in the News Chronicle of April 24, 1935 : "Cambridge has shock from the Soviet ; Famous Scientist Recalhd". Badash's book extensively reproduces Kapitza's letters and provides details of Rutherford's campaign for his return. Kapitza's unhappiness during a short period till his equipment is obtained from Cambiidge is quite obvious. He is troubled by the non-availability of daily necessities, due to bureaucratic handling, lack of work and most of all by the lack of trust that he perceives among his colleagues. He even seriously considers giving up physics and working with Pavlov. Despite all these travails that Kapitza faced, he never seemed to have lost his sympathy for the cause of socialist construction and the role that science had to play in it. Thus there is never the kind of conflict that scientists had to face in the Western countries when they were totally opposed to the aims of their governments and the role of science in it. Despite being subjected to what could be considered his forcible detention, Kapitza makes perceptive observations which provide a clue to his understanding of the causes of his unhappiness. Excessive bureaucratism, a legitimate suspicion among his colleagues arising from the fact of his being abroad for about 15 years, a lack of emphasis on research work in pure sciences due to a contingent obsession with applied sciences, could be counted among some of these causes. Kapitza observes : ^But in its (Socialist method of economy) birth pains, for me as a scientist, it is difficult to a find a place, ..............the time is not yet ripe and this is the tragedy of my position." By October 1935, Kapitza himself had realised the nature of this personal tragedy when he wrote to Rutherford : Life is an incompiehensible thing. We have difficulties in clearing physical phenomena, so I suppose humanity will neverdisentangle the fate of a human being, especially as complicated as my own. It is such a complexity of all sorts of phenomena that it is better not to question its logical coherence. After all we are only small particles of floating matter in a stream which we call fate. All that we can manage is to deflect slightly our track and keep afloat. The stream governs us. The stream carrying a Russian is fresh, vigorous, even fascinating, and consequently rough. It is wonderfully suited for a reconstructer, economist, but is it suited for a scientist like me ? Future will show it. In any case the country earnestly looks forward to see science develop and take a prominent part in the social organisation. But all is new here and the position of science has to be newly determined. In such a condition mistakes arc inevitable. We must not be too hard judges and never forget that the object is a pioneer one. I have no ill feeling, only I am not confident in my personal