Suicide and suicidology in the Soviet Union

This study was conducted in order to obtain information on suicide in the Soviet Union, an important subject for which we have no scientific literature. Studies of attempted suicide in Soviet psychiatric journals were analyzed. This information was supplemented by interviews with Soviet psychiatrists now living abroad. The results of this inquiry show that suicide is a subject that clearly has become of increasing concern in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, in spite of the absence of essential statistical data on mortality, there is evidence indicating that the rate of Soviet suicide may be rising in certain parts of the country. Finally, growing concern about suicide has led to expanded prevention programs and to a new emphasis on social and psychological etiological explanations. In particular, the role of the Soviet family in crisis has been emphasized as a major influence in understanding the causes of suicidal attempts.     

On the psycho-social conditions of psychotherapy in post-Soviet Georgia

The article describes the social, economic and political conditions that influence the practice of psychotherapy in post-Soviet Georgia. The author looks at the specific Soviet and post-Soviet mentalities and defines certain characteristics of these mentalities, the master-slave relationship between the people and the State, the materialistic world view, the nostalgia for the past and idealization of Soviet times, the identity crisis produced by the socio-economic traumas. The paper then provides clinical illustrations of these phenomena and shows how they can interfere with the process of psychotherapy.     

Pavlov and the demise of the influence of Gestalt psychology in the Soviet Union

Summary The demise of the influence of the classical Gestalt psychology in the Soviet Union has been linked to I.P. Pavlov's negative stance toward Gestalt tenets. Actually, Pavlov's attitude toward Gestalt psychology was by no means uniform. Pavlov was receptive to, as well as critical of a number of substantive issues. He acknowledged the Gestalt interpretation of transposition, but criticized the Gestalt rejection of association and learning by trial and error. Pavlov's strongest objection to Gestalt psychology centered on the philosophical issues of causality, methodology, and on the problem of mind and body. Despite these objections, no direct evidence links Pavlov's criticism of Gestalt theses to the weakening of their influence on Soviet psychology. Instead, the demise of classical Gestalt psychology in the Soviet Union should be attributed to political exigency. Soviet authorities, in a period of political crises, were intent upon the elimination of all traces of bourgeois psychologies.     

The 1950 Joint Scientific Session: Pavlovians as the accusers and the accused

In 1950, Stalin and the Soviet Government prevailed upon the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences to organize the 1950 Joint Scientific Session for the purpose of formalizing the teachings of I. P. Pavlov. During the Session, some of Pavlov's erstwhile students—the Pavlovians—split into accusers and accused. The more prominent of the latter were denounced for deviating from the orthodox Pavlovian path, and urged to admit their mistakes, to work within the framework of Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity, and to avoid Western influence. Within this context, the travail of the prominent Pavlovian physiologist L. A. Orbeli is discussed. Contemporary Russian historians and scientists, evaluating the consequences of the 1950 Joint Scientific Session, point out its negative effects; namely, the general moral decline of Soviet physiologists pressured to accept a dogmatic ideology, the lowering of the quality of research in physiology, and the self-imposed exclusion of Soviet physiology from the worldwide scientific community. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Social influence on physics and mathematics: local or attributive?

Summary  The article is devoted to the nature of science. To what extent are science and mathematics affected by the society in which they are developed? Philosophy of science has accepted the social influence on science, but limits it only to the context of discovery (a “locational” approach). An opposite “attributive” approach states that any part of science may be so influenced. L. Graham is sure that even the mathematical equations at the core of fundamental physical theories may display social attributes. He has used the investigations of the famous Soviet physicist V. Fock on the General Theory of Relativity which were under the influence of Marxism. The Goal of the article is to demonstrate: 1) Why Soviet science is not an appropriate subject-matter for testing the thesis of social constructivism, 2) That differnt levels of science and different stages in the development of science undergo social influences in different degrees ranging from very significant and unavoidable to absolutely trivial and easy eliminated.     

Semantic palaeontology and the passage from myth to science and poetry: the work of Izrail′ Frank-Kamenetskij (1880–1937)

The life and career of the Soviet scholar of myth and religion Izrail′ Grigor′evič Frank-Kamenetskij is discussed, tracing his development from a scholar working exclusively on semitology to a theorist of myth and literature. The scholar’s relationship to German philosophy and Biblical scholarship is outlined, along with his relationship to Soviet scholarship of the 1920s and 1930s. The development of the scholar’s work is related to his encounter with N. Ja. Marr in the early 1920s, and the way in which Marr’s doctrine underwent considerable revisions when subjected to German philosophy and applied to narrative material is detailed. Finally the way in which attention increasingly turned to the genesis of literary plots and poetic metaphor is discussed, along with both the influence such work exerted and the enduring value of such work today.     

The Conditions of Philosophy in Totalitarian and Post-Totalitarian Poland

This compound paper presents the views of two Polish philosophers on the strong international pressures influencing the development of Polish philosophy in recent times. The first part, by Leszek Koczanowicz, treats the philosophical situation and problems of totalitarian Poland under the influence of Soviet Marxism, while the second part, by Adam Chmielewski, focuses on the main trends and difficulties of post-totalitarian Poland, dominated by Western influence.     

Was the Soviet Union Totalitarian? The View of Soviet Dissidents and the Reformers of the Gorbachev Era

The article explains why Soviet dissidents and the reformers of the Gorbachev era chose to characterize the Soviet system as totalitarian. The dissidents and the reformers strongly disagreed among themselves about the origins of Soviet totalitarianism. But both groups stressed the effects of totalitarianism on the individual personality; in doing so, they revealed themselves to be the heirs of the tsarist intelligentsia. Although the concept of totalitarianism probably obscures more than it clarifies when it is applied to regimes like the Nazi and the Soviet, the decision of the dissidents and the reformers to use the term enabled them to clarify their own values and the reasons they felt compelled to criticize the Soviet Union and to call for its radical reform.     

Inside the World of the Soviet Professional

In this article Carl recounts his experiences with psychologists, educators, and researchers in the Soviet Union. While in the Soviet Union, Carl did live counseling sessions with Soviet citizens to demonstrate his person-centered approach. In the end, Carl reflects that the Soviet professional has needs and concerns similar to psychologists and educators in America. This is a joint report of work carried on by Carl Rogers and Ruth Sanford. The account was largely written by Carl, but Sanford contributed to it.     

Russification as a factor in religious conversion. Making Lenin roll over in his grave

The Soviet project was as thoroughly atheist as any geopolitical system seen on the world stage. Yet in a way that V.I. Lenin could have never imagined, one of the main objectives of Soviet authorities has now become a significant factor in Central Asian Muslims converting to Christianity. Russification is the term normally used to describe the social process, whereby non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union became acculturated into Russian patterns of life, thought and worldview during the Soviet era. The result was that many Muslims inhabited both Soviet/Russian and Muslim cultural space, thus creating a new cultural identity that facilitated religious conversion away from Islam. This field research report uses the lens of personal conversion stories to examine some aspects of this phenomenon. Also, the range of personal experiences points towards the need to understand Russification as a spectrum of acculturation.     

Political emancipation and the domination of nature: The rise and fall of Soviet Prometheanism

Frolov, I. T. (1990) Man, Science, Humanism: A New Synthesis (Buffalo, NY, Prometheus Books), 342 pp.

Graham, L. R. (Ed.) (1990) Science and the Soviet Social Order (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press), ix + 443 pp.

Understanding the place of science in Soviet culture is essential if we are to understand the distinctive character of the Soviet Union, its failings and contradictions, and its prospects for the future. This paper examines Soviet conceptions of the role of science in the socialist project. Focusing on Loren Graham's collection Science and the Soviet Social Order, the article critically assesses the claim that science and technology have been liberalizing influences on Soviet political culture. The paper concludes by considering Ivan Frolov's, Man, Science, Humanism, which attempts to reform Soviet conceptions of science by establishing a Marxist ‘scientific humanism’. Although Frolov challenges the idea of science as a means to subordinate nature, his approach is belied by his uncritical acceptance of a classic Soviet attitude to science; namely, the necessity of a total, systematic theory of humanity, nature and society. It is argued that the later stages of perestroika saw a marked loss of confidence in the power of science as a source of such ‘total theory’, and with this the history of Soviet Prometheanism appears to have come to a close.     

Contribution of E. W. Schmidt to the development of Soviet neurology and its international relations

A short retrospect, occasioned by the death on July 13, 1985, of E. W. Schmidt, of his career as director of the Neurological Research Institute at the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, and his influence as scientist, medical man, and humanist on the development of neurology in the Soviet Union and its representation on the international scene.     

Empowerment, Defiance, and Demise: Jews and the Blood Libel Specter under Stalinism

By examining different cases of blood libels that occurred from the 1920s through the decade following Stalin’s death, this study suggests that the ritual murder accusation in the Soviet Union dwindled at first, then intensified, and eventually underwent an idiosyncratic and secular metamorphosis that culminated with the 1953 “Doctors’ Plot” accusation: the denunciation of a group of prominent and predominantly Jewish doctors for allegedly conspiring to murder Soviet leaders. While the blood libel was generally prosecuted in the interwar period, in the postwar years it was usually ignored, though perhaps indirectly encouraged. Jews—as well as local authorities—reacted in a variety of ways to allegations of ritual murder. But overall, it was the status, power, and influence that Jews held in a given city or town at the time of a concocted accusation that determined their responses to the blood libel and that shaped the legal provisions and enforcement steps taken by the party, police, and civil authorities.     

Georgii Shakhnazarov and the Soviet Critique of Historical Materialism

The emergence of ideological and political pluralism in the Soviet Union during 1990 led to a growing number of critiques of Marxism-Leninism. The development of the internal Soviet critique of orthodox Soviet Marxism-Leninism culminated in the publication of a two-part article by Georgii Shakhnazarov in Kommunist in 1991. In this article Shakhnazarov outlined a comprehensive critique of orthodox historical materialism, and many of the ideas he developed became a central part of the Draft Party Programme of July/August 1991. This programme amounted to the virtual social-democratisation of Soviet Marxism-Leninism. The collapse of Soviet Marxism-Leninism can in part be explained by the internal critique of its basic tenets which developed in the period after 1988.     

Discussions with Bocheński concerning Soviet Marxism–Leninism, 1952–1986

Boche??ski??s lucid, unpartisan, and judiciously critical discussion of Soviet Marxism?CLeninism in his book Der sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus (1950) filled a major gap in our understanding of that influential movement. Prior to its publication there had been only two works on the subject in English, John Somerville??s Soviet Philosophy (1946) and the Handbook of Philosophy (1949), edited and adapted by Howard Selsam from the Kratkij filosofskij slovar?? (2nd ed. 1940). Both are marked by strong partisanship and ideological bias. Somerville is uncritically pro-Soviet and abjectly Stalinist. Selsam, although he tones down the adulation of Marx, Stalin et al. of the KFS, retains that work??s abuse of such ??reactionary?? and ??idealist?? thinkers as Plato and such ??reactionary?? and ??bourgeois?? thinkers as Hegel. The benign influence of Boche??ski??s work increased with the publication of the English translation, Soviet Russian Dialectical Materialism, in 1963.     

Socialist realism in the Soviet Union: Portrayal of Western European and North American businessmen

Success in Soviet trade negotiations depends to a great extent on the images that the Soviet negotiators form of their Western counterparts. These images, in turn, depend to a great extent on the images presented to such Soviet negotiators during their education, through various tales and stories.     

Prejudice and peace: Is the Swedish youth neutral in its attitudes?

Two hundred and sixty Swedish students attending grade 9 were given a semantic differential to measure their attitudes towards four countries, Sweden, West Germany, USA, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union received significantly more unfavourable ratings on nearly all variables than the other countries, which received mainly favourable or neutral ones. Most interesting, the Soviet Union is rated as "enemy", whilst the other countries are rated as "friends". Implications for peace education are discussed.