Pavlovian session
Encyclopedia
The Pavlovian session was the joint session of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
held on June 28–July 4, 1950. The session was organized by the Soviet Government headed by Joseph Stalin
in order to fight Western influences in Russian physiological sciences. During the session, a number of Ivan Pavlov
's former students attacked another group of his students (L.A. Orbeli
, P.K. Anokhin
, A.D. Speransky, I.S. Beritashvili) whom they accused of deviating from Pavlov's teaching. As the result of this session, Soviet physiology self excluded itself from the international scientific community for many years.
The interference in physiology, psychology and psychiatry was initiated in the summer of 1949 when Stalin instructed the Minister of
Health E.I. Smirnov to hold a session on Pavlov's teachings. Georgy Malenkov
supervised the organization of the meeting.
, the President of the USSR Academy of the Sciences; I. P. Razenkov, the Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences; K. M. Bykov, the Director of
the General Physiological Department at the Institute of Experimental Medicine; and A. G. Ivanov-Smolenski, a psychiatrist.
, praised Stalin and Pavlov for their materialistic approach to the problem of relationship between the material and mental. He stated that Pavlov was a great scientist whom Stalin and the Soviet Government esteemed very highly. Vavilov noted that Soviet physiologists had made great achievements since Pavlov's death, but some did not follow Pavlov's teaching and even attempted a revision of Pavlov's views. Open or concealed opposition to Pavlov's materialistic theory was expected and quite understandable for bourgeois scientists who suggested that Pavlov's theory of conditioned reflexes should be shelved and only his experimental methods might be useful. However, even Soviet scientists did very little to develop important trends suggested by Pavlov. For example, experts who participated in a broad discussion of materialistic linguistics in Pravda
did not even mention the role of Pavlov's theory in the study of language. Vavilov explained that the goal of the joint session of physiologists and psychiatrists was to conduct "a critical and self-critical examination of how matters stand with regard to the development of Pavlov's legacy in the Soviet Union". He concluded: "There can be no doubt that it is only a return to Pavlov's road that physiology can be most effective, most beneficial to our people and most worthy of the Stalin epoch of the building of Communism. Glory to Pavlov's genius! Long live the leader of peoples, our great scientist and preceptor in all our major undertakings, Comrade Stalin!"
A precursor of later abuses in psychiatry in the Soviet Union and the most somber event in the history of Russian-Soviet psychiatry was the so-called ‘Joint Session’ of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
and the Board of the All-Union Neurologic and Psychiatric Association, held in the name of Ivan Pavlov
in October 1951, considered the matter of several leading neuroscientists and psychiatrists of the time (for example, G. Sukhareva, V. Gilyarovsky, R. Golant, A. Shmaryan, M. Gurevich
) who were charged with practicing ‘anti-Pavlovian, anti-Marxist, idealistic, reactionary’ science damaging to Soviet psychiatry. These talented psychiatrists had to admit publicly to their wrong beliefs and mistakes and promise to profess only Pavlov's teaching. During the Joint Session, scientists falsely acknowledged their ‘wrongdoings’ and gave up their beliefs, out of fear. But in the closing speech, the lead author of the policy report A. Snezhnevsky
stated that they “have not disarmed themselves and continue to remain in the old anti-Pavlovian positions”, thereby causing “grave damage to the Soviet scientific and practical psychiatry”, and the vice president of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences accused them that they “diligently fall down to the dirty source of American pseudo-science”. The fear and less than noble ambitions of the accusers including I. Strelchuk, V. Banshchikov, O. Kerbikov, and A. Snezhnevsky were also likely to make them serve in the role of inquisitors. Not surprisingly, many of them were advanced and appointed to leadership positions shortly after the session.
The Joint Session also affected neuroscience
in such a way that the best neuroscientists of the time, such as academicians P. Anokhin
, А. Speransky, L. Stern
, I. Beritashvili, and L. Orbeli
, who headed various scientific directions at that time, were labeled as anti-Pavlov, anti-materialist and reactionaries, and discharged from their positions. These scientists lost their laboratories, and some were subjected to tortures in prisons. The Moscow, Leningrad, Ukrainian, Georgian, and Armenian schools of neuroscience and neurophysiology were damaged, at least for a while. The Joint Session ravaged productive research in neurosciences and psychiatry for years to come. It was pseudoscience that took over.
After the joint session of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences on June 28 — July 4, 1950 and during the session of the Presidium of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Board of the All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists on October 11-15, 1951, the leading role was given to Snezhnevky’s school. The 1950 decision to give monopoly over psychiatry to the Pavlovian school of Professor Andrei Snezhnevsky
was one of crucial factors of the onset of political psychiatry. The Soviet doctors, under the incentive of A.V. Sneznevsky, devised ‘Pavlovian theory of schizophrenia’ on the strength of which they diagnosticated this illness in political oppositionists.
USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
The USSR Academy of Medical Sciences is the highest scientific and medical organization founded in the Soviet Union in 1944.Its successor is the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences founded in 1992....
held on June 28–July 4, 1950. The session was organized by the Soviet Government headed by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
in order to fight Western influences in Russian physiological sciences. During the session, a number of Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
's former students attacked another group of his students (L.A. Orbeli
Leon Orbeli
Levon Orbeli was an Armenian physiologist active in the Russian SFSR. He was a member of the Academies of Science of USSR and Armenian SSR...
, P.K. Anokhin
Pyotr Anokhin
Pyotr Kuzmich Anokhin was a Russian biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to cybernetics and functional systems. His pioneering concept on feedback were published in 1935.- Overview :...
, A.D. Speransky, I.S. Beritashvili) whom they accused of deviating from Pavlov's teaching. As the result of this session, Soviet physiology self excluded itself from the international scientific community for many years.
Preceding events
The Pavlovian session followed a sequence of Stalin's interferences in academic affairs during the post-war time:- In 1947, Georgy AleksandrovGeorgy AleksandrovGeorgy Fedorovich Aleksandrov Georgy Fedorovich Aleksandrov Georgy Fedorovich Aleksandrov (22 March 1908 (Old Style), Saint Petersburg - 7 July 1961 (New Style, Moscow) was a Marxist philosopher and a Soviet politician.-Childhood and education:...
asked Stalin to review his textbook for university students entitled "History of West European Philosophy". Stalin criticized the book as an attempt to analyze philosophy from a pro-Western position rather than using the principles of Marxism-Leninism. - In 1948, Stalin strongly supported Lysenko's workLysenkoismLysenkoism, or Lysenko-Michurinism, also denotes the biological inheritance principle which Trofim Lysenko subscribed to and which derive from theories of the heritability of acquired characteristics, a body of biological inheritance theory which departs from Mendelism and that Lysenko named...
on the inheritance of acquired characteristics in plants. Lysenko's research intended to strengthen the Soviet Union's agriculture. - In 1949, Stalin declared an opposition to cosmopolitism. Great Soviet Encyclopedia defined cosmopolitism as a "reactionary bourgeois ideology of rejecting national traditions and national sovereignty by preaching indifferent relationship to one's country and national culture and advocating the establishment of a 'world government' and 'world citizenship.' "
- In 1949, Stalin commented on the issues of linguistics, in particular he criticized the view that language was a derivative of an economic base. Stalin also stated that "no science can develop and flourish without a battle of opinions, without freedom of criticism."
The interference in physiology, psychology and psychiatry was initiated in the summer of 1949 when Stalin instructed the Minister of
Health E.I. Smirnov to hold a session on Pavlov's teachings. Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
supervised the organization of the meeting.
Keynote speeches
Four keynote speakers outlined the main topics of the session: Sergey VavilovSergey Ivanovich Vavilov
Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov -Biography:Vavilov founded the Soviet school of physical optics, known by his works in luminescence. In 1934 he co-discovered the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect, a discovery for which Pavel Cherenkov was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1958...
, the President of the USSR Academy of the Sciences; I. P. Razenkov, the Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences; K. M. Bykov, the Director of
the General Physiological Department at the Institute of Experimental Medicine; and A. G. Ivanov-Smolenski, a psychiatrist.
Vavilov's speech
In his inaugural address, Sergey VavilovSergey Ivanovich Vavilov
Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov -Biography:Vavilov founded the Soviet school of physical optics, known by his works in luminescence. In 1934 he co-discovered the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect, a discovery for which Pavel Cherenkov was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1958...
, praised Stalin and Pavlov for their materialistic approach to the problem of relationship between the material and mental. He stated that Pavlov was a great scientist whom Stalin and the Soviet Government esteemed very highly. Vavilov noted that Soviet physiologists had made great achievements since Pavlov's death, but some did not follow Pavlov's teaching and even attempted a revision of Pavlov's views. Open or concealed opposition to Pavlov's materialistic theory was expected and quite understandable for bourgeois scientists who suggested that Pavlov's theory of conditioned reflexes should be shelved and only his experimental methods might be useful. However, even Soviet scientists did very little to develop important trends suggested by Pavlov. For example, experts who participated in a broad discussion of materialistic linguistics in Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
did not even mention the role of Pavlov's theory in the study of language. Vavilov explained that the goal of the joint session of physiologists and psychiatrists was to conduct "a critical and self-critical examination of how matters stand with regard to the development of Pavlov's legacy in the Soviet Union". He concluded: "There can be no doubt that it is only a return to Pavlov's road that physiology can be most effective, most beneficial to our people and most worthy of the Stalin epoch of the building of Communism. Glory to Pavlov's genius! Long live the leader of peoples, our great scientist and preceptor in all our major undertakings, Comrade Stalin!"
Razenkov's speech
Razenkov spoke after Vavilov. He emphasized the importance of opposing the "reactionary idealist trend" in physiology following the example of Lysenko who contributed to a "decisive victory" of Michurin's teachings over Weismannism-Morganism. Razenkov praised Pavlov's contribution to practical medicine and criticized Pavlov's students for not applying the progressive ideas of Pavlov and Sechenov to theoretical and practical medicine. He blamed Pavlov's immediate disciples and successors: L.N. Fydorov, the former director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine, L.A. Orbeli, the director of the Pavlov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology, P.K. Anokhin, the head of the Moscow Institute of Physiology, and A.D. Speransky, the head of the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology. According to Razenkov, these scientists did not fight hard enough to defend Pavlov's materialist theory against the assaults of Western idealist physiologists, such as Sherrington, Lashley and Fulton, and Pavlov's opponents in Russia, such as Beritov. Razenkov also expressed some self-criticism for not conforming with the Party and the Government's expectation of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He informed that the Government had created a new scientific institution, the Institute of Physiology of the Higher Nervous System, to advance Pavlov's teachings, and Pavlov's faithful disciple K.M. Bykov had been named the director of that institute. Razenkov emphasized the importance of the application of the work conducted by Bykov and his colleagues to clinical practice. He concluded his speech with a praise to the "peerless scientist, Comrade Stalin".Bykov’s speech
The next keynote speaker, K.M. Bykov, asserted that medical science must be built on the foundation of correct humanitarian sciences in addition to biology and psychology. He praised the triumph of Michurian biology based on the philosophy of materialism. He also praised the "decisive blow struck at reactionary idealist theories" by Pavlov. Bykov divided the history of physiology and psychology into two periods: idealistic pre-Pavlovian stage and Pavlovian materialistic stage. Bykov condemned the West-European theories of the pre-Pavlovian stage which explained complex nervous phenomena based on idealistic analytical physiology. The authors of these theories failed to recognize class roots of scientific views. According to Bykov, Pavlov made a transition from analytical to synthetic thinking. He discovered a new class of reflexes, conditioned reflexes. He then developed the theory of higher nervous activity. Under the Soviet System, Pavlovian physiology could develop and flourish. However, some of Pavlov’s students failed to follow his theory of higher nervous function and instead diverted to irrelevant issues. Even worse, they accepted Western theories. Bykov named Pavlov’s disciple who followed the theories of their teacher: A.G. Ivanov-Smolenskiy and E.A. Asratyan. Then, he named the ones who deviated from the right path: Orbeli, Anokhin, Speransky and their coworkers. In particular, Orbeli followed idealist sensory theories of Ewald Hering and Wilhelm Wundt and even claimed that they had similarities with Pavlov’s materialist theory. Orbeli’s associates A.G. Ginetsinskiy and A.V. Lebedinskiy wrote a textbook for physicians "Principles of the Physiology in Man and Animals". in which they treated Pavlov's results as inferior to Western studies. In Anokhin's case, Bykov noted that, although Anoknin had deviated from Pavlov’s ideas when Pavlov was still alive, there was still some hope for him and he might correct his mistakes and contribute to Soviet physiology. Bykov praised the contributions of Pavlov’s ideas to medicine, emphasized the importance of following the right direction of Pavlov's teachings and resisting false Western theories. Finally, he spoke about Stalin’s work that suggested improvement of science through criticism and self-criticism.Ivanov-Smolenskiy ’s speech
In his long speech, Ivanov-Smolenskiy reviewed of Pavlov’s achievements in the development of the theory of higher nervous activity. According to Ivanov-Smolenskiy, Pavlov’s contribution to psychiatry was "of immense value" as opposed to the failure of foreign scientists who did not achieve anything important. Ivanov-Smolenskiy then praised some Russian physiologists and condemned the others. He praised L. A. Andreev and M. K. Petrova as the followers of Pavlov's legacy. He accused Anokhin, Kupalov, and Orbeli. Anokhin was blamed for suggesting that Pavlov’s theory was isolated from foreign science and needed improvement, for leaning toward Sherrington’s concept of integration, and for criticizing Pavlov’s conception of cortical inhibition. Kupalov was accused of distorting Pavlov’s conceptualization of reflexes. Ivanov-Smolenski characterized Orbeli's views of the relation between subjective experience and objective reality as anti-Pavlovian because — unlike Pavlov who believed that subjective, psychological experience was superimposed on the objective experience of the environment — Orbeli separated the subjective and objective and adhered to psychophysiological parallelism. Orbeli was also blamed for diverging from Pavlov's determenistic position on the mechanisms of higher nervous activity.Responses
In the sessions that followed the keynote speeches, a number of speakers continued to attack the accused Pavlovians, and the accused confessed to their errors and expressed apologies.Asratian's speech
Asratian spoke on June 29. According to him, several Pavlovians failed the expectations of the Communist Party and the Soviet government. In particular, they failed to pursue research in several important fields, for example cortical localization of functions and fixation of inherited conditioned reflexes in the next generation. They also failed to challenge the anti-Pavlovian theories of Western physiologists.Consequence
In 1982, M.G. Yaroshevsky, criticizing the Pavlovian session, wrote that, in fact, Ivanov-Smolensky and his disciples did nothing but pervert the kernel of Pavlovian teaching, substituting for it a mechanistic view of the brain activity. These so-called scholars of Pavlov emasculated the ground of his theory and extremely damaged the prospects of Soviet science.A precursor of later abuses in psychiatry in the Soviet Union and the most somber event in the history of Russian-Soviet psychiatry was the so-called ‘Joint Session’ of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
The USSR Academy of Medical Sciences is the highest scientific and medical organization founded in the Soviet Union in 1944.Its successor is the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences founded in 1992....
and the Board of the All-Union Neurologic and Psychiatric Association, held in the name of Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
in October 1951, considered the matter of several leading neuroscientists and psychiatrists of the time (for example, G. Sukhareva, V. Gilyarovsky, R. Golant, A. Shmaryan, M. Gurevich
Mikhail Gurevich (psychiatrist)
Mikhail Osipovich Gurevich was a Russian and Soviet psychiatrist, one of leaders of Russian psychoneurology, honoured worker of science of the RSFSR, and a full member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences.- Biography :Gurvich was born on 18 September 1878 in the village of Sosnytsia, Chernigov...
) who were charged with practicing ‘anti-Pavlovian, anti-Marxist, idealistic, reactionary’ science damaging to Soviet psychiatry. These talented psychiatrists had to admit publicly to their wrong beliefs and mistakes and promise to profess only Pavlov's teaching. During the Joint Session, scientists falsely acknowledged their ‘wrongdoings’ and gave up their beliefs, out of fear. But in the closing speech, the lead author of the policy report A. Snezhnevsky
Andrei Snezhnevsky
Andrei Vladimirovich Snezhnevsky was a Soviet psychiatrist notorious for expanding the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, a step that allowed for arbitrary labeling of political dissidents as having sluggishly progressing schizophrenia...
stated that they “have not disarmed themselves and continue to remain in the old anti-Pavlovian positions”, thereby causing “grave damage to the Soviet scientific and practical psychiatry”, and the vice president of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences accused them that they “diligently fall down to the dirty source of American pseudo-science”. The fear and less than noble ambitions of the accusers including I. Strelchuk, V. Banshchikov, O. Kerbikov, and A. Snezhnevsky were also likely to make them serve in the role of inquisitors. Not surprisingly, many of them were advanced and appointed to leadership positions shortly after the session.
The Joint Session also affected neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
in such a way that the best neuroscientists of the time, such as academicians P. Anokhin
Pyotr Anokhin
Pyotr Kuzmich Anokhin was a Russian biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to cybernetics and functional systems. His pioneering concept on feedback were published in 1935.- Overview :...
, А. Speransky, L. Stern
Lina Stern
Lina Solomonovna Stern was a notable Soviet biochemist, physiologist and humanist whose medical discoveries saved thousands of lives at the fronts of World War II...
, I. Beritashvili, and L. Orbeli
Leon Orbeli
Levon Orbeli was an Armenian physiologist active in the Russian SFSR. He was a member of the Academies of Science of USSR and Armenian SSR...
, who headed various scientific directions at that time, were labeled as anti-Pavlov, anti-materialist and reactionaries, and discharged from their positions. These scientists lost their laboratories, and some were subjected to tortures in prisons. The Moscow, Leningrad, Ukrainian, Georgian, and Armenian schools of neuroscience and neurophysiology were damaged, at least for a while. The Joint Session ravaged productive research in neurosciences and psychiatry for years to come. It was pseudoscience that took over.
After the joint session of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences on June 28 — July 4, 1950 and during the session of the Presidium of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Board of the All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists on October 11-15, 1951, the leading role was given to Snezhnevky’s school. The 1950 decision to give monopoly over psychiatry to the Pavlovian school of Professor Andrei Snezhnevsky
Andrei Snezhnevsky
Andrei Vladimirovich Snezhnevsky was a Soviet psychiatrist notorious for expanding the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, a step that allowed for arbitrary labeling of political dissidents as having sluggishly progressing schizophrenia...
was one of crucial factors of the onset of political psychiatry. The Soviet doctors, under the incentive of A.V. Sneznevsky, devised ‘Pavlovian theory of schizophrenia’ on the strength of which they diagnosticated this illness in political oppositionists.
See also
- Suppressed research in the Soviet UnionSuppressed research in the Soviet UnionSuppressed research in the Soviet Union refers to scientific fields which were banned in the Soviet Union, usually for ideological reasons. Science and humanities were placed under a strict ideological scrutiny in the Soviet Union. All research was to be founded on the philosophy of dialectical...
- LysenkoismLysenkoismLysenkoism, or Lysenko-Michurinism, also denotes the biological inheritance principle which Trofim Lysenko subscribed to and which derive from theories of the heritability of acquired characteristics, a body of biological inheritance theory which departs from Mendelism and that Lysenko named...
- Politicization of sciencePoliticization of scienceThe politicization of science is the manipulation of science for political gain. It occurs when government, business, or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated, reported or interpreted. The politicization of...