ABSTRACT

In this chapter Vygostky is an active participant in the revolutionary transformations of Russian society in his capacity as the representative of the central Bolshevik Government of the Russian Republic. Vygotsky now works in the field of education and social work with mentally, physically, and socially handicapped children and, particularly, the homeless. The disciplinary counterpart to this social practice is known as “defectology”. Beyond that, he is a junior employee at the Institute of Psychology in Moscow, whose academic staff is in the process of developing the new, “Marxist psychology” under the banner of “reactology”. During this period (1924–1929) Vygotsky the “prophet” and the “Bolshevik” forges his new persona of “psychologist”. He writes extensively on “stimuli” and “reactions”, about his utopian dream of transforming the current Homo sapiens into the “new species” of the Supermen, and he develops his “instrumental psychology” that presumably would provide the tools for the normative and massive creation of the Supermen of the Communist future.