ABSTRACT
The unique chaos and disruption in which the Revolution of 1917 took place meant that it was impossible to devote much thought or attention to reconstruction on the ‘philosophical front’ (Lenin). Until about 1921 ‘idealism’ as a self-conscious and declared intellectual trend persisted in universities. Following a protracted discussion devoted to the anti-scientific nature of this philosophical tendency, idealism (which was, of course, closely associated with religious thought) was discredited in 1923–4 by Blonski and Kornilov. Institutional support was withdrawn; many intellectuals were forced to emigrate, others were forced into retirement.
Four alternative theories were presented in the period 1924–9 for consideration, and possibly official recognition, as Marxist psychology. These were: (i) Kornilov’s ‘reactology’ which was class-conscious, interested in human reactions, especially in work. Theoretically it was considered to have borrowed too heavily from Feuerbach, Plekhanov, and Bukharin and other thinkers outside the mainstream of Bolshevik thought. It was condemned as dualistic, being a form of psychophysical parallelism. As a system, it was criticized for the failure to recognize the transformative influence of changing conditions on human characteristics; (ii) Bekhterev’s ‘reflexology’ was a cosmic system which attempted to derive psychological and social laws from general considerations about energy. In turn, this system was condemned as ‘mechanical materialism, degenerating into idealism’. Lenin had previously condemned a very similar theory, Ostwald’s ‘energetics’, in 1909 in similar terms; (iii) Pavlov’s ‘conditional reflex’ system was regarded as inadequate as a basis for Marxist psychology because of its ‘canine’ basis – Pavlov’s work with humans not being very well known as he published preliminary results only in 1939. Pavlovianism was known only to psychologists in its distorted American behaviourist form. This was considered to be too crude and erroneous as a basis for a scientific psychology; (iv) Vygotski’s ‘cultural-historical’ views were discredited on the grounds that he borrowed too heavily from Western psychology: he was also heavily involved with ‘pedology’ which was already under attack.
