ABSTRACT
Russian psychologists of the present generation deny that the science of psychology was founded by Wundt and other European scientists. The radical intelligentsia, especially Belinsky and Chernishevski, were the pioneers of a materialistic monism, the only possible foundation for a science of man. These views were developed by progressive Russian scientists working within the limitations of Tsarism.
The monistic theory was the basis of a programme of physiological research, elaborated by Sechenov (1863). This laid the natural-scientific foundation for Soviet psychology. As far as Wundt is concerned, his priority in setting up a psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig (1879) is not denied. But similar developments, on a firmer basis, can be recognized in Tsarist Russia – for example, Bekhterev’s laboratory at Kazan (1884). This monistic trend was, however, most firmly established in the work and concepts of behaviour developed by Pavlov. This constitutes the natural-scientific basis of the science of behaviour, regarded as higher nervous activity.
Marxism is the other great foundation stone without which a positive science is unthinkable for Soviet intellectuals. Lenin’s development of the views of Marx and Engels, together with the Russian physiological school (Sechenov-Pavlov) made an objective science of the human psyche possible.
