ABSTRACT
The discussion of the proper foundation essential for a science of psychology was exacerbated during this period. The Communist Party waged a general offensive against all ‘capitalist elements’ remaining after the Revolution. Battle was joined on the ‘intellectual front’. In psychology this took the form of the disapproval of a group of anti-Marxist conceptions, regarded as survivals of ‘idealistic’ ways of thinking. ‘Criticism and self-criticism’ were enjoined on Party and non-Party intellectuals. The directives proposed for this stage of the discussion were to liquidate idealistic trends still surviving and to exploit the ‘philosophical heritage’ of Lenin.
This involved the categorization of six basic types of error which could be taken as defining, negatively, a Marxist psychology. These ‘errors’ are discussed.
In this period foreign as well as Russian psychology was subject to considerable criticism and official condemnation. Industrial psychology (‘psychotechnic’) was liquidated in 1931; intelligence testing (‘pedology’) which was being used in wholesale fashion in schools for the purpose of ‘streaming’ and ‘screening’ children was severely criticized on theoretical and practical grounds. By a decree of the Central Committee, mental testing was abolished in the school system in 1936.
