Psychology in Utopia: Toward a Social History of Soviet Psychology

What function can a science of psychology serve in a utopian society whose ideological foundations already contain a theory of human nature? This is the question that has dominated the history of Soviet psychology - a history that Alex Kozulin decodes in this book.

Following an introduction that discusses the problems of deciphering the real content of scientific work produced in an ideological context, the author reviews the work and the fate of the first four generations of Soviet psychologists: those who came of age before the Revolution, during the heady days of the 1920s, in the midst of the Stalin era, and the most recent, contemporary generation.

Six case studies provide a better understanding of the ideas and methods of Soviet psychology: the careers of Ivan Pavlov and Vladimir Bekhterev; the roots of non-Pavlovian psychophysiology in the work of Nikolai Bernstein; the ups and downs of the concept of the unconscious; the origins of Lev Vygotsky's epistemological theories; Pavel Blonsky and the development of Soviet educational psychology; and the effects of de-Stalinization in educational psychology and other areas.

Alex Kozulin studied medical psychology and psychophysiology at the Moscow Institute of Medicine where he received a medical degree; he received his doctorate at the Moscow Institute of Psychology. Kozulin emigrated in 1979 and has since worked as research associate at Boston University's Center for the Philosophy and History of Science and taught history of psychology at Ben-Gurion University in Israel.