Pavlovsk session

Pavlovsk sessions were one of the links of Stalin’s policy in the field of science , which aimed at establishing ideological control over scientific research. Part of this policy was the persecution of individual scholars for their commitment to "bourgeois" and "idealistic" directions. Pavlovsk sessions continued the work of the August session of the All-Union Agricultural Academy of 1948 in the field of physiology. The objects of persecution were prominent physiologists who allegedly deviated from Pavlov’s teachings: Leon Orbeli , Anokhin, Speransky, Beritashvili, as well as Lina Solomonovna Stern, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, founder of the doctrine of the blood-brain barrier, arrested by this moment as a member of the anti-fascist Jewish committee ^[4] .

Orbeli was not present at the August session of the Supreme Agricultural Academy of 1948, but he reported to the academic council of the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Pathology of Higher Nervous Activity of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences about the results of this session, in particular, the charges against him. The Scientific Council approved the results of the session and decided to dismiss the institute staff who were responsible for conducting “studies of a formal genetic nature” and exclude from the institute’s plans work “related to the pseudoscientific course of Mendelism-organism”. The issue of fidelity to Pavlov’s doctrine was not discussed. In 1948, at the risk of everything, Orbeli refused to support Lysenko, and immediately after that attacks began on Orbeli and the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Pathology of Higher Nervous Activity of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR ^[10] . In June 1948, the activities of this institute were highly appreciated by the Academy of Medical Sciences ^[10] . But after the VASKHNIL session, which was marked by the victory of Lysenkoism, in September of the same year, the Academy of Medical Sciences sent a commission to the institute that submitted a memorandum, the contents of which are clear from its name: “On some Weismann-Morganist distortions and on the state of development of the teachings of IP Pavlov in Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Pathology of Higher Nervous Activity of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR ” ^[10] . As a measure to return Pavlovian teachings to the mainstream, the commission put forward a demand to actively study the inheritance of conditioned reflexes. Orbeli inadvertently objected to this demand at a general meeting of institutes of the Leningrad Association of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR held on October 16-17: “Imagine that all conditioned reflexes that are developed during our lives will be inherited - which brains will be required for generation to a generation to accumulate all conditioned reflexes and hereditarily pass them on ” ^[9] . For this performance in 1948 he was removed from the post of academician-secretary of the Biological Department of the Academy of Sciences and head of the physiological laboratory at the Lesgaft Institute .

September 28, 1949, on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the birth of I.P. Pavlov, Yuri Zhdanov informed Stalin of "serious ill-being" in the development of Pavlov’s doctrine. Guilty he called L. A. Orbeli, I. S. Beritashvili and the arrested L. S. Stern. Stalin commented on this message as follows: “In my opinion, Academician Orbeli did the greatest harm to the teachings of Academician Pavlov ... The sooner Orbeli is exposed and the more thoroughly his monopoly is eliminated, the better. Beritov and Stern are not so dangerous, since they oppose Pavlov openly and thus facilitate the reprisal of science with these artisans from science ... Now, there is something about the tactics of combating opponents of the theory of academician Pavlov. First you need to gather secretly the supporters of Academician Pavlov, organize them, distribute the roles, and only after that convene a meeting of physiologists ... where it will be necessary to give the opponents a general battle. Without this, you can fail. Remember: the enemy must be beaten with the expectation of complete success ” ^[11] .

At the Pavlovsk session of 1950, the opening speech was made by the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences S. I. Vavilov ^{[12] [1]} . Following him was the vice-president of the Academy of Medical Sciences I.P. Razenkov ^{[12] [1]} . Key reports were made by K. M. Bykov “Development of I. P. Pavlov's Ideas (Tasks and Prospects)” ^{[12] [1]} and A. G. Ivanov-Smolensky “Ways of Development of I. P. Pavlov's Ideas in the Region pathophysiology of higher nervous activity ” ^{[12] [1]} . The content of these reports mainly consisted of accusations of physiologists departing from the "general, only correct scientific line - Pavlovsk physiology" ^[12] .

At the 1951 Pavlovsk session, the leading author of the central ^[13] program report ^[14], “The State of Psychiatry and Its Tasks in the Light of IP Pavlov’s Teaching” ^[3], was a psychiatrist A. V. Snezhnevsky ^{[13] [14]} V. M. Banshchikov , O. V. Kerbikov and I. V. Strelchuk ^[3] .

Eyewitnesses recalled: “The five-day-long meeting mentioned was more like a court of the Inquisition. The main report sounded like an indictment against prominent psychiatrists - M. O. Gurevich , A. S. Shmaryan , R. Ya. Golant , V. A. Gilyarovsky , G. E. Sukhareva , L. N. Lobova, M. I "Sereisky , A. R. Luria , A. B. Alexandrovsky, L. L. Rokhlin , L. M. Rosenstein, V. P. Protopopov , etc." ^[3] . The accused repented, admitted their guilt, renounced years of hatched scientific ideas as heresy, promised to reform and profess only the teachings of I. P. Pavlov in the form presented by A. G. Ivanov-Smolensky ^[3] . However, in his concluding remarks, Snezhnevsky stated that they “were not disarmed and continue to remain in their old anti-Paul positions,” thereby causing “severe damage to Soviet scientific and practical psychiatry” ^[13] . Following Snezhnevsky, Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences N. N. Zhukov-Verezhnikov accused them of “relentlessly falling into the dirty source of American pseudoscience” ^[13] .

After the 1951 session, as noted by S. Bloch and P. Reddaway , the anti-Pavlovian psychiatrists were removed from important posts and either transferred to the province or retired ^[15] , and the wave that crushed the defeated brought to the top the medical hierarchy of A. V. Snezhnevsky ^[15] .

After the session, the director of the Institute of Physiology was Usievich, who, when reading one of the plans, said: "You are again with the sympathetic nervous system, drop these Orbelian things!" ^{[6] The} sympathetic nervous system and a number of other sections of physiology have ceased to be recognized across the country ^[6] .

At the Pavlovsk session, it was announced that all medicine, pedagogy and biology should be based on Pavlovian teaching ^[6] . Pavlov’s physiological theories of higher nervous activity and regulatory mechanisms were included in psychiatry and elevated to dogma ^[15] . The Pavlovian doctrine of the normal functioning of the nervous system as a result of the balance between inhibition and excitement was based on the increased use of pharmacological agents in Soviet psychiatry ^[15] , and the method of treating sleep was widespread, in which, as the physiologist I. A. Arshavsky recalled, “Fed the children with luminal and turned them into oligophrenics ... Barbiturates were given to children from the first weeks of life” ^[6] .

The psychological direction in psychiatry was also persecuted. He was charged with pseudoscience and propaganda of bourgeois-idealistic views on the nature of human behavior, recognizing the objective role of internal (subjective, individual) factors in determining his motives. Professor A. V. Snezhnevsky, who headed shortly after the 1951 session the Research Institute of General and Forensic Psychiatry. V.P. Serbsky , "the psychological direction in psychiatry ... was not interested." ^[16]

The President of the Independent Psychiatric Association, Yuri Savenko, notes that the Supreme Agricultural Academy’s session of 1948 and the Pavlovsk sessions of 1950 and 1951 “interrupted the development of genetics, physiology, psychology, psychiatry for several decades, caused huge economic damage, not to mention the fate - not only professional - of many the best people ” ^[4] . According to Yu. Savenko and L. Vinogradova, starting from the notorious Pavlovsk sessions, biological and, in particular, physiological reductionism in Russia acquired the character of an indirect form of antipsychiatry ^[17] .

• Scientific session devoted to the problems of the physiological teachings of Academician I.P. Pavlov (June 28 - July 4, 1950). Verbatim report. . - Moscow: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1950. - 141 p.
• "Physiological Doctrine of Academician I.P. Pavlov in Psychiatry and Neuropathology." Materials of the verbatim report of the joint meeting of the enlarged Presidium of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR and the plenary session of the Board of the All-Union Society of Neuro-Catalogs and Psychiatrists (October 11-15, 1951). Ed. B.M. Banshchikov, N.V. Konovalov, S.V. Kurashov et al. - Moscow: Medgiz, 1952.- 476 p.
• Schnol S.E. Chapter. Pavlovsk session. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov // Geniuses and villains of Russian science. - M .: Kron-Press, 1997 .-- 464 p.

• Lysenko
• Michurin Agrobiology
• Ideological control in Soviet science
• Doctors' Case