Soviet Psychology

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Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology

Boris F. Lomov

To cite this article: Boris F. Lomov (1978) Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology, Soviet Psychology,
17:2, 68-82

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/RPO1061-0405170268

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Boris F. Lomov

SETY YEARS OF SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

This paper surveys the most important currents in

the development and strategic achievements of Soviet psy-
chology. The historical milestone in the development of
psychology on a Marxist basis was K. N. Kornilov's lec-
ture in 1923. Thereafter the principal theoretical and
methodological principles of Soviet psychology gradually
emerged. These now include a systems approach. A gen-
e r a l outline is given of the results of the efforts of psy-
chologists and their contributions to social practice from
the point of view of particular psychological disciplines.
The results of the institutionalization of psychology in the
USSR (the creation of departments of psychology in 1966,
the establishment of the Institute of Psychology under the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR, etc.) are indicated.

Man occupies center stage in modern scientific knowledge

and inquiry. The further science progresses in the comprehen-
sion of nature and society, the greater is its need for objective
data on man's potential and properties, and on the laws of his
development.
Man is a subject of investigation in many sciences, from dif-

Russian text 1977 by VEDA, Publishing House of the Slovak

Academy of Sciences.
Studia psychologica, 1977, no. 4, pp. 266-73.

68
Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology 69

ferent aspects, in different relationships and various contexts.

For example, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and even
the technological sciences all study man. Man is studied as a
product of biological evolution (as a species); a s a subject of
social relationships (as a personality and the principal produc-
tive force of society); a s the creator of social wealth and the
kingpin in man-machine systems; as a subject to be educated;
and so forth.
In studies of the complex system of properties and character-
istics of man, those dubbed psychological occupy a position of
prime importance. The problems of sensation and perception,
memory and thinking, attention and will, emotions and motiva-
tions of behavior, temperament and character, aptitudes and
needs, etc., constitute major issues in the general question of
what is man. A s the system of scientific knowledge about man
evolves, the need to subject these questions to concrete scien-
tific examination arises.
Thus, the logic of scientific development has pushed psycholo-
gy into the vanguard. But the question is not just a matter of the
logic of development of science; we could even say that it is not
s o much this a s i t is the fact that modern psychology s t a r t s out
by plunging directly into a wide range of questions of practical
social importance such a s increasing the productivity of labor,
creating new technology, improvement in the efficiency of mana-
gerial processes, processes of educating and instructing the
upcoming generations, the perfection of the social relationships
characteristic of socialism, and the formation of the new man.
Psychology has a cardinal role to play in the building of com-
munism.
What have been the results of the development of psychology
in the Soviet Union during the 60 years that have passed since
the Great October Socialist Revolution ?
As we know, before the revolution, official psychology w a s
steeped in idealistic philosophy and was used along with religion
to shape the consciousness of people in the interests of the rul-
ing classes as a means of reinforcing the class stratification of
society, the privileges of the intellectual elite, and of combating
70 Boris F. Lomov

the revolutionary movement. Materialist (Le., genuinely scien-

tific) currents in psychology were invariably suppressed and
persecuted in tsarist Russia.
The Great October Revolution created a bulwark for scientific
thought, shattered the shackles of idealism and religion that had
bound science, and opened up broad horizons for the develop-
ment of psychology a s a science. One of the first acts of the
Soviet Government to further the development of a materialist
approach to the study of the mind was the resolution to create
the State Institute for the Study of the Brain in 1918. This in-
stitute was directed by V. M. Bekhterev, an outstanding scien-
tist of the time and a man of deep social involvement. By a
decree of the Soviet of People's Commissars signed by Lenin,
Pavlov's Laboratory of Higher Nervous Activity was established
in 1921. In the first years of Soviet power, a number of new
psychological establishments were created to deal with practical
questions of psychology, concerned mainly with the tasks of
school and production. In the 1920s psychologists were actively
working on problems concerned with the rationalization of la-
bor, the education and instruction of the upcoming generation,
and the maintenance of the health of the population.
The revolutionary transformations that took place during
those years in our country in all areas of social life posed new
problems for psychology, and to deal with these problems it was
necessary to make a serious critical inquiry into the philosoph-
ical foundations, the methodology, and the general theory of
psychology.
During the 1920s there was a severe ideological struggle
about the fundamental problems of psychology. The battle was
one of materialism versus idealism with regard to the nature
of mental phenomena. In 1920 the great psychologist P. P.
Blonsky published his book Reforms of science, in which he
came out decisively against the idealist interpretation of the
mind and instead proposed a materialist approach. In 1921 the
book Theory of human reactions, by Kornilov, another great
psychologist, appeared. In 1923, at the first All-Russian Con-
gress on Psychoneurology, K. N. Kornilov presented a paper,
Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology 71

"Psychology and Marxism," in which he showed that psychology

could become a real science only if it were based firmly on
materialist foundations.
It is also important to mention that Soviet psychology, even as
early a s the 1920s, recognized the primacy of historical mate-
rialism for the study of the specific characteristics of the human
mind. Blonsky and Kornilov noted that the psychology of the
personality, i.e., individual psychology, should be studied in the
context of the development of society; indeed, individual psychol-
ogy can be understood only against a background of class psy-
chology, which is, in turn, determined by economic and socio-
political factors.
Blonsky and Kornilov came out emphatically against idealism
and dualism in psychology and instead presented a position of
materialist monism. Drawing on the works of Marx, Engels,
and Lenin, they conceived of the mind a s a unique property of
highly organized matter that should be studied with the aid of
objective methods. They, along with a number of other scien-
tists pursuing this line of thought, took as their point of depar-
ture and further developed the ideas of the founder of Soviet
psychology, I. M. Sechenov.
The works of the Soviet and Russian scientists I. P. Pavlov,
V. M. Bekhterev, A. A. Ukhtomskii, K. A. Timiryazev, and A.
N. Severtsev all played an important role in the struggle against
idealist psychology by discovering the material foundations of
mental phenomena and showing that the mind is a lawful product
of biological evolution.
The 1920s, however, were only the beginning of the struggle
to give psychology a firm foundation in Marxist-Leninist
theory. Years would be necessary to develop a unified philo-
sophical methodology and general theoretical foundation for
Soviet psychology; and during these years, a vast amount of
empirical data would be accumulated and analyzed in detail, and
the concepts propounded by foreign psychology would be sub-
jected to critical scrutiny. In the course of building up a Marxist
psychology there have, of course, also been deviations from the
set path: for example, there were attempts to combine Marxism
72 Boris F. Lomov

with Freudianism o r behaviorism, views imbued with mechani-

cal materialism were developed, etc. On these occasions, sharp
debates would flare up, demonstrating the real difficulties in-
volved in developing psychology, yet also helping to work out
guidelines for that development.
We should point out that in the West there a r e often attempts
to represent the reconstruction of psychology in the USSR as
determined not by the needs of its development, but by the con-
straints Marxist philosophy places thereon. But this just does
not fit the facts. The necessity for coming to terms with the
materialist dialectic stems from the very logic of development
of psychology as a science, The phenomena it studies a r e
among the most complex to be found, and they cannot be under-
stood without a solid mastery of the foundations of dialectical
and historical materialism. It is no accident, therefore, that
the most progressive psychologists in the capitalist countries
a r e now turning more and more frequently to Marxist philo-
sophy and a r e coming to some of the same conclusions that
have already been formulated in Soviet psychology.
One of the greatest theoretical victories of Soviet psychology
is its treatment, in accordance with Lenin's theory of reflec-
tion, of mental phenomena a s diverse forms of subjective re-
flection of objective reality.* This view clearly circumscribes
the place of mental phenomena within the overall system of
phenomena of the objective world and pinpoints their nature and
their actual function in the real world. The most fully developed
concept of mental processes a s processes of subjective reflec-
tion of objective reality has been developed in specific studies
of perception, sensation, memory, and thought (B. G. Anan'ev,
L. M. Ponomarev, K. K. Platonov, S. L. Rubinshtein, A. A.
Smirnov, E. N. Sokolov, B. M. Teplov, and many others). The
empirical data accumulated in the study of cognitive processes
have made it possible to delineate many of the most essential
characteristics of these processes, important for an underr

* An analysis of mental phenomena in the context of the

theory of reflection has always aroused lively interest.
Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology 73

standing of the general laws of reflection of objective reality

in the mind,
One of the most important achievements of Soviet psychology
is that it studies mental phenomena in the context of man's ac-
tivity in the real world. The theoretical and experimental works
of B. G. Anan'ev, M. Ya. Basov, L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leont'ev,
A. R. Luria, S. L. Ftubinshtein, A. A. Smirnov, B. M. Teplov,
and others have provided the foundations for developing speci-
fic scientific principles of the psychological analysis of human
activity. S. L. Ftubinshtein formulated the principle of the unity
of consciousness and activity, according to which consciousness
is formed, developed, and manifested in activity. A. N. Leon'tev
has demonstrated the inseparability of the categories of activi-
ty, consciousness, and personality.
The importance of this approach becomes especially clear
when w e compare it with the paradigm of behaviorism that has
been developed in the West. The most extreme forms of be-
haviorism assert that all human behavior may be described by
a stimulus-response paradigm. Man is represented a s a pas-
sive being responding to external stimuli. This'view denies the
reality of mental phenomena. It also abolishes the qualitative
distinction between man and animals.
Taking its cue from the Marxist theory of human activity, So-
viet psychology has uncovered what is qualitatively specific to the
human mind. In contrast to animals, whose behavior is essen-
tially adaptive (the mind subserving this form of adaptive be-
havior), man actively transforms his environment and changes
it according to conscious goals. This is what is meant by the
active nature of mental reflection and i t s mediation through
social structures.
The next important achievement of Soviet psychology has been
its systematic application of the principle of development. To
understand any mental phenomenon one must view it in a pro-
cess of development; indeed, that is the only way it can be
understood. Development here, of course, is not seen as some
monotonous process of mere quantitative changes, but as a pro-
cess in the course of which contradictions emerge and a r e re-
74 Boris F. Lomov

solved and qualitative transformation takes place in the system

of mental phenomena.
Finally, Soviet psychology, in accordance with consistent ap-
plication of the positions of materialist monism, has had its
greatest achievements in the study of the neurophysiological
foundations of mental phenomena. In his book Who the Friends
of the People Are and How They Wage War Against the Socialist
Democrats, written in 1894, Lenin wrote:

The metaphysical psychologists discussed the question

What is the soul?, but their approach was wrong. One
can't talk about the soul o r the mind without explaining,
in particular, mental processes. , , .Scientific psycholo-
gists discarded the philosophical theories of the soul
and turned directly to the study of the material substrate
of mental phenomena, neural processes. (Vol. 1, Part 1,
pp. 141-42.)

Lenin's view determined the direction of the development of

research in psychophysiological problems.
We should also point out that the link between physiology and
psychology has been traditional for Russian science in the study
of mental phenomena. Sechenov was one of the founders of both
fields of knowledge in Russia. Pavlov regarded his theory of
higher nervous activity as the path to a rigorously scientific
explanation of mental phenomena. Ukhtomskii, Orbeli, Anokhin,
Beritashvili, and others all belong to this tradition. Neuro-
physiological mechanisms have also been studied in psychologi-
cal research (S. V. Kravkov, S. L. Rubinshtein, B. G. Anan'ev,
B. M. Teplov, A. R. Luria, and others).
Differential psychophysiology has emerged at the borderline
between psychology and physiology in Soviet science (B. M.
Teplov, V. D. Nebylitsin, V. S. Merlin, B. G. Anan'ev). This
area deals with the neurophysiological foundations of psycho-
logical differences among individuals. It is quite important for
the further development of psychological theory and f o r dealing
with practical problems occurring in work with people.
Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology 75

A major current that has emerged in research on psycho-

physiological problems is analysis of the systemic structure
of neurophysiological processes under lying mental phenomena.
Mental phenomena are regarded as linked to neurophysiological
phenomena a s part of a single system (V. P. Kuz'min). This is
a very promising current in developing an understanding of the
material substrate of the mind.
The extremely brief description given above of the major
theoretical achievements of Soviet psychology shows that as-
similation of the materialist dialectic has been very fruitful for
psychology. The philosophical, m ethodo logica 1, and general
theoretical premises developed on its basis have opened broad
horizons for further progress toward a scientific understanding
of extremely complex phenomena such as mental functions, pro-
cesses, states, and properties in man.
It would be wrong, however, to represent the predominant de-
velopment of psychology a s something concerned exclusively
with theoretical problems. At the outset w e noted that psycholo-
gy also is directly involved in problems arising from social
practice. In the very first years of Soviet power, Soviet psy-
chology took up many questions pertaining to human activity in
the r e a l world : in industry, in transportation, in our education
system, and in the public-health system.
We should also point out that psychology has evolved under
the conditions of the construction and development of socialist
society: a society of real democracy, real individuals, genuine
humanism, and social optimism. The tremendous changes that
have taken place in our country over the past 60 years have also
found their reflection in the main object of psychological re-
search, i.e., in man. The new system of social relationships
and social equality has also created conditions for the forma-
tion of new social-psychological traits in man. For example,
psychology has had an opportunity to study the very process of
development of the new man under conditions of real socio-
historical transformations. In the process it has acted not as a
m e r e passive observer, but as a discipline actively engaged in
social life. Its development is inseparably linked to the prac-
76 Boris F. Lomov

tical activities involved in building a developed socialist society.

The greatest achievements of Soviet psychology have been in
the education and upbringing of the new generation. There is
hardly any need to point out that the efficiency of pedagogy de-
pends, to a considerable extent, on the degree to which it rests
on an understanding of the laws of the mental development of
the child. Much effort has been devoted to child and educational
psychology in the USSR.
In the 1920s and 1930s considerable research was concen-
trated on the laws and factors of mental development of chil-
dren, on the search for methods to measure and assess this de-
velopment, and on the influence of teaching techniques on moti-
vation to learn (Blonsky, Vygotsky, G. S. Kostyuk, A. V. Zapo-
rozhets, P. Ya. Gal'perin, D. B. El'konin, Anan'ev, and others).
Learning to read and write has been studied in children (N. A.
Rybankov, D. N. Bogoyavlenskii, A. V. Vedenov, L. M. Shvarts,
T. G. Gur'yanov, and others).
Later, a good deal of research was conducted on how children
learn the fundamentals of various school subjects (N. A.
Menchinskaya, V. I. Zykova, E. N. Kabanova-Meller, S. F.
Zhuikov, A. Z. Red'ko, V. A. Artemov, and others). The find-
ings of these studies have had considerable influence on the de-
velopment of teaching techniques and aids. An important event
in the development of child and educational psychology was the
establishment of the Academy of Educational Sciences of the
RSFSR, later t o become the Academy of Educational Sciences
of the USSR.
In the 1950s and '60s educational psychology devoted consid-
erable effort to the study of how schoolchildren developed in-
tellectual operations and working methods in dealing with their
schoolwork (Smirnov, L. S. Slavina, Gal'perin, El'konin, V. V.
Davydov, and others). This research studied not only pro-
cesses by which children acquire specific knowledge in par-
ticular subjects but also the general laws of intellectual
development.
We should point out that the institutes of the Academy of
Educational Sciences have done, and continue to do, research
Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology 77

not only on questions concerning child and educational psycholo-

gy but in other areas of psychology as well.
For example, attention is being devoted to questions concern-
ing the development of personality in schoolchildren, their in-
terests, aptitudes, creative potential, and individual differences
(V. N. Myasishchev, L. I. Bozhovich, V. A. Krutetskii, N. S.
Leites, T. V. Kudryavtsev, and others).
Jn the past 10 to 15 years, developmental psychology has
grown in importance; and psychologists have begun to study not
only the psychology of children, adolescents, and young people
but also older people. Child psychology is gradually developing
into a true developmental psychology embracing all periods of
human life (B. G. Anan'ev, etc.). Educational psychology has
also gone beyond the limits of secondary school, and is now
turning to questions concerning adult education.
The views and positions of developmental and educational psy-
chology in the Soviet Union have taken shape within the context
of a struggle with mechanical concepts that a r e widespread a-
broad. It has come out against every kind of "biologizing" ten-
dency that claims that certain groups of people (classes, races,
nationalities ) have certain genetically determined limitations
with regard to their potential for intellectual development.
Another line being pursued in applied research is concerned
with study of the psychological aspects of human labor. Work
in this area also began soon after the October Revolution.
Numerous empirical and practical studies were carried out,
and their findings served as the basis for concrete recommen-
dations for organizing labor processes in a rational manner
from a psychological point of view; in addition, the most effi-
cient methods of vocational training and of selecting vocations
have been determined ( I. N. Shpil'rein, G. S. Gellershtein, K.
K. Platonov, V. V. Chebysheva, and others).
The late '50s and early '60s saw the emergence of engineer-
ing psychology in the USSR; this discipline studies the problems
of informational interaction between man and machine in con-
t r o l systems. The creation of this a r e a of Soviet psychology
was occasioned by the scientific and technological revolution,
78 Boris F. Lomov

which has resulted in substantial changes in production and, in

the final analysis, in the activity of people in charge of control-
ling and managing modern technology as well. The very impor-
tant practical problem of coordinating technology and human be-
ings arose. This problem constitutes the subject matter of en-
gineering psychology (B. F. Lomov, V. P. Zinchenko, A. A.
Krylov, V. F. Rubakhin, V. A. Ponomarenko, and others).
Manned space flights have posed a new series of problems in
psychology. The creation of spaceships and the selection and
training of astronauts a r e accompanied by questions that re-
quire study of how the specific conditions of spaceflight affect
a man's mental activity (excessive s t r e s s , weightlessness, etc. )
and of how one should take into account the influence of condi-
tions in space in order to ensure successful spaceflight. Re-
search in this area now constitutes an independent discipline
called space psychology (F. D. Gorbov, G. T. Bergovoi, E. V.
Khrunov, V. A. Popov, and others).
After the 24th Congress of the CPSU declared that the im-
provement of systems of economic management and control was
one of the most important problems of our time, research into
the psychological aspects of management was begun (V. F.
Rubakhin, A. I. Kitov, A. V. Filipov, and others). Organizational
psychology (or the psychology of management) now constitutes a
special area of research. Its importance is due principally to
the fact that the most important component of management is
the leadership of people; and this, in turn, requires study of the
psychological mechanisms of human behavior and of those spe-
cific psychological phenomena that occur when people work to-
gether (for example, the psychological atmosphere).
Organizational psychology also covers those aspects of the
organization of management systems and the leadership of peo-
ple and working collectives that a r e properly a part of engineer-
ing psychology, social psychology, and educational psychology,
In the 1960s social psychology also began to develop in the
USSR. This discipline studies a wide range of problems con-
cerning the patterns of development of working collectives, in-
terpersonal relationships, social attitudes, the psychological
Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology 79

mechanisms of social control and behavior, and related subjects.

The first laboratory for social psychology was created at Lenin-
grad University under the direction of E. S. Kuz'min. Later,
other laboratories and departments were set up at Moscow Uni-
versity (director, G. M. Andreeva), at the USSR Academy of
Pedagogical Sciences (director, A. V. Petrovitskii), at the h s t i -
tute of Psychology at the USSR Academy of Sciences (director,
E. V. Shorokhova), and in a number of other institutions, Social
psychological studies carried out in industrial associations, in
transportation, in school, in the mass media, and elsewhere all
serve the worthy purpose of inculcating a sense of collectivism,
the communist attitude toward work, and principles of genuine
humanism and social optimism in the Soviet people.
Major achievements have also been made in Soviet medical
psychology, which studies the psychological factors attendant on
the occurrence, the course, and the treatment of various dis-
eases (including mental illnesses). The results of these studies
are very important for improving the public-health system. The
approaches, principles, and methods of investigation developed
in medical psychology and related disciplines such as neuropsy-
chology and psychopathology are of major importance for medi-
cal practice (A. R. Luria, B. V. Zeigarnik, B. N. Myasishchev,
B. D. Karvasarskii, E. D. Khomskaya, L. D. Tsvetkova, I. M.
Tonkonogii, and others).
The currents we have described above give an idea of only
some of the practical problems being dealt with by modern psy-
chology. On the whole it must be said that perhaps there is not
one area of work with people, o r one a r e a of practical human
activity, that is not in some way touched upon by psychological
research.
The prospects for the further development of psychological
science a r e intimately bound up with the social practice of so-
cialism and with the problems that occur in the process of
building communism.
In his report to the 24th Congress of the CPSU, in his speech
at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the USSR Academy
of Sciences, and in a number of other public statements, L. I.
80 Boris F. Lomov

Brezhnev has stressed that science can develop only in close

connection with practice. "The introduction of new scientific
ideas into practice is today just as important a problem as de-
veloping those ideas," he said at the 24th Congress of the CPSU
(Proceedings of the 24th Congress of the CPSU. P. 48).
The results of practical implementation of the achievements
of psychology can, and do, produce a considerable economic ef-
fect. For example, as a result of applying the recommendations
of engineering psychology in working out a draft plan for the op-
erators' station in ammonium production at the Shchekinskii
Chemical Factory, about 50,000 rubles a year were saved. The
introduction of psychological recommendations for the partial
rationalization of dispatcher stations in a Ural factory saved
about 150,000 rubles a year. F'inally, applying the findings of
psychological research in working out a work regimen for long-
range fishing boats saves about 5 million rubles. Other, simi-
lar examples can be cited, but this is not the point. The point
is that application of the findings of psychological research in
the organization of labor helps improve labor productivity, and
it is in this that the real saving lies. But economizing is also
important. Utilization of the achievements of psychology in the
economy helps to preserve the work capacity, the fitness and
the health of the people, to develop their capacities and creative
potential, and to inculcate a communist attitude toward work.
Coping effectively with practical questions is, to a consider-
able extent, contingent on solving the theoretical problems of
science. As Brezhnev said in his speech to the 24th Congress
of the CPSU:

At the present stage of our country's development, the

need f o r further creative development of theory is by no
means diminishing but, on the contrary, is becoming
even greater. New possibilities for fruitful research
of a general theoretical, fundamental, and applied na-
ture are opening up on the borderlines between dif-
ferent sciences, in particular the natural sciences and
the social sciences. These opportunities should not
Sixty Years of Soviet Psychology 81

be lost (Proceedings of the 24th Congress of the

CPSU. P. 72).

Psychology is both a social science and a natural science.

This, of course, makes for certain difficulties in the develop-
ment of psychology; but at the same time, it offers considerable
opportunities for creative research,
In recent years the status of psychology in the Soviet Union
has improved considerably, thanks to the efforts of the CPSU
and the Government of the USSR. In 1966 divisions and depart-
ments of psychology were created in a number of universities,
and in them qualified specialists are now being trained in vari-
ous areas of psychology. The network of scientific research
laboratories dealing with problems of psychology has been
expanded.
In 1971 the Academy of Sciences set up an Institute of Psy-
chology, intended to perform the functions of the chief institute
for the development of psychology. The institute w i l l be devel-
oped as a complex scientific research establishment, combining
social, general, and engineering psychology, the psychology of
labor, psy chophysics, psyc hophysiology , and neuropsy chology .
A systems theory of psychology, dealing with mental phenom-
ena from a number of interrelated perspectives, is being de-
veloped at the institute.
At the beginning of this article I pointed out the important
role played by the reorganization of psychology on a Marxist-
Leninist basis. But the methodological foundations of psycholo-
gy are still in the process of formation. The new conditions for
the development of psychology, especially the differentiation of
psychology a s a specific a r e a of knowledge, and the reinforce-
ment of connections with practice require further development
of methodology and the general theory of psychology. Many
general theoretical problems have become especially acute un-
der current conditions in light of the fact that in Western coun-
t r i e s psychology is often used directly to serve the purposes of
ideological and political struggle. For instance, in recent
years Jensenism (named after i t s founder, the American,
82 Boris F. Lomov

Jensen) has enjoyed some popularity in the West; this doctrine

asserts that intellectual development is restricted by a genetic
program. The champions of this view attempt to use psychology
to provide a foundation and a justification for racial discrimina-
tion and the struggle against national liberation movements.
The question of the sources of human behavior and how
it may be controlled is not a purely academic matter: it bears
directly on ideology and ideological struggle. If, as the be-
haviorists maintain, human behavior is a question of stimulus
and response, this means that those who have control of the stim-
uli have the power to manipulate the behavior of other people. If,
as the Freudians maintain, man from his very beginnings is in a
hostile relationship to society, then class divisions and social
conflicts a r e inevitable. And if, as the "biologizers" in psychol-
ogy maintain, the physical, intellectual, and moral development
of man is only the realization of certain genetic programs, this
means that man cannot be changed whatever the social transfor-
mations that take place in the world at large.
Soviet psychology resolutely rejects all views that subserve
the exploitation of man by man, justify racial and national dis-
crimination, and proclaim pessimistic predictions with regard
to the development of man and mankind.
The goals of Soviet psychology are defined by the principles
of a genuine humanism and social optimism, internationalism,
real individual freedom, and democracy - i.e., the principles
that guided the Great October Socialist Revolution and that have
become a living reality in the developed socialist society con-
structed by the Soviet people under the leadership of the Com-
mun ist Party.