University Psychologists Foresaw Soviet Bourgeois Psychiatry Purge

The new drive against the influences of "bourgeols psychiatry" in Soviet scientific circles, reported in dispatches from Moscow this week, was foreshadowed last summer in a report by two psychologists at the University's Russian Research Center. The new drive favored the theories of Ivan Pavlov.

Raymond A. Bauer delivered a report on "Contemporary Psychology in the Soviet Union" to the 59th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Chicago, and Ivan D. London published a paper on the same subject in the August 31 issue of "Science."

According to the current neo-Pavlovian theories, Bauer says, "the 'New Soviet Man' controls his traits and his behaviour. Anything that goes wrong is caused by his failure to adjust to Stalinism, and is not Stalinism's fault." Bauer's book on Soviet psychology. "The New Soviet Man," will be published this spring by the Harvard University Press.

"The present glorification of Pavlov," London states, "has reached incredible proportions..." He praises Pavlov as an "astounding experimentalist" and "the creator of a new methodology" for his work in studying the conditioned reflex, but says his more advanced theories excite only historical interest."