TROUBLED AND STIFLED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-01416R000100020104-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 4, 1998
• Sequence Number: 104
• Publication Date: May 28, 1952
• Content Type: NSPR

i
Approved For Release 1999/09/07: C0FKB1 tT01416R00
Troubled and Stifled
THE NEW MAN IN SOVIET PSY-
CHOLOGY. By Raymond A. Bauer.
229 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: Har-
vard University Press. $4.
By GREGORY ZILBOORG
a ou e
nowadays expected to be a
passionate denunciation of, or a
just as passionate apology for,
that which is the Soviet Union,
for or of the Soviet Union. Ray-
mond A. Bauer seems to be free
of animus or adoration. What
is more, he seems to have gained
this freedom without having to
control forcibly his animosity or
I Tbly his admiration.
He is free because he seems to
be a quiet student who sat down
and read long and carefully into
the Soviet ideological and psy-
chological literature, and then
set down his conclusions just as
quietly and simply. All this
makes the book almost devoid
of inaccuracies, and free of that
silly juxtaposition of what we
do and think in a democracy as
compared with what people do
and. think under an authori-
tarian regime,
I read this book carefully, and
I was unable to find such catch-
words as "totalitarian," "dicta-
torship," "autocracy," written
and pronounced with that self-
righteous venom which is so in
vogue today. The picture of
groping and troubled scientific
minds who are stifled without
being aware of it is grim enough
by itself, and it speaks for it-
self. Mr. Bauer has done full
justice to this picture, and the
reader will learn a great deal,
about Soviet mentality, in gen-
eral and the vicissitudes of
Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism in
various dresses styled by Trot-
sky, cut and dried by Bukharin,
dry-cleaned and brushed by
Lenin, and finally fashioned by
Stalin.
IT is striking and a, little nau-
seating to read quotations. from
the great Czarist psychiatrist
Bechterev, as. he tries to fit his
old reflexology into Hegelian
dialectics in order to float with
the Marxian stream. It is most
im resting to follow the evolu-
1 sychiatrist and author, Dr.
Zili oorg wrote "A History of
Medical Psychology" and "Mind,
Medicine and Man."
Lion of Soviet psychological ori-
entations, from mechanistic ma-
terialism denying the very
existence of consciousness as a
factor in human behavior to the
of consciousness as one of the
supreme factors of human be-
havior - all, of course, in the
name of both Marx and materi-
alism.
This psycho - philosophical
tightrope walking has produced
a number of baffling effects,
from an almost quietistic con-
ception of man as a passive tool
of history and culture, an al-
most hopeless victim, of a sort
of Calvinistic-Marxian predesti-
nation, to a picture of an al-
most voluntaristic, self-con-
scious individual who is respon-
sible for his behavior.
The cornerstone of the whole
psychology of the Soviet Union
today seems to be a fantasy of
a purposive, individual will re-
lentlessly striving toward social
salvation by voluntarily submit-
ting to the will of the socialized
ideal _of a classless life of noble
toil. This is the New Man and
the New Psychology. Neither
seems to be too new, really.
HOW non-isolated the alleged-
ly isolated Soviet psychology is
comes out clearly in Mr. Bauer's
judicious exposition. The Soviets
began with American behavior-
ism and went through a mo-
mentary return to Wundt. They
are now ending up strange bed-
fellows of a number of "bour-
geois". psychologists who accept
consciousness as a "higher or-
ganization of matter," reject the
unconscious emotional sources
of human behavior, and at once
burden the individual with the
responsibility for his behavior
and stifle him within the con-
fines of his culture, of which he
is at the same time the creator
and the victim.
Because this is a good book,
one wishes that errors in the
psychological, neologistic jargon
had not been overlooked by the
editors. One might wish further
to see a somewhat more com-
plete synthesis of the Soviet
literature. But then a review-
er's wishes are never those of
the author's-and Mr. Baul r is
to be commended on a di ect,
intelligent and measured v ork.