A case study: the life and ideas of Mikhail Yaroshevskii (1915—2001)

Yet, “one does not waste a sacred space”, as an old Russian proverb goes. The transformation was swift and seemingly miraculous. The place of Marxism in Russian psychological thinking was pretty fast taken by another general and overpowering idea: the predominance of the uniquely Russian “special way” in world psychology'. This transformation can be best illustrated, perhaps, with a glimpse on one of the gurus and, according to one of the recent publications (Sirotkina & Smith. 2012), the “reform-minded” leader of the historiography of Russian and Soviet psychology, Mikhail Yaroshevskii (1915—2001). Thus, in one of his major publications, a textbook on history of psychology' that was published in 1985, Yaroshevskii clearly and authoritatively stated:

Without any exaggeration one can claim that its renaissance in the USSR in 1920s psychology' owes to Marxism since, as it has been noted, this was the time of the dominance of reflexological theories that denied the very' possibility of objective and deterministic investigation of the consciousness (i.e. the internal world of the human subject) and, therefore, the possibility of the genuine science about the humans. . . . The achievements of the Soviet psychology of 1920s and 1930s determined its development in the subsequent period. Having mastered the richness of the ideas of Marxist-Leninist teaching about the psyche and the consciousness and having harmoniously merged [Marxist-Leninist] methodological orientation with the practice of the formation of the personality of socialist society, Soviet psychological science succeeded in participating in solving actual tasks of the Communist construction [of personality and society],

(Yaroshevskii, 1985)

Yet, only a decade later (a decade that included the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the downfall of its Communist Party), another text by the same author came out. The change in the tonality is radical and startling. Here is a characteristic example of new discourse:

American psychologists borrowed the ideas of Russian researchers of behavior. But their paths considerably differed. To transform humankind as a whole being so that its biological set up (“tvarnaia organizatsiia", in Russian original) would be driven by the highest spiritual values — that was the Russian over-precious idea (“russkaia sverkhtsennaia ideia”). A great historical task, it guided the minds of the naturalists to the service of the people, who were fighting against their slavery. This idea stirred these minds, in the country that was regarded as delayed and wild, to the creation of the innovative programs that would integrate the revolutionary events in biology'. A holistic perspective on a human being, that was the over-task (“sverkhzadacha”) of Russian thought. The contradistinction between the sciences of the organism and the sciences of consciousness undermined the attempt to tackle this task. That was a dead-end. The exit was in the establishment of the science of behavior. . . . Russian thought that discovered the problem of behavior and created the categorical scheme of its development did not substitute either physiology or psychology' with this problem. Russian thought was in search for the ways of integration of its discoveries with the historically developed categories that defined the object of research in these disciplines. Different was (under the influence of the philosophy' of positivism) the strategy' of the researchers of behavior in the United States. In this country, the reduction of behavior to the relation “stimulus — reaction” has led to the conception that this relation - as the core and the only' equivalent of a strictly scientific psychology' — must be devoid of both mentalist (i.e., directed to the subject’s consciousness) and physiological “admixtures”. [American] psychology, as it was said about its last leader B. F. Skinner, turned into the science of an “empty organism". But that was yet un-Russian way.

(Yaroshevskii, 1995)

This radical change in discourse certainly' reflected the “wind of changes” and the post-perestroika mainstream Zeitgeist in Russian culture and society of this époque. Yet, having pronounced this, Yaroshevskii was one of the first in his country at the end of the 20th century' to open the discussion of the “national question” and its impact on the “Russian style” in scientific research. The cited article of 1995 was followed by the 1996 publication of a book titled The Science of Behavior:

The Russian Way and authored by the same author (Yaroshevskii, 1996), who — along with his soul-mates and spiritual “soul-lovers” — seems to have opened the Pandora box. Indeed, this line of reasoning awoke the old demons and let them out, which has led to the proliferation of a wide range of conservative, isolationist, as well as religion- and ethnic-centric discussions and theories getting as far as proclaiming the “Russian Christian-Orthodox Psychology”, some adherents and leaders of which belong to the older generations of the well-established formerly Soviet scholars of highest distinction, who have their strongholds even in the oldest and, presumably, the best national universities in St. Petersburg and Moscow (for instance, in Lomosov Moscow State University, the oldest and, according to all academic ratings, the most prestigious university in Russian Federation) (Bratus’, 1995; Slobodchikov, 2019; Vasilyuk, 2015). Thus, for instance, a paper that came out recently in the Russian Psychological Society’s and Psychology Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University’s own National Psychological Journal, according to its English abstract, presents

the first attempt to consider cultural and historical background of the new scientific direction of Christian psychology' in the post-Soviet Russia. It shows the continuity of this trend with the works of the Tsar Russia period, and the connection with the works on the psychology of faith by foreign scientists. The reasons for reviving the interest in the psychological issues of spiritual development and religious outlook are described. Despite the fact that certain ideas and attitudes to the issues mentioned above appeared at the Soviet time, the possibility of the open movement arose only at the decline of Soviet ideology'. The interest in the study of personality and individuality was increasing on a par with the issues of man’s inner world, which is unthinkable without spiritual and religious aspects of human mind. The main milestones of Moscow school of Christian psychology development are highlighted: Seminar on Christian Psychology and Anthropology' at the Department of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University (1990), Laboratory' of Philosophical and Psychological Foundations of Human Development (actually Christian psychology laboratory') at the Psychological Institute of RAS [i.e., Russian Academy of Sciences], new specialty “Psychology of Religion” at the Department of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University (early 1990s), the first Russian edition of textbook “Christian Psychology” for high schools (1995), “Chelpanovskye readings” in the Psychological Institute of RAO [i.e., Russian Academy' of Education], which touched on Christian issues. Several departments of the Institute of Educational Innovations RAO start practicing Christian education and psychology'. International conferences of the late 1990s — early 2000s on the psychology of religion and the implementation of other facts of the Christian ideas of psychology at educational and practical activities in Russia are mentioned.

(Bratus’, 2015)

The transformation of the former ardent and loyal “Marxist-Leninist psychologists” into the advocates of the distinctly spiritual “Russian way” in science and “Russian Orthodox psychologists” is truly remarkable, puzzling and startling. I am certainly not going to get into an in-depth analysis, a full-blown “deconstruction” of these two kinds of very dissimilar ideas, ideologies and discourses that implement them. This would be too long of a discussion, hardly of interest to the readers of this chapter, and is a research topic of its own. Yet, a couple of observations are in order concerning interesting and not so obvious similarities rather than apparent dissimilarities of these two texts and the ideology behind them. The first similarity is the authors’ — such as Yaroshevskii and many others - emphasis on the uniqueness, excellence and idiosyncrasy of “our”, domestic psychological thought whether it is framed in terms of the “unique path” of “progressive” Marxist-Leninist psychology of its Soviet interpretation or the distinctly and exclusively “Russian” science as a representation of a special kind of “innate spirituality” of the nation and the “mysterious Russian soul”, which immediately brings us back to the 19th century with its Romantic and idealistic speculations about the “psychology' of the nation”, the Völkerpsychologie, in original German. This argument is vulnerable to pretty obvious criticism.

The "uniqueness" of the former — that is, the progressive and worldwide leading “Soviet Marxist psychology” — might well be disputed by the admirers of other variations of Marxism in psychology, for instance, those that developed under the influence of Antonio Gramsci in Italy, Georges Politzer and Henri Wallon in France and the francophone world, the philosophers of the Frankfurt School in Germany and German-speaking countries, or the Austrian version of psychological Marxism as it is represented in the work of Alfred Adler or Wilhelm Reich and their followers. Then, the uniqueness of the latter, namely, the “special spirituality” of the Russians can be easily undermined by a simple argument of arguably each nations distinct historical pathway and cultural legacy, coupled with its own “spirit" and “spirituality”, equally perplexing and mysterious. In fact, any variation of nationalism with its geopolitical, cultural and linguistic claims would firmly stand on the argument of this kind.

The second similarity between the two seemingly radically different positions is way more interesting, subtle and thought-provoking, though. This is the cluster of loosely interrelated ideas such as the teleological construction of personality; emphasis on the consciousness; rejection of the mechanically understood “cognition”, “mind” or even “psyche” (in favor of the “spirit” or “soul”); and the image of people fighting against their “slavery” or suffering. All these seem to be the rudiments of the line of thinking with its roots in the post-Revolutionary 1920s, perhaps most notably exemplified by Vygotsky’s utopian version of Soviet futuristic and avant-garde “science of Superman” (Yasnitsky, 2019b). This line of thinking, stripped from its utopian, idealistic and spiritualistic undertones, of course, is of considerable promise, it seems, and opens new horizons for meaningful and productive discussion of psychology’s potential as contemporary scientific theoretical and practical activity in the context of the 21st century.

Yet, back to Yaroshevskii and his kind. Some people say, a life story and the actual deeds of a person truly complement his (or her) words. In this sense, the life story of Yaroshevskii was truly remarkable. Born in a provincial town Kherson in the southern Russian Empire in 1915 (Ukraine now), Yaroshevskii graduated and started his post-graduate studies under Sergei Rubinstein in Leningrad in 1937, then was briefly arrested, yet released in 1939 and defended his post-graduate thesis in Moscow in 1945. Following the launch of the anti-Semitic campaign in late 1940s, Yaroshevskii left Moscow for Soviet Central Asia and soon thereafter (a year before Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953) published a couple of papers under the characteristic titles “Cybernetics, the science of obscurantists” and “The answer of I.P. Pavlov to American reactionary psychologists" (one can access these immortal monuments of later Stalinist discourse online). In the mid-1960s Yaroshevskii left Central Asia for Moscow, where he headed a department in the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology' of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and published the first edition of his History of Psychology (1966), the book that survived another two Soviet editions of 1976 and 1985: above, we have already enjoyed a quote from this text with the statement on the role of “Marxist-Leninist teaching” and “Communist construction” in the development of Soviet psychology. A contemporary Russian author claims that Yaroshevskii’s History of Psychology “was the main textbook used for psychological education in Soviet universities” and that “all psychological education in the USSR, since the first faculties of psychology' were opened in Moscow State University and Leningrad State University in 1966, was grounded on his books on history' of psychology”. Furthermore, this very' author asserts that it was Yaroshevskii, who “laid the foundations of the Russian school of the history of psychology”, but then, for unclear reason, regrets his obscurity to the non-Russian readers and. strangely' enough, calls Western readership to study the scientific legacy of this classic of quasi-Marxist and highly' dogmatic Soviet version of the history of this scientific discipline (Mironenko, 2016). In the 1980s, Yaroshevskii lauded the great and “progressive” Marxist-Leninist psychology and edited the six-volume “Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky” that introduced systematic censorship and massive falsifications of the author’s original text; for perhaps the most outrageous example of these falsifications that took place in Vygotsky’s and Luria’s “Tool and sign” see the meticulous textual analysis and critical discussion in (Van der Veer & Yasnitsky, 2016; Yasnitsky, 2017). Then, in 1990s he lamented the brutally “oppressed science" of the Soviet past; glorified the unique and mysterious “Russian way” of national psychology; and published, in 1993, a book on Vygotsky, which curiously reflected both his fascination with and transition from Marxism-Leninism and the triumph of distinctly Soviet science to the search of “Russian roots” in the pre-Revolutionary Imperial past of the so-called Silver Age of Russian culture. Finally, the last episode of this life story took place at the very' end of the last century. People make their choices of the way' they live and act. Yet, this was a strikingly' “un-Russian way”, as Yaroshevskii would say', indeed: just a couple of years after his “special Russian way” publication, in

1998, for health reasons Mikhail Yaroshevskii immigrated to the United States of America. There he died in 2001 in Los Angeles, California.