[Xmca-l] Отв: Re: Stalin and Vygotsky

[Alexander Surmava]

Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his works. . Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely ineffective. 

    понедельник, 11 сентября 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin <s.franklin08@btinternet.com> писал(а):
 

 Thanks everyone. Mike,  your experience and knowledge are really helpful.
I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, who had a minder put onto Vygostky.  But I now see that the banning theory has been revised.
See http://individual.utoronto.ca/yasnitsky/texts/presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf <http://individual.utoronto.ca/yasnitsky/texts/presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf>
 
Shirley

> On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
> Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ----
> 
> The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR
> from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was
> a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I
> forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing
> Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in
> Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art
> <https://www.amazon.com/Revisionist-Revolution-Vygotsky-Studies-State/dp/1138887307/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505154601&sr=1-1&keywords=Vygotsky+revolution>
> 
> you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the
> subject by the authors.
> 
> I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and
> I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's.
> 
> His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But
> that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world
> that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt.
> 
> But that's just my opinion.
> 
> mike
> 
> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg <
> leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote:
> 
>> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned
>> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's.
>> 
>> Leif
>> Sweden
>> 
>> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin <s.franklin08@btinternet.com
>>> :
>> 
>>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also
>> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V.
>>> Shirley
>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin <ivan@llaisdy.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Dear Shirley
>>>> 
>>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper
>> "Vygotsky’s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him.
>> There's a pdf in the list archives:
>>>> 
>>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf
>>>> 
>>>> Best wishes
>>>> 
>>>> Ivan
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> festina lente
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin <
>> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> We read  how Stalin banned Vygotsky’s books, etc. What is the reason
>> for the ban?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Shirley Franklin
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>>