[Xmca-l] Fwd: Отв: Отв: Re: Stalin and Vygotsky

Wed Sep 13 11:40:41 PDT 2017

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Helena Sheehan <helena.sheehan@dcu.ie>
Date: 13 September 2017 at 18:27
Subject: Re: Отв: [Xmca-l] Отв: Re: Stalin and Vygotsky
To: Alexander Surmava <alexander.surmava@yahoo.com>
Cc: Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com>, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>

Hi to you all.

It's a long time since I conducted my research in this area.

All academic disciplines in the USSR were characterised by lively debates
about their theoretical foundations in the 1920s, but came under
considerable pressure in the 1930s to come up with one position that would
be the orthodox marxist position with sometimes dire consequences for the
approaches cast aside.

In the case of psychology, it spent the decade in disarray. Vygotsky was
criticised at an official congress in 1930, which found all existing
schools of soviet psychology inadequate to the tasks of socialist
construction. I don't know if Vygotsky was actually banned though.

Regards,
Helena

Professor Helena Sheehan
Dublin City University
Dublin 9 Ireland
http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/

On 13 September 2017 at 14:39, Alexander Surmava <
alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear Ulvi,
> I rathe think that Stalin and his henchmen were infinitely far from any
> serious theoretical culture. And the Stalinists were not Bolsheviks. They
> were the executioners of the Bolsheviks.
> There is a history of how Stalin, who guessed that his philosophical
> education is very limping, asked Stan to read him a course of lectures on
> the philosophy of Hegel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Stan__Jan_Ennestovich.
> Alas ... These lectures ended sadly. For Stan. He was shot in 1937. And
> sad for Marxist philosophy, too.
> So even with a very great desire, Stalin could hardly have understood the
> nuances that distinguished Vygotsky's theoretical views from the
> theoretical views of Leontyev or Rubinstein.
> Best wishes,
> Sasha
>
>
> среда, 13 сентября 2017 15:32 Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> писал(а):
>
>
> I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite
> useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of
> Science.
>
> Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree,
> isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is
> difficult that Stalin did not hear his name.
>
> I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public
> affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a
> distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava <
> alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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