Hi,
Dan Friedman once wrote a brilliant article about this issue:
"The Soviet Union in the 1920s - An historical laboratory"
Practice, vol 7 #3 1990,
Leif
Sweden
ps
Just to add something to my previous mail: Why did not Luria asked the
peasants about their (brilliant and hi-tech) water system (karez)?
ds
2006-03-15 kl. 08.30 skrev Steve Gabosch:
> Eugene, Leif, Mike, all,
>
> Thank you. What great posts on many very important questions. Much
> more can and needs to be researched and analyzed - and debated. Who
> else has written on these issues? Some of the material by Bakhurst in
> Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy (1991) comes to
> mind, for example.
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
>
> At 09:54 PM 3/14/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>> Dear Leif and everybody--
>>
>>
>>
>> I respectfully disagree with Leif that the Great Stalinist terror
>> started
>> after Luria-Vygotsky cross-cultural research in 1932. There is
>> evidence that
>> the terror actually peaked around 1931-1932. About 10-20 million of
>> people
>> were killed around this time -- mostly illiterate peasants. One of the
>> cryptic stories was that Stalin’s wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva committed
>> suicide
>> in 1932 after she witnessed the tragedy of collectivization
>> http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health
>> <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
>> sec=health&res=940DEEDB113FF937A
>> 25757C0A96E948260> &res=940DEEDB113FF937A25757C0A96E948260. But I
>> understand
>> Leif because it is rather common to think that the Great Terror was
>> around
>> 1937 when city-based literate intelligencia became its target. However
>> tragic, it could not be compared with the crime of so-called
>> collectivization in terms of the scope of the organized terror. You
>> can read
>> about that in Solzhenitsyn's Archipelago GULAG.
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree with Steve that this is very important to keep in mind when
>> reading
>> Luria and Vygotsky’s discussion of their cross-cultural work. It is
>> important to consider the responsibility of scholars, especially in
>> our
>> paradigmatic family, when they (we?) participate in social
>> engineering.
>>
>>
>>
>> Leif asked about “who paid for tickets”. Good question. There is some
>> evidence that Nikolai Bukharin one of the top Party leaders was one
>> of
>> their big supporters. The fall of Luria and Vygotsky from leading
>> Marxist
>> psychologists was in part associated also with the fall of Bukharin.
>> I wrote
>> an XMCA message about that in 2000 (see below). By the way, the
>> expedition
>> was supposed to be international with participation of mainly German
>> Gestalt
>> Psychologists but it did not work out (Koffka participated but for
>> very
>> short time). See the book by Valsiner and Veer “Understanding
>> Vygotsky”.
>>
>>
>>
>> I also agree with Mike that many scholars from former USSR think that
>> CHAT
>> and sociocultural rejection of the deficit model promoted by Luria and
>> Vygotsky is nothing more than “political correctness.” Like Mike, I
>> tried
>> many times to convince them to the contrary but in vain. I recently
>> wrote a
>> paper about that analyzing the fate of Vygotsky legacy in South
>> Africa and
>> in US.
>>
>>
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>>
>>
>> Eugene
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> RE: Luria in Uzbekistan
>>
>>
>> From: Eugene Matusov (
>> <mailto:ematusov%20who-is-at%20udel.edu?
>> Subject=RE:%20Luria%20in%20Uzbekista
>> n&In-Reply-To=%3CNCBBJJPJODEAKNMOFEBKIEHDDFAA.ematusov@udel.edu%3E>
>> ematusov@udel.edu)
>> Date: Wed Jan 26 2000 - 15:46:37 PST
>>
>> * Next message: Sara
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/0297.html> L.
>> Hill:
>> "RE: documenting the flow"
>> * Previous message: Paul
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/0295.html>
>> Dillon: "Re:
>> middle class/intellectual labor"
>> * In reply to: Mike
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/0289.html> Cole:
>> "Luria
>> in Uzbekistan"
>> * Next in thread: Peter
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/0309.html>
>> Farruggio:
>> "Re: Luria in Uzbekistan"
>> * Messages sorted by: [
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/date.html#296>
>> date ] [
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/index.html#296>
>> thread
>> ] [
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/subject.html#296>
>> subject ] [
>> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2000_01.dir/author.html#296>
>> author
>> ]
>>
>> _____
>>
>> Hi Mike and everybody--
>>
>> One brief comment on Luria.
>>
>> Mike wrote,
>> > Second, Luria's work was never published in the USSR at the time
>> > and could hardly have been a cause of anything... until we get
>> > to the first report in 1970-71 and then 75-76 in Russian and
>> > English. Very different times.
>>
>> It is true that Luria's work was never published in the USSR at the
>> time.
>> But why? There is some historical evidence that Vygotsky and his
>> colleagues
>> were supported in part by Bukharin, one of the top party leaders of
>> that
>> time. Luria-Vygotsky research glorified rather consciously and
>> deliberately
>> collectivization of peasant farms and (forced) schooling that were on
>> the
>> political agenda of the time. However, their affiliation with
>> Bukharin and
>> some other top communist functionaries that became increasingly
>> unpopular
>> with Stalin led them into troubles (among other things). My point is
>> that
>> the only reason that the Luria-Vygotsky research did not (hopefully)
>> play
>> any role in the tragedy of those days was that they by themselves
>> became a
>> target of political attacks (especially Vygotsky). I want to remind
>> that the
>>
>> Luria-Vygotsky work in Uzbekistan was done when Stalin organized
>> artificial
>> famine in rural parts of the Soviet Union to force peasants
>> (especially
>> those who were "from remote villages") to join collective farms.
>> According
>> to some estimations between 10 and 20 million of people died (or
>> better to
>> say "killed") during that time of early 30th. I personally very glad
>> that
>> neither Vygotsky nor Luria contributed to this crime but they were
>> very
>> close to such contribution.
>>
>> Taking this into account I'm very sympathetic with Jim Wretsch's
>> position
>> described by Mike
>> > First, this exchange indexes with special clarity why people like
>> > jim wertsch prefer the term socio-cultural to cultural historical
>> > or activity theory. Luria was a modernist. Not the only one around
>> > at the time in either Russia or the US. In so far as history
>> > implied progress/development, it is a very unfortunate term to
>> > use as a paradigm name. Or at least, some think so.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Eugene
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > -----Original Message-----
>>
>> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
>>
>> > Behalf Of Leif Strandberg
>>
>> > Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 2:41 AM
>>
>> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>
>> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Luria & the USSR
>>
>> >
>>
>> > Hi,
>>
>> >
>>
>> > The Luria-conversation is great - and important. Important from many
>>
>> > perspectives:
>>
>> >
>>
>> > The historical context 1932 when Luria and his team went to
>>
>> > Uzbekistan was not the Great terror - it started 2-3 years later.
>> The
>>
>> > context was The war against the peasants. And the purpose of the
>> Luria
>>
>> > expedition was an investigation of peasants (!) and nomads.
>>
>> >
>>
>> > Here comes a team of young and enthusiastic students from Moscow
>> (the
>>
>> > Capital) to the fpeasants. Who paid the tickets? The same rulers
>> who
>>
>> > now killed the peasants.
>>
>> >
>>
>> > They came with a lot of logical premises (one of them: Moscow is
>> more
>>
>> > advanced than Tasjkent. Another: The concept (!) of collective
>> farms is
>>
>> > more advanced than working with goats and camels in Bohara). They -
>>
>> > the team - came with The Truth to people with "Lower Mental
>> Functions".
>>
>> > Of course the team was not - as far as I can see - in a subjective
>>
>> > sense against the farmers in Uzbekistan absolutely not! - but if we
>>
>> > look at the expedition from the perspective of Activity Theory it is
>>
>> > easy to see the inequality of the relations between the researchers
>> and
>>
>> > the Uzbeki people.
>>
>> >
>>
>> > The use of Aristotelian logic is also surprising - as the team
>> wanted
>>
>> > to explore mind in culture - why use a typical cognitivstic (Platon!
>>
>> > Bucharin!) method?
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > Inspired by Harold Pinter (the Nobel Prize winner 2005 - You know,
>>
>> > Pinter is always interested in power relations in ordinary
>>
>> > conversations) I wrote down the test protocols (from Making of Mind)
>>
>> > and read them from a "Pinter-angle" trying to see what the farmers
>>
>> > actually said to the researchers. Reading the protocols in such a
>> way
>>
>> > it is - to me - easy to see that the conversation was reciprocal:
>> The
>>
>> > farmers had something to say to the young men (I have not found any
>>
>> > female researcher in the team):
>>
>> >
>>
>> > - Do not have illusions! (about what is going on) The farmers did
>> not
>>
>> > only reflected on the Muller-Lyers arrows!)
>>
>> > - Do not have prejudices when talking about other parts of the
>> country
>>
>> > (the cotton- and bear-example)
>>
>> > etcetera
>>
>> >
>>
>> > If we create such a languge-game with the text we will find
>> something
>>
>> > else than the cognitive analysis. It is also clear that Vygotskij
>> did
>>
>> > not gave full support to the expedition of Luria. "It is your
>>
>> > expedition".
>>
>> > There are so many methodolgical errors in the research (errors -
>> if we
>>
>> > want to explore what mind in culture can be. From a Piagetian
>>
>> > perspective the results are more okay. (But Piaget did often the
>> same
>>
>> > mistakes as Luria did 1932)
>>
>> >
>>
>> > I am not saying that the expedition is bad or unintersting. It was
>> and
>>
>> > is very interesting - (the fact that psychologists "came out" from
>> the
>>
>> > Insitutes is per se interesting) - but to me the expediton says more
>>
>> > about the risks when we do investigations on The Other than it says
>>
>> > about peasants' IQ:s
>>
>> >
>>
>> > The team members were young, naive and captured in some false
>> premises
>>
>> > and they knew to little about farmers and the history and the great
>>
>> > culture of Samarkand. But they were not racists - which was the
>> common
>>
>> > case in most of the research from that time. In my country -
>> Sweden -
>>
>> > we had a Race-Institute from which "researchers" came to my part of
>>
>> > Sweden - The North - doing research on Sami people - with a very
>> clear
>>
>> > racistic perspective. Compared to their "research" the Luria
>> expedition
>>
>> > is more than great. But, from a cultural-historical perspective
>> there
>>
>> > are many thing to say. I have tried to say some of these things.
>>
>> >
>>
>> > Read:
>>
>> > Harold Pinter - The Cartetaker (and Pinter's Nobelprize-speech)
>>
>> > Frantz Fanon "Les damnés de terre"
>>
>> > Aleksandr Etkind "Psychoanalysis in the time of the Russian
>> Revolution"
>>
>> > (Eros Nevosmomozjngo" from 1993.
>>
>> > Osip Mandelstam
>>
>> >
>>
>> > I am looking forward to read Mike's new book - I have not found it
>> yet
>>
>> > - perhaps some of what I am saying here will be changed after
>> reading
>>
>> > Mike's book.
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > Greetings from Leif, a peasant from The Arctic Circle in Sweden
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > 2006-03-14 kl. 06.07 skrev Steve Gabosch:
>>
>> >
>>
>> > > Mike describes some of the reaction to Luria's research among the
>>
>> > > Kashgars on page 214-215 of his "Epilogue: A Portrait of Luria" in
>>
>> > > Luria's autobiography, The Making of Mind. His research and
>>
>> > > explanations in this work "met with strong, not to say vitriolic,
>>
>> > > disapproval."
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > > Although Mike does not go into this, I think it is vital to point
>> out
>>
>> > > that this kind of poisonous attack - one that represented a
>> "mixing of
>>
>> > > scientific and political criticism in 1934" - took place during
>> the
>>
>> > > full-scale Stalinization of nearly every aspect of Soviet society,
>>
>> > > including all the sciences. It was not the *content* of Luria's
>>
>> > > cross-cultural studies but its *suppression* that satisfied
>> "Soviet
>>
>> > > doctrine" (whatever "soviet doctrine" was in Stalin's brutal
>> campaign
>>
>> > > to drive out scientific discussion and debate in the USSR
>> beginning
>>
>> > > with Lenin's death, and reaching a fever pitch prior to WWII).
>>
>> > > Excepting Stalin, the entire original leadership of the Bolshevik
>>
>> > > revolution had been killed, imprisoned or exiled by the end of the
>>
>> > > 1930's, culminating in Trotsky's assassination in 1940. In the
>> late
>>
>> > > 1920's and throughout the 1930's, a death grip was being placed on
>>
>> > > scientific work, which included, among much other repression, the
>>
>> > > banning of Vygotsky's writings. Lysenko's quack theories of
>> genetic
>>
>> > > inheritance and his mismanagement of Soviet agricultural research
>> was
>>
>> > > a shining example of the scientific "accomplishments" of this
>>
>> > > Stalinization process.
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > > This does not mean that Luria's analysis of the Kashgars (how they
>>
>> > > used syllogisms, etc.) is above scientific and political
>> criticism. I
>>
>> > > think ARL did make certain errors (seeking cognitive rather than
>>
>> > > socio-economic, historical and class explanations for his
>> results),
>>
>> > > along with creating brilliant precedents for conducting this kind
>> of
>>
>> > > field research. I also think Luria would have welcomed such
>>
>> > > commentary. But there is no reason to believe that the
>> poison-filled
>>
>> > > reaction to his work - and the suppression apparently of even any
>>
>> > > mention of this work - was an aspect of any coherent doctrine, let
>>
>> > > alone a worthy scientific critique. Rather, as I see it, the
>> poison
>>
>> > > campaign Luria endured was part of the general Stalinization
>> process
>>
>> > > of destroying independent thinking in the scientific community.
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > > - Steve
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > > At 05:45 PM 3/13/2006 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>> > >>
>>
>> > >> Dear XMCARs,
>>
>> > >>
>>
>> > >> A class of mine was studying Luria by the last 2 weeks, Mike's
>> DVD
>>
>> > >> included,
>>
>> > >> and one of the questions that arose was that of the conclusions
>> of
>>
>> > >> the Asia
>>
>> > >> studies and whether the way they were skecthed in the book
>> published
>>
>> > >> by
>>
>> > >> Harvard's press in the late 1970s would have been the same in
>> case
>>
>> > >> the book
>>
>> > >> would have been published after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
>>
>> > >> That is:
>>
>> > >> >From all what is said in the book, what can be attributed to the
>>
>> > >> needs to
>>
>> > >> satisfy Soviet doctrine and what can be attributed to the real
>>
>> > >> thinking of
>>
>> > >> Luria. Maybe it would help us to elarn what were the ideas
>> related to
>>
>> > >> that
>>
>> > >> study that kept it unpublished for so many years and whether
>> they had
>>
>> > >> to be
>>
>> > >> sublimated to reach final publication. I know that's a difficult
>>
>> > >> question,
>>
>> > >> but maybe it can be answered by some of you here that knew Luria
>>
>> > >> personally.
>>
>> > >> Feel free to reply to all since I am copying to my students. All
>> of
>>
>> > >> them
>>
>> > >> will be very grateful of your imputs.
>>
>> > >>
>>
>> > >> Thanks!
>>
>> > >> David
>>
>> > >>
>>
>> > >> David D. Preiss Ph.D.
>>
>> > >> Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
>>
>> > >> www.uc.cl/psicologia
>>
>> > >>
>>
>> > >> _______________________________________________
>>
>> > >> xmca mailing list
>>
>> > >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>
>> > >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>>
>> > > _______________________________________________
>>
>> > > xmca mailing list
>>
>> > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>
>> > > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>> > >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > _______________________________________________
>>
>> > xmca mailing list
>>
>> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>
>> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Apr 01 2006 - 01:00:13 PST