Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal (Trotsky, Shmotsky, and Vygotsky)!

[Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>]

Steve, thank you for you Trostkian update!

I am afraid, though, this input leads us quite away from the main topic that we attempt to discuss, namely: 


recent groundbreaking textological and historiographic research that demonstrates that our view on what we believed were Vygotsky's main texts

was largely distorted and -- due to numerous falsifications, manipulations, and other damage done to Vygotsky's discourse --

still much work needs to be done. Luckily, a few important contribution have already been made and clarify the picture to some extent:


http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/index.php


Thus, keeping this focus of our current discussion in mind, I believe I need to respond to several questions of yours that I can parse in your message.


1. A remark. I might well agree with you that Stalin, like Hitler -- and quite unlike Lenin or Trotsky -- was a reincarnation of Darth Vader, or, at least, Lord Voldemort,
but please keep it in mind that such Manichean perspective on the history of Soviet science does not quite allow us understand why quite a few of American scholars were so 
fascinated with "Stalinist" Soviet science of 1930s --


see, e.g.: Peter J. Kuznick (1987). Beyond the laboratory: scientists as political activists in 1930s

http://books.google.ca/books?id=pQxy2PRHWrwC&pg=PA106#v=onepage&q&f=false


or  how come the "oppressed science" of zee ruskies was able to scare all of us out of ours witts back in the 1950s with the launch of 'sputnik' in 1957 and, then Gagarin in 1961. 

For the not so simple and truly exciting history of the inseparable union between the science and the party-state apparatus in the Soviet Union from mid-1920s onwards see. e.g.: 

Krementsov, N. (1997). Stalinist Science. Princeton

Stalinist Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997)

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8Nl_FUgFykQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

2. Another remark. Yep, Vygotsky did refer to Trotsky's Utopian visions of the superman (Uebermensch, if you wish) of the inevitable Communist future, in his (i.e. Vygotsky's) 
three books of mid-1920s, and, generally,seems to have been charmed by the "prophet armed/unarmed/outcast".
However, I do not think there is anything distinctly Marxist in this variation of Uebermensch, 
and the idea of a "new man" is very much ingrained into the entire construct of Western civilization and from time to time reoccurs in the history of humanity here and there.

3. Now, to question. It seems that Trotsky's "Literature and revolution" came out in the original in 1923, and then, second, augmented edition - in 1924.

4. Question: "
Marxists tend to be very careful about claiming they have a "new" idea.  Marx and Engels were meticulous about this.  Vygotsky was like that too, yes? "
Answer: yes and no, that depends. In certain instances Vygotsky does refer to his predecessors, in some instances -- he pretty charmingly forgets to do so. 
Pretty messy and unorganized author, I should say.

5. Phrase: "Vygotsky, who himself contributed to this revolution in substantial ways, despite the rising Stalinist counter-revolution that eventually buried Vygotsky's writings"
Comments:
* Vygotsky did contribute to the social and scientific life of the country in many, but not necessarily in substantial ways,
* he did so in full accordance with all turns, ups and downs of the national policy and social processes throughout 1920s-1930s,
* contributed notably to Stalinist counter-revolution during and after the Great Break and Cultural Revoltion of 1929-1932 as well as to the movements of the NEP period of 1920s
* and, finally, was buried not by Stalinist oppressive apparatus, but by his allegedly most devoted students and followers :))

This is why much of the published legacy of Vygotsky, especially, the Soviet six-volume collection of his works of 1982-1984, is in such bad shape. For discussion and materials please see:

Yasnitsky, A.
The Vygotsky That We (Do Not) Know: Vygotsky’s Main Works and the Chronology of their Composition
http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a1/2011n4a1.1.pdf

Kellogg, D.
Which is (More) Original, and Does Either Version Really Matter?
(A comment on A. Yasnitsky’s “The Vygotsky That We (Do Not) Know: Vygotsky’s Main Works and the Chronology of their Composition”)
http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a2/2011n4a2.pdf

Kellogg, D.
Untangling a genetic root of Thinking and Speech:
Towards a textology of Tool and Sign in Child Development
http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a3/2011n4a3.pdf

Kellogg, D. & Yasnitsky, A.
The differences between the Russian and English texts of Tool and Symbol in Child Development. Supplementary and analytic materials
http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a4/2011n4a4.pdf

Mecacci, L. & Yasnitsky, A.
Editorial Changes in the Three Russian Editions of Vygotsky's "Thinking and Speech" (1934, 1956, 1982): Towards Authoritative and Ultimate English Translation of the Book
http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a5/2011n4a5.pdf




________________________________
 From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> 
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2012 9:59:26 AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!
 
Anton, thanks very much for sharing your articles and ideas.   It is helping me a great deal.

As a result of following some of your leads, I have at the moment sitting in front of me three books by Trotsky - Literature and Revolution (I have the Univ of Mich Press 1960), Problems of Everyday Life (Pathfinder, 1973), and Art and Revolution, Pathfinder 1970 (7th printing, 2001).

Most of these books consist of book chapters, Pravda articles, and published speeches by Trotsky on cultural questions from around 1921 to 1926, and some later writings.  Two published books in Russian held the 1920's material.

I am now for the first time getting some sense of how Trotsky and the revolutionary Marxist Bolsheviks may have played a role in helping Vygotsky formulate some of his Marxist ideas in the early and mid-1920's.

Btw, I sharply differentiate Lenin, Trotsky and the revolutionary Bolsheviks from their totalitarian Stalinist imposters and usurpers, who you and Rene and many others in my opinion correctly condemn.  The long-term (not to mention horrible immediate) damage they did is incalculable.  In this viewpoint of what happened the Russian socialist revolution, based on Trotsky's analysis, the totalitarian Stalinist takeover began around 1923 and was fully in place by the late '20's.

***************

Your articles lead us to the passages in Lit and Rev pp 253-56, where Trotsky's "superman" formulation appears.

This "superman" idea is summarized in another article in my Problems of Everyday Life edition on p 139-40 in a June 1924 speech by Trotsky.

He says: "We may be able to drive a railway across the whole Sahara, build the Eiffel Tower, and talk with New York by radio, but can really not improve man?   Yes; we will be able to! ... To issue a new "improved edition" of man--that is the further task of communism ... But this, of course, is the music of the future.   What we have to do [now] is lay the first stones of the foundations of socialist society."

***************

Btw, the introduction to Pathfinder's Problems of Everyday Life by George Novack explains that "In the summers of 1922 and 1923 he [Trotsky] completed a book _Literature and Revolution_, which presented views he held in common with Lenin."  One theme of the book was the impossibility of a "proletarian culture" to emerge.  The important question of protecting artist's rights also got a chapter, called "Communist Policy and Art."  Trotsky's introduction to this book is dated June 1924.  When did the Russian version of Lit and Rev come out?

*************

On the question you and Martin and others were discussing of one's ideas being "derivative," Novack makes this interesting comment about Trotsky: "Trotsky never claimed originality for his theoretical and political positions." p 11.  Marxists tend to be very careful about claiming they have a "new" idea.  Marx and Engels were meticulous about this.  Vygotsky was like that too, yes?

******************

Several other speeches and articles in Problems of Everyday Life have some very interesting discussions of Pavlov, Freud, reflexology and psychology.

The message Trotsky sent to the First All-Russian Congress of Scientific Workers and published in Pravda the next day on Nov 24, 1923; is especially interesting because it contains a collegial but firm rebuttal to Pavlov.

Trotsky answers an eloquent quote from Pavlov that only natural science can "lead man out of the present darkness and cleanse him of the present shame in the sphere of relations among people."

Trotsky says " ... we cannot in any way agree with the view that natural science -- powerful, but by no means "all-powerful" -- is capable, by delving into the laws of human nature, of altering social relationships, cleansing them of their present shame ... This way of posing the question, which assumes that the motive forces behind social relationship are to be found not in the objective, material conditions of their development, but in the evil ("dark") qualities of the individual human being is essentially idealistic and is therefore basically in contradiction with those materialist methods that find their brilliant application in the theory of conditioned reflexes itself." p 203.

This is especially interesting in light of the talk Vygotsky would give just two months or so later, in Jan 1924, sharply criticizing reflexologists like Academician Pavlov for not studying human consciousness etc.  Vygotsky was not just speaking for himself; he representing something larger.

****************

Here is another point Trotsky made.

On p 201-2 of PEL Trotsky says: "If biology today is unthinkable without Darwinism, of course with all the subsequent advances and modifications of it; if scientific psychology today is unthinkable without the theory and methodology of conditioned reflexes -- then how much more is social science unthinkable today outside of and without Marxism.  Without this theory it is impossible today to properly understand and evaluate our own successes and failures on the new road, and it is impossible to find our way in the chaos that constitutes the capitalist world today."

These and some other ideas articulated by Trotsky in these articles on culture - which, to underscore the above point, were derivative ideas, not only from Marx and Engels, but from the Russian working class revolution itself - seemed to resonate with Vygotsky, who himself contributed to this revolution in substantial ways, despite the rising Stalinist counter-revolution that eventually buried Vygotsky's writings, and which (and of course you are one of the leaders doing this) we are still trying to dig back up and sort out.

What do you think?

- Steve
















I found the quote from Trotsky that Vygotsky ends Educational Psychology with.  Trotsky repeats this idea in the Pathfinder version of Problems of Everyday Life (not the original Russian) on pp 139-140 in a speech he delivered in June 1924.


On Mar 23, 2012, at 9:38 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:

> A close textual analysis of the nice journal article on the sociointellectual biography of Vygotsky convinces me that this was not written by the same person who has been sending provocative messages to xmca. I feel that after all I may continue to quote Vygotsky without fear that (a) it was an editorial insertion (b) a mistranslation of the Russian or (c) later condemned by Vygotsky himself.
> Andy
> 
> Martin Packer wrote:
>> Hi Anton,
>> 
>> I have to say that I like your chapter very much. I am pleased to say that you don't, in fact, make the case here that Vygotsky was 'utterly derivative.' What you do provide, I think, is an account that is nicely balanced between a discussion of the influence on his work of other people of the time (and earlier times), and a discussion of the innovations and discoveries that he and his colleagues made in the course of this work, including their ambition to create something importantly new. Whether they were successful or not is a judgment on which readers will of course differ, and I think you appropriately refrain from passing such a judgment yourself.
>> 
>> Thanks for sharing it.
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> On Mar 22, 2012, at 10:22 PM, Anton Yasnitsky wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> Yep, I have a chapter in the book, and, sure, Vygotsky is utterly derivative, although not completely so. However, I am afraid, I did not make this point perfectly clear in this chapter.
>>> 
>>> As to you second question, I am not quite sure what the editors were looking for: there were three of them and each of them, I guess, was looking for something different.
>>> 
>>> Anton
>>> 
>>> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
>>> To: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 11:11:44 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!
>>> 
>>> Anton, do I have this right? You have a chapter in a book on Pioneers in Developmental Psychology, where your principal point is that Vygotsky's work is derivative?
>>> 
>>> Was that what the editors were looking for?
>>> 
>>> Martin
>>> 
>>> On Mar 22, 2012, at 9:26 PM, Anton Yasnitsky wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Let's put somewhat aside the question if anybody can actually *discover* an *idea* or a *concept*: I tend to think that we rather *construct* and *introduce* them, like any other neologisms. Anyway, this is just a remark aside, let's get straight to the matter.
>>>> 
>>>> I need to think if Vygotsky in fact ever said anything on "mediated action" (if anybody is aware of specific locus in any Vygotsky's text where he actually says "mediated action" I would greatly appreciate the reference to the source).
>>>> As to the other two, I am inclined to look towards the Gestaltists, primarily Kurt Koffka along with such peripheral participants and fellow-tavellers of Gestaltpsychologie movement as Kurt Lewin and Kurt Goldstein as the guys who approximately one hundred seventeen times better and way earlier expressed pretty much the same ideas, but in slightly different terms than Vygotsky vaguely did with his "unit of analysis" and "social situation of development". I am not sure,  but I guess I briefly suggested this here:
>>>> Yasnitsky, A. (2011). Lev Vygotsky: Philologist and Defectologist, A Socio-intellectual Biography. In Pickren, W., Dewsbury, D., & Wertheimer, M. (Eds.). Portraits of Pioneers in Developmental Psychology, (Vol. 7, pp. 109-134).
>>>> 
>>>> Vygotsky, in turn, only started learning from the great Germans (Americans, Jews, etc.) when he died.
>>>> Unfortunately, though, I am not so sure that these ideas have in fact revolutionized psychology, at least so as long as mainstream (i.e., empirical, North American, ahistorical, non-cumulative, reductionist, etc.) psychology is concerned.
>>>> 
>>>> Anton
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>>>> To: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 8:43:14 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!
>>>> 
>>>> So Anton, to whom should we be attributing ideas like "unit of analysis", "social situation of development", "mediated action" which have revolutionised psychology, and we have been thinking were discoveries of Vygotsky? Is there someone else who should be credited?
>>>> 
>>>> Andy
>>>> 
>>>> Anton Yasnitsky wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Indeed, thanks a lot to all those researchers, editors, translators, and other volunteers and enthusiasts who made this -- and will make several forthcoming  -- journal issues possible!!
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> As to Vygotsky's archives, well, it is a little bit different. For instance, as one paper argues, on the contrary, archival materials of one of arguably Vygotsky's works were NOT preserved, and the Russian text of the work was blatantly retranslated (or just translated) into Russian from English (this was a much later copy that actually WAS preserved, or, for that matter, was NOT preserved either, but was "reconstructed" some time in the 1950s or 1960s).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yet again, as we know, the manuscript of yet another work, commonly believed to be a central work of Vygotsky, was NOT preserved either. The same holds for yet another allegedly most important Vygotsky's book.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> So, in sum, I would not be that thankful to those who have been in charge of keeping Vygotsky's archival stuff  alive and, for that matter, accessible.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Anton
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>> From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
>>>>> To: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Cc: Alexey Kuznetsov <alexey.math@gmail.com>; Ющенкова Дарья Викторовна <dashulya-psy@mail.ru>; Anton Yasnitsky <anton.yasnitsky@gmail.com>; Мещеряков Борис Гурьевич <borlogic@yahoo.com> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 11:04:02 AM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks to all who carried out this work. Thanks also to those who kept the archival materials alive.
>>>>> mike
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 2012/3/21 Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>
>>>>> 
>>>>> A special issue of PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological issue has been released lately. This thematic multilingual issue combined a few studies on textology, chronology and historical development of  Vygotsky's works. Several highlights include:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> - first ever rigorous historical reconstruction of the list of Vygotsky's major works and the chronology of their composition
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> - the sensational finding: Vygotsky never wrote the "History of development of higher mental (psychological) functions" and "Tool and symbol (sign)" the way we know these texts in Russian now
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> - a discussion of Vygotsky's " Tool and Sign" (alias "Tool and Sign"), i.e. the first half of what we all know as "Mind and Society" (1978, chapters 1-4): was Russian text translated from the English one, or the English text translated from Russian one, or both?
>>>>>> - numerous fakes and falsifications in Vygotsky's various published works & the problem of reliability: is it the Vygotsky that we know or rather -- the Vygotsky that we DO NOT know?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> - full list of editorial interventions in the three editions of Vygotsky's "Thinking and speech" of 1934, 1956, & 1982
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> - a historical, first ever republication of early Vygotsky's articles on art, theatre and literature of 1922: the unknown Vygotsky of his Gomel' period (1917-1924)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> All these and some other materials, in Russian, English, Portuguese, and French are available FREE, 24/7 online @ http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/index.php
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The editorial team are presently considering publishing a follow-up issue of the journal that would build on these studies, so any queries, comments, suggestions, and even paper proposals (in virtually any language and of virtually any length) will be greatly appreciated!
>>>>>> __________________________________________
>>>>>> _____
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>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> __________________________________________
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>>>>> 
>>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
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