The Soviet Ordeal Ep. 7 Follow the Science: Mind Control

You’ve heard the phrase “follow the science” or “science is real” over the past several years. Having “science” on one’s side seems to make a viewpoint authoritative if not infallible. The Soviet Union believed this wholeheartedly. Not only that but they believed their whole system of government itself was BASED on science. This was the “Scientific Socialism” of Marx and Engels put into practice on a grand scale. Science or the idea of it permeated every aspect of Soviet life to an extent that we in the West have never known. Socialism was supposed to be hypermodern. It would sweep away all  the social and cultural baggage that had accumulated over the millenia and usher in an era of pure reason and progress. This would be accomplished through the power of science. Through science the Soviets sought to reprogram the individualistic human mind and make it communist to the very core. From the very beginning Lenin was fascinated with the work of Ivan Pavlov. He believed that this physiologist who so expertly conditioned dogs to respond to the stimuli of his choosing held the key to shaping the collective psyche of the entire Russian people. They would be fashioned into obedient Communists through the power of science. A decade later the world got its first glimpse of what these Soviet scientists were up to. During Stalin’s show trials high ranking defendants admitted to fantastic crimes that they had no way of actually committing. Moreover, they pledged absolute fealty to a system and a man they knew would soon destroy them. Had the Soviets discovered a new method of dark persuasion unknown to the west? Even the Nazis were unnerved by the idea. Soon an obsession with Pavlovian “brainwashing” would overwhelm the free world. It was discussed in universities, newspapers, films and even on the floor of the United States Congress. Meanwhile, within the Soviet Union, the scientific optimism and ambition of the 1920’s would give way to repression and fear. Any scientist that dared to question the state approved Pavlovian doctrine would find himself out of a job, in prison camp or worse. The Soviets came to believe the human mind was simply a series of reflexes that could be manipulated to the will of the state. There was no room for any other opinion. In the 1950’s a sinister new figure would come to dominate the field of Soviet Psychology: Andrei Vladimirovich Snezhnevsky. Under his rule, the state devised a new diagnosis for individuals who dared to question the absolute superiority of the Soviet system: “Sluggish Schizophrenia.” Now, if you spoke out against the regime you could find yourself locked in a mental asylum indefinitely with no right of appeal and no correspondence with the outside world. These “patients” were often heavily drugged and made to undergo tortures that many compared with what Jewish prisoners experienced at the hands of Nazi doctors decades earlier. How did a science that promised such a bright and limitless future devolve into a dystopian tool of oppression? Maybe that’s just what happens when politics and science become one and the same under a system that demands absolute conformity.