The History Corner
Mike Zickar
SIOP Historian
Bowling Green State University
The lack of American I-O psychologists’ understanding of our international partners’ research contributions is large and has been noted by others. This gap of understanding is even larger for knowledge of the history of applied psychology from other countries. The following short article by Olga Clark reminds us of the important and turbulent history of industrial psychology in Soviet Russia. This history is interesting on its own merits but it also serves a reminder and warning for the dangers of meddling by politicians in the pursuits of science.
For further understanding of the development of applied psychology outside the United States, I urge everyone to read Peter Warr’s chapter “Some Historical Developments in I-O Psychology Outside USA” in Laura Koppes’s new book Historical Perspectives in Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).
The Rise and Fall of Soviet Industrial Psychology: A History Lesson
Olga L. Clark
University of Hartford
It is a little known fact that industrial psychology was well established in the early years of the Soviet Union and that by the late 1930s, as a result of a political campaign, it was almost completely destroyed. This article outlines the development and the decline of Soviet industrial psychology and attempts to put these events in their political, economic, and cultural context.
The Russian Civil War that followed the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 lasted until 1921. During this period, an economic policy of War Communism was implemented, heavy industry was nationalized, and all private enterprise abolished. After the war was over, Soviet Russia struggled to rebuild its ruined economy. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders believed that rapid industrialization and modernization was a matter of life and death for the vulnerable new regime. As the New Economic Policy was implemented in 1921, ideological restrictions were relaxed and many Western ideas were adopted to facilitate economic development. Inspired by Ford and Taylor’s ideas of efficiency and scientific management, Russian workers were encouraged to develop better work habits. Western ideas of “scientific organization of labor” or NOT, according to its Russian acronym, were widely popularized among the new members of the proletariat, many of whom until recently were semi-literate peasants.
In 1921, with support of Lenin and Trotsky, Aleksei Gastev (1882–1938), an enthusiastic devotee of “Taylorization,” established the Central Institute of Labor or CIT. One of the utopian goals of Gastev’s institute was the creation of the new “Mechanized Man”—the perfect industrial worker. This was to be accomplished through increasing labor efficiency, developing new training methods, and improving industrial design. Several scientific laboratories were established to investigate psychophysical process involved in industrial production jobs. Among the scientists conducting experimental research at CIT was Isaak Shpilrein (1891–1937). Shpilrein was a Russian-born, German-educated psychologist, who studied with both Wilhelm Wundt and William Stern. Shpilrein was well familiar with Stern’s concept of psychotechnique, which, similarly to Münsterberg, he defined as application of psychological methods to solving real-life problems. Shpilrein believed that work practices grounded in psychological research (rather than Taylorism) were the way to achieving Russia’s economic objectives. Following Stern, Shpilrein was an advocate of individual difference assessment as a selection and placement method.
After leaving the Central Institute of Labor in 1922, Shpilrein became the undisputed leader of Soviet industrial psychologists. He conducted original research, kept in contact with American and European colleagues, and mentored the new generation of industrial psychologists. By late 1920s, hundreds of specialists-psychotechnics employed in a variety of laboratory and industrial settings were conducting field and lab research in selection, placement, training, accident prevention, industrial design, and fatigue reduction. In 1927, the All-Russian Society of Psychotechnics and Applied Psychophysiology was formed. By 1931, the society had 1,020 active members. Morris Viteles, the noted American psychologist, visited Russia in 1934 and observed the striking resemblance between the scope and methods of Soviet industrial psychologists and their Western colleagues. He also felt that “this progress was a tribute to the sincerity and integrity of Russian scientists who must struggle…against the intolerance of a political creed and system which denies to them the freedom of thought and opinion that is basic to real accomplishment in every field of science” (Viteles, 1935, p. 103).
This statement proves that Viteles was an astute observer. As Soviet industrial psychology was gathering momentum, the country was undergoing a political sea change. Soon after it began, however, the period of relative intellectual and scientific freedom was coming to an end. From 1928 on, following the defeat of Trotsky’s opposition, Stalin began seizing absolute power and building an isolated totalitarian society that had no more patience for dissent. The implementation of Five-Year Plans called for centralized command and control economic methods. This trend was also manifested in the increasingly vigilant ideological oversight of science and education. In the early 1930s, Soviet industrial psychologists began to feel a growing pressure to distinguish themselves from the “bourgeois” psychologists in the West. This led to some awkward moments during the 7th International Psychotechnic conference in September of 1931 in Moscow as Shpilrein criticized William Stern, who was in the audience.
Industrial psychologists’ attempts to adapt to the Marxist model of science did not save them from being repeatedly criticized in the Soviet press. Their many accomplishments forgotten, psychologists were being accused of conducting counterrevolutionary research, especially where individual differences were concerned. In 1935 Shpilrein was arrested as a “Trotskist,” sent to GULAG, and later executed. Alexi Gastev shared his fate. The final blow was delivered in the fall of 1936 in the form of the decree of the Central Committee of the Communist party that accused psychotechnics of such “perversions” as misusing psychological testing in industry and education and reliance on non-Marxist research methods. Virtually any kind of psychological assessment and individual differences research became taboo. Soon after, the Psychotechnic Society was dissolved, most research laboratories closed, and educational efforts seized. Many industrial psychologists lost their jobs in education and industry and had to find employment in other areas. Industrial psychology was not completely cleared of its counterrevolutionary label until the 1960s.
The history teaches us that when scientific progress and ideology clash, science often ends up on the losing side. In the light of the recent debate over stem-cell research, the importance of this historical lesson cannot be underestimated.
References
Fülp-Miller, R. (1962). The mind and face of Bolshevism: An examination of cultural life in Soviet Russia. New York: Harper & Row.
Lieberstein, S. (1975). Technology, work, and sociology in the USSR: The NOT movement. Technology and Culture, 16, 48–66.
Merkle, J. A. (1980). Management and ideology: The legacy of the international scientific movement. Berkley: University of California Press.
Schultz, R. S., & McFarland, R. A. (1935). Industrial psychology in the Soviet Union. Journal of Applied Psychology, 19, 265–308.
Smith, S.(1983). Taylorism rules OK?: Bolshevism, Taylorism and the technical intelligentsia in the Soviet Union, 1917–41. Radical Science, 13, 3–27.
Viteles, M. S. (1938). Industrial psychology in Russia. Occupational Psychology, 12, 85–103.
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