Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:00:54.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Social Engineering and Its Discontents

The Case of the Russian Revolution

from Part II - Evolution and Involution in Social Transformations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2018

By
Sierra Campbell  and
Fathali M. Moghaddam
Edited by
Brady Wagoner ,
Fathali M. Moghaddam  and
Jaan Valsiner
Brady Wagoner
Affiliation:
Aalborg University, Denmark
Fathali M. Moghaddam
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Jaan Valsiner
Affiliation:
Aalborg University, Denmark
Get access

Summary

The 1917 revolution in Russia brought to power a communist group, led by Lenin, which was smaller in size than some other active political groups, but more ruthless and determined to monopolize power. This group shared a conviction with behaviorists in the United States: the power of the environment to re-shape human behavior. In this sense, the ‘behaviorist manifesto’ put forward by the radical behaviorist John Watson (1913) in America could have been a ‘Soviet psychology manifesto’. The Russian revolutionaries took great interest in what they saw as ‘scientific psychology’ and attempted to use it as a tool for re-shaping the behavior of Russian people. Alongside psychoanalysis, behaviorism became highly influential in the Soviet Union, as attempts were made to re-shape people to become more productive in collectives, and be less motivated by ‘individual selfishness’. Reorganization of the use of space and also transformations in the education system and symbols used in the built environment were part of this effort to construct new Soviet citizens. The limited success of the Soviets to bring about the changes they desired in mass behavior raises questions about the limits, predictability, and potential of political plasticity, particularly in relation to more recent efforts to ‘nudge’ mass behavior in particular directions.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Psychology of Radical Social Change
From Rage to Revolution
 , pp. 103 - 121
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alt, H., and Alt, E.. (1964). The New Soviet Man—His Upbringing and Character Development. New York: Bookman.Google Scholar
Defense Science Board (2002). Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on the creation of all forms of information in support of Psychological Operations (PSYOP) in time of military conflict. Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/websites/dodandmilitaryejournals/www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/psyop.pdf.Google Scholar
Figes, O. (2002). Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Figes, O. (2008). The Whisperers: Private life in Stalin's Russia. New York: Picador.Google Scholar
Figes, O., and Kolonitskii, B. (1999). Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, S., and Sonne, P. (2017). Intelligence chief defends finding Russia meddled in election. Wall Street Journal, January 6. www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-officials-to-testify-as-senate-examines-russian-hacking-1483612205.Google Scholar
Joravsky, D. (1981). Cultural revolution and the fortress mentality. Paper presented at the conference on the Origins of Soviet Culture, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies and the Wilson Center.Google Scholar
Kalat, J. W. (2017). Introduction to Psychology. 11th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.Google Scholar
Kapur, A. (2016). The return of the utopians. The New Yorker, October 3. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/03/the-return-of-the-utopians.Google Scholar
Kowalski, R. (1997). The Russian Revolution 1917–1921. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kozulin, A. (1984). Psychology in Utopia: Toward a Social History of Soviet Psychology. Boston: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E., and Hancock, J. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(24), 8788–8790.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leigland, S. (2010). Functions of research in radical behaviorism for the further development of behavior analysis. Behavior Analyst, 33(2), 207–222.Google Scholar
Lieven, D. (2015). The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1928). Psychology in Russia. Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, 35, 347–355.Google Scholar
Miller, M. A. (1998). Freud and the Bolsheviks: Psychoanalysis in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, J. A. (2000). Qualitative Studies in Psychology: Control: A History of Behavioral Psychology. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Moghaddam, F. M. (2002). The Individual and Society: A Cultural Integration. New York: Worth.Google Scholar
Moghaddam, F. M. (2005). Great Ideas in Psychology. Oxford: Oneworld.Google Scholar
Moghaddam, F. M. (2016). The road to actualized democracy: A psychological exploration. Niels Bohr Lecture in Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark.Google Scholar
Monk, R. (2000). Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness. London: Random House.Google Scholar
Razran, G. (1965). Russian physiologists’ psychology and American experimental psychology: A historical and systematic collation and a look into the future. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 42–64.Google Scholar
Shubin, A. (2001). Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik dictatorship. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 39(6), 41.Google Scholar
Skinner, B. F. (1948/1962). Walden Two. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stites, R. (1988). Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, K. (2004). Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H., and Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Todes, D. (1995). Pavlov and the Bolsheviks. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 17(3), 379–341.Google Scholar
Trotsky, L. (1906/2010). The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects. With an introduction by Nichol, L.. Seattle, WA: Red Letter Press.Google Scholar
Trotsky, L. (1930/2008). History of the Russian Revolution. Chicago: Haymarket Books.Google Scholar
Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as a behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20, 158–177.Google Scholar
Wood, A. (2003). The Origins of the Russian Revolution 1861–1917. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×