The reasons for the Pavlovsk session (eyewitness notes)

More than seventy years have passed after the so -called Pavlovsk session - a joint session of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, held in the Moscow House of Scientists from June 28 to July 4, 1950. For a long time, none of its active participants are alive. Moreover, it is possible that I am the only living witness of this session. I remember well how we, together with my friend Levon Chaiykhanyan (later he became a famous physiologist and biophysicist), just graduating from the third course of the biological and soil faculty of Moscow State University, managed to make their way into the house of scientists in order to listen to what was happening there. In this note, I only want to share my student memories to a very small extent. Its main goal is to discuss the issue of what was the main reason for the Pavlovsk session.

First of all, it must be emphasized that although the speakers and most of the speakers tried to pretend that we are talking about high science, in reality the Pavlovsk session had nothing to do with science. It was a purely political-ideological event. It was a direct continuation of the infamous August session of the vasculin, held in 1948. Therefore, I will start with her.

The main goal of the Vaskhnilov session was the liquidation of genetics in the Soviet Union. Before the session ended, the order of the Minister of Higher Education “On the state of teaching biological disciplines at universities and measures to strengthen biological faculties by qualified personnel of mychurin biologists” was issued. According to this order, leading geneticist scientists were expelled from universities, and genetics departments were actually eliminated, classical textbooks on Darwinism and genetics were removed from the libraries, etc. Preparations of personnel and research work in the field of genetics in the USSR were discontinued for many years.

A lot of books and articles are written about the Vascin session [1–6]. To my surprise, most of them are so demonized by Lysenko’s name that it seems that it was he who was the main organizer of the session. Meanwhile, as stated at that time, “the inspirer and organizer of all our victories” was not Lysenko, but Stalin. Answering someone's question, Lysenko said that his report was approved by the Central Committee of the Party. After that, the official name of his report was as follows: "approved by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) report by Academician T. D. Lysenko" On the situation in biological science "." Most people who were guided in bilingualism of that time understood that the words “Central Committee” were meant Stalin. I must note that at the same time I am in no way trying to justify Lysenko and his minions and downplay their role in the defeat of biological science.

The systematic campaign aimed at destroying genetics began not in 1948, but at least in the second half of the 1930s. Then such famous genetics as Georgy Dmitrievich Karpechenko, Israel Iosifovich Agol, Solomon Grigoryevich Levit, Grigory Andreyevich Levitsky, Georgy Meister, Georgy Adamovich Nadson and others were arrested or killed or killed in prison. In 1939, the VII International Congress of Genetics was supposed to take place in Moscow under the chairmanship of academician Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, but the Soviet government refused to hold it. Congress took place in Edinburgh, where none of the Soviet scientists were allowed, including its chairman. In 1940, Vavilov was arrested; He died of hunger in a Saratov prison in 1943. Another outstanding geneticist Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov was subjected to all persecutions. So, at the beginning of 1940, the article “Non -place in the Academy of Sciences” appeared in the newspaper Pravda, a significant part of which was devoted to Koltsov’s sheltration. The article was signed by academicians Bach and Keller, a professor at a Koshtyan and six more candidates of sciences, of whom I know only the surname of Nedin (“famous” later one of Lysenko’s closest associates). Judging by the fact that the article was formed by a political denunciation, one might think that these candidates of science were its authors. How and why academics and professor Koshtyants got into co -authors, you can only guess. Koltsov was removed from the post of director of the Institute of Experimental Biology created by him, a commission was created in the USSR Academy of Sciences to verify the work of the institute and its director. As a result, the heart could not stand it, and N.K. Koltsov died from an extensive heart attack in December 1940.

In parallel with the destruction of personnel (I named only a few of the most famous names, but a lot of ordinary researchers were arrested or lost) there was an ideological discredit of genetics as a science. In 1939, the magazine “under the banner of Marxism” published by the Central Committee of the All -Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks organized a discussion on the problems of genetics. The fact that this discussion was carried out not in a scientific institution, but in the editorial office of this kind of magazine, from the very beginning gave it a political coloring. At this meeting with speeches, shifting genetics, not only Lysenko and his minions performed, but also the famous party ideologists of that time of Mitin and Yudin. In particular, speaking at this meeting with the final word, the editor -in -chief of Mitin's journal denied the existence of Gene as a structural unit of heredity. He said the following: "With a metaphysical from the beginning to the end, the theory of Gene < ... > must end." And further: “It is time for us to finally develop our Soviet genetic science to such an extent that it towers above the level of science of Western European countries and the United States as high as our advanced socialist system over the countries of capitalism” [7, p. 169]. Like this! There is no generally accepted science of genetics recognizing the existence of genes, but there are two genetics - Soviet and capitalist. Subsequently, for this kind, the wordblood of Mitin was awarded the I. I. Mechnikov award, which is awarded "for outstanding works in the field of immunology, comparative and experimental pathology and large scientific achievements in the field of biology and biomedicine."

One might think that if not for the Great Patriotic War, an analogue of the Vaskhnilov session with its organizational conclusions would not take place in 1948, but earlier. Why did Stalin hit genetics with such force, which, it would seem, is an experimental science and has a very distant attitude to the problems of ideology?

I’m not sure that I myself could have thought of an answer to this question, which now seems to me the most correct. He was given by a geneticist, the Minister of Higher Education of the Stoletov (which can be read in the book of S. E. Shnol [6]). As I was told, Stoletov, speaking at one of the meetings, said approximately the following. One of the main tasks of the party (read - Stalin) is the education of a new type of person. What exactly Stalin wanted to see a “new type of man”, he clearly formulated in a speech at a reception in honor of the participants in the Victory Parade, where he named Soviet people who defeated fascism, “cogs”. Apparently, this was one of Stalin's innermost desires - to turn the entire population of the country into the obedient screws of the state machine he created. However, as Stoletov said, this task was in direct contradiction with the existing scientific point of view, which claimed that the nature of the person (including his behavior) - both the biological appearance of the whole and individual individuals - is largely determined by genetically and to a much lesser extent dependent on education. Since Stalin was not going to abandon his task, he decided to abandon the science of genetics. Well, how can I not recall the immortal Saltykov-Shchedrin and his city of Zhupov, where one of the mayors “burned the gymnasium and abolished science”!

As already mentioned, Stalin himself edited Lysenko's report. In his article, V. N. Soifer gives several excerpts from the report illustrating which edits were made to the text [ 8 ]. I will give two examples (words and paragraphs written by Stalin are highlighted by fat font):

“The well -known provisions of lamarkism, which recognize the active role of the conditions of the external environment in the formation of a living body and the heredity of acquired properties as opposed to the metaphysics of neo -Darwinism (Weismanism), are by no means vicious, but, on the contrary, are completely true and quite scientific . <...> It is impossible to deny that in the dispute, which was erupted at the beginning of the 20th century, between the Weismanists and the Lamarckists, the latter were closer to the truth, because they defended the interests of science, while the Weismaists hit mysticism and broke with science . "

Why in the middle of the 20th century Stalin decided to revive Lamarkism - the teaching that biology has long abandoned? The answer to this question is clear from the above texts. Firstly, because, according to the lamarkists, the environment, including education, plays a direct role in the development and evolution of living organisms. Meanwhile, according to Darwinism, the environment does not have a direct effect on the evolution of organisms, but its effect is mediated through natural selection. Secondly, because lamarkism, in contrast to Darwinism and genetics, which is called Weismanism, recognizes the possibility of inheritance of acquired features. This opened the prospect not only to educate the existing generation, but also to create a breed of people of a “new type”.

The following was the question of how to educate a “new type of person”. To this end, it was decided to adopt the ideas of the great physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and his conventional reflexes discovered by him. As in the case of the Vaskhnilov session, Stalin personally led the organization of the Pavlovsk session. In the already mentioned article, Soifer publishes his letter to the head of the science department of the Central Committee of the All -Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Yu. A. Zhdanov, where he recommends as the main speaker Bykov: “Academician Bykov should be considered the most faithful and intelligent follower of Pavlov . True, he seems to be somewhat timid and does not like to “ climb into a fight”. But he must be supported in every possible way and, if he has enough courage, it is necessary to arrange a matter so that he climbs into a fight, explaining to him that without a general fight, Pavlov’s great work cannot be defended ” [ 8 ]. I learned that Stalin edited the report of Bykov for a long time (to “Perestroika and Glasses”) from Vasily Lavrentievich Merkulov, my father’s friend 1 .

Here I want to make a small digression and say a few words about this wonderful person (in detail about V. L. Merkulov, you can read in the book of S.E. Reznik [9]). They made friends with my father when they studied in graduate school with Alexei Alekseevich Ukhtomsky. After graduating from graduate school, Merkulov worked in the Laboratory of Psychophysiology of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Experimental Medicine. The laboratory was led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Nikitin, a former employee of Pavlov. In 1937, the arrests began in the Nikitin laboratory, and Merkulov was called in the NKVD, where they demanded to talk about anti -Soviet conversations in the laboratory. Since he categorically refused to cooperate with the bodies, he was also arrested and spent almost twenty years in the camps. After the liberation and rehabilitation of Merkulov, he returned to Leningrad and began to engage in the history of physiology. When he came to Moscow, he often stayed with us. Once he said that in connection with his work, he received access to the Bykov archive, where he discovered the original version of his report with Stalin's edits.

Having vulgarizing, and sometimes falsifying the works of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the speakers of the bulls and Ivanov-Smolensk, as well as the majority of those who performed at the Pavlovsk session, tried to prove that the entire highest nervous activity of animals and humans is reduced to a set of unconditional and conditioned reflexes. As Ivanov-Smolensky claimed in his report, “the entire evolution of nervous activity is carried out, according to Pavlov, through unconditional and conditional ties” ([10], p. 55). This kind of statements were the leitmotif of the session and inevitably led to the vulgarization of the heritage of I.P. Pavlov, since his scientific views on the physiology of higher nervous activity, of course, were not so primitive.

The connection of the Pavlovsk session with the preceding session of the vasculin was manifested not only in the fact that the latter was commemorated in the introductory word of the vice-president of the Academy of Medical Sciences Razenkov, two main reports and a number of other performances. The same Ivanov-Smolensky claimed that Pavlov was an opponent of classical genetics. He said: “The Pavlovsky direction facilitates the final outcome of erroneous concepts in the teachings of heredity closely related to the names of Weisman, Mendel and Morgan” ([10], p. 66). Ivanov-Smolensky shamelessly slandered his teacher, because he knew well that in the territory of the Biological Station created by I.P. Pavlov in the village of Koltushi near Leningrad, on his initiative, busts of Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov, Rene Descartes and founder of the scientific genetics of Gregor Mendel were established. The most clearly the connection of the Pavlov and Vaskhnilov sessions was manifested in the fact that both Razenkov and both speakers tried to attribute to Pavlov the Lamarkist point of view on the possibility of inheritance of conditioned reflexes. To illustrate, I will quote Bykov’s report: “Pavlov expressed an idea and made the first attempts to prove that conditional reflexes, being individually acquired, can turn into unconditional in the process of phylogenesis” ([10], p. 17). I will dwell on this issue a little more.

In 1913, Pavlov really wrote: “It can be accepted that some of the conventional newly educated reflexes later turn into heredity into unconditional” ([11], p. 89). The fact is that in the early 1920s, his employee N.P. Studentsov examined the inheritance of conditioned reflexes in mice and seemed to show that they were accelerating from generation to generation. However, in conversations with Pavlov, N.K. Koltsov and Thomas Morgan doubted the reliability of these results. Therefore, Ivan Petrovich instructed another employee to repeat this work, and he did not confirm Studsov's data. As a result, in a letter published in the Pravda newspaper on May 13, 1927, Pavlov noted: “Initial experiments with the hereditary transmission of conditioned reflexes in white mice are still not confirmed by improving the methodology and with more strict control, so that I should not be ranked for the authors standing for this program.” Later, a number of attempts were made to experimentally check the possibility of inheritance of conditional reflexes, which invariably ended to no avail. This was talked about shortly before the Pavlovsk session in one of his speeches by Leon Abgarovich Orbeli, then director of the physiological institute named after I.P. Pavlova. All these facts, of course, were well known to both the speakers and most of the speakers. However, at this session they were least interested in the facts and the good name of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov.

As the main “opponents” of the Pavlovsk teaching, academics Leon Abgarovich Orbeli and Ivan Solomonovich Beritashvili, Pyotr Kuzmich Anokhin, as well as academician Lina Solomonovna Stern, who were arrested as a member of the Jewish anti -fascist committee more than a year before the session. It should be noted that Orbeli, Beritashvili and Anokhin studied various aspects of the activity of the nervous system and their views on the mechanisms of the brain did not always coincide. Why were they enrolled in the Antipavlovites? Medicuing about this was expressed by one of the oldest participants in the session, Nikolai Apollinarievich Rozhansky, who said in his speech that there was no more similarity between these three scientists than between an apple, a wheel and Chichikov, in which there is some roundness (it is necessary to explain that after that Rozhansky was also enrolled in the Antipavlovites). I think that the respected Nikolai Appolinarievich was not entirely right. Between Orbeli, Beritashvili and Anokhin there was one important similarity: they all did not agree that the complexity of animal behavior and even more so a person is determined only by a set of unconditional and conditional reflexes.

Unlike two other scientists who were especially cruel criticism, I. S. Beritashvili was absent at the session. His student Nikolai Nikolaevich Dzizishvili, who tried in every possible way tried to protect his teacher. I can’t remember what P.K. Anokhin said: Perhaps this was one of the few meetings when I could not get into the house of scientists. However, I well remember the performance of L. A. Orbeli. He held on with great dignity and demonstrated the absurdity of the charges against him. Orbeli was supported by his students Alexander Grigoryevich Ginetsinsky and Grigory Viktorovich Gershuni. Однако всё это было напрасным метанием бисера. Все три выступления прерывались выкриками с мест, а затем были «гневно осуждены» как многими последующими ораторами, так и обоими докладчиками в их заключительных словах.

Не могу не сказать о выступлении одного из старейших сотрудников Павлова — Петра Степановича Купалова, который мужественно отстаивал мысль о том, что высшая нервная деятельность не сводится к набору безусловных и условных рефлексов. Наиболее яростная реакция последовала со стороны Иванова-Смоленского: в заключительном слове он заявил, что Купалов отходит от строго детерминистических представлений, объясняя некоторые акты поведения животных как результат их внутренних переживаний, выражение их субъективного мира, как внешнее проявление их чувств, эмоций и т. п. Сдается мне, что сегодня эти слова звучат как похвала в адрес Купалова, но в устах Иванова-Смоленского это было тяжкое обвинение в ревизии павловского учения и идеализме.

Выступления других участников сессии были весьма однообразны. Некоторые ораторы сквозь зубы признавали свои мнимые ошибки, тогда как большинство выступавших состязались в вульгаризации научного наследия И. П. Павлова, а также в том, кто сильнее и оскорбительнее выскажется по поводу так называемых антипавловцев. Всё это выглядело достаточно неприглядно, особенно если учесть, что добрая половина «защитников» Павлова либо учились у Орбели, либо были обязаны ему своим карьерным ростом, включая основного докладчика Быкова, который в 1946 году был избран академиком по инициативе Орбели.

Три выступления особенно врезались мне в память.

Прежде всего — речь Гращенкова, заявившего, что критикуемые на сессии антипавловцы являются пятой колонной 2 , а с пятой колонной следует разговаривать в другом месте — т. е. в МГБ. Иначе говоря, этот человек призывал не к научной дискуссии, а к физической расправе над своими коллегами.

Недалеко от Гращенкова ушел Асратян, который порадовался, что больше нет женщины, отравляющей «наш чистый воздух» (наверное, правильнее было бы сказать «мой»). Хотя он не назвал имени, все хорошо понимали, что имелась в виду Л. С. Штерн. Это звучало совершенно кощунственно — не думаю, что он действительно считал Лину Соломоновну англо-американским агентом, в действительности его реплика имела другую подоплеку. В свое время между Штерн и Асратяном возникли научные разногласия, и он был рад, что из-за ареста Лины Соломоновны эти разногласия разрешились в его пользу. К сожалению, мне недоступен полный стенографический отчет Павловской сессии — только тексты докладов и заключительных слов докладчиков, поэтому я не знаю, сохранил ли Асратян, будучи членом редакционной коллегии стенографического отчета, эту реплику в тексте своего выступления или предпочел скрыть ее от потомков. В любом случае я отлично помню, что на сессии она прозвучала.

Автором третьего выступления, которое я хорошо запомнил по чисто личным причинам, был Бирюков. Он начинал свою научную карьеру одновременно с моим отцом на кафедре физиологии Ростовского медицинского института, возглавляемой Н. А. Рожанским. До Павловской сессии они сохраняли достаточно хорошие отношения, и Бирюков, приезжая в Москву, бывал у нас в гостях. Однажды он зашел к нам после доклада на какой-то конференции, удостоившегося похвалы от Орбели. Довольный Бирюков время от времени повторял: «Сам, сам благословил». Когда на сессии он, стремясь попасть в число «первых учеников» 3 , особенно усердно пинал ногами Леона Абгаровича, я слушал и вспоминал эту реплику: «Сам, сам благословил».

Наконец, не могу не упомянуть заключительное слово основного докладчика, который унизился до антисемитской выходки в адрес Евгения Борисовича Бабского, позволившего себе высказать критическое замечание по поводу учебника физиологии под редакцией Быкова. Эта выходка как нельзя лучше иллюстрирует уровень «научной» аргументации выступавших.

Естественно, за сессией последовали организационные выводы. Here are some of them.

Л. А. Орбели был отстранен от должности директора Физиологического института им. Павлова, а также от всех других должностей. Ему оставили только маленькую лабораторию в Естественно-научном институте им. Лесгафта. Лишь в 1955 году, после смерти Сталина, у Орбели появилась нормальная лаборатория, на базе которой был создан Институт эволюционной физиологии им. И. М. Сеченова. Вслед за Орбели были уволены оба заместителя директора Физиологического института — А. Г. Гинецинский и А. М. Алексанян. Гинецинский вынужден был уехать в Новосибирск, где фактически создал кафедру физиологии в Медицинском институте; он вернулся в Ленинград в 1955 году и стал заместителем директора Института эволюционной физиологии. Алексанян уехал в Ереван, где возглавил Институт физиологии имени Л. А. Орбели. И. С. Бериташвили был смещен с поста директора Института физиологии Грузинской ССР, который занимал с момента образования института. Н. А. Рожанский лишился своей кафедры в Ростовском медицинском институте, которую возглавлял с 1921 года.

Зато пошли в гору активисты Павловской сессии. Место директора Института им. Павлова занял Быков. Бирюков стал директором Ленинградского института экспериментальной медицины. Асратяна назначили директором созданного в Москве Института высшей нервной деятельности. Через два года его сменил на этом посту Иванов-Смоленский, а спустя восемь лет директорство опять перешло к Асратяну. Не были обойдены милостями и другие борцы с «антипавловцами».

В заключение я расскажу об одном из результатов Павловской сессии. В лаборатории, где я проработал большую часть моей жизни, была молодая сотрудница. Она занималась научной журналистикой и, возможно, поэтому заинтересовалась работами И. П. Павлова. Потом она с удивлением говорила мне: «Я ничего не понимаю. Я считала, что Павлов — это кто-то вроде Лысенко, а он, оказывается, был настоящим ученым».

Я думаю, что, если не считать исковерканных судеб многих людей, преждевременных инфарктов и других заболеваний, вызванных постсессионным стрессом, это самый печальный итог Павловской сессии. В глазах последующих поколений биологов она поставила Ивана Петровича Павлова, выдающегося ученого, одного из двух российских лауреатов Нобелевской премии по физиологии и медицине 4 , в один ряд с научным шарлатаном Лысенко. There is something to think about.

Юрий Аршавский,
doct. Biol. наук, Калифорнийский университет

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8. Сойфер В. Н. Бить наверняка. Сталин против генетики // ТрВ-Наука. № 257 от 3 июля 2018 года.
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1 Аршавский Илья Аркадьевич (1903–1996) — физиолог, ученик А. А. Ухтомского. К его чести, он не запятнал себя выступлением на Павловской сессии, хотя до нее многократню вступал в полемику с Л. А. Орбели и П.К. Анохиным (см. ниже), что, к сожалению, сказывалось и на личных взаимоотношениях.

2 Сейчас это словосочетание, как мне кажется, почти вышло из обихода, но в то время оно широко употреблялось как синоним внутреннего врага.

3 См. пьесу Евгения Шварца «Дракон».

4 Нобелевская премия была присуждена Павлову за его исследование пищеварения. Приведу только один пример, чтобы показать, каким авторитетом пользуются сегодня в мире работы Павлова в области изучения физиологии мозга. В 1999 году в США двумя известными учеными была опубликована книга «Память: От разума к молекулам», переизданная в 2003 году [12]. В первой главе, посвященной истории изучения памяти, помещены портреты исследователей, которые, по мнению авторов, внесли наибольший вклад в эту область науки. Только один человек удостоился портрета дважды — это И. П. Павлов.