Soviet Russia killed behaviorism in 1923

Plus: was Skinner a Marxist?

Parallel discovery is a fascinating concept that comports well with Skinnerian philosophy. The environment sets the stage for a breakthrough – an idea, an invention, a discovery – and at least two people independently end up with something eerily similar. Famously, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace developed a similar theory of natural selection around the same time, in part due to reading similar sources. But perhaps the cultural setting was about more than reading material, because publishing these ideas in decades past could have put them each at risk. That is, rather than a “great man” theory, it is a matter of cultural selection. 

Skinner himself was influenced heavily by Darwin and Pavlov. But prior to Skinner, John B. Watson laid claim to behaviorism in the early 1900s. And in a case of parallel discovery, Emmanuil Enchmen (sometimes anglicized “Yenchmen”) of the Soviet Union briefly inspired a rabid fanbase with a behaviorism he termed the Theory of the New Biology. The Soviet Union officially suppressed “Enchmenism,” turning the eponym into an insult. Once at the forefront of behaviorism, parallel discovery artificially ground to a halt in the Soviet Union. 

This was recounted in a 1995 article in The Psychological Record by George Windholz, a Pavlov scholar, and virtually nothing else about Enchmen has been written (in English) for thirty years. (The edition of TPR in which the article itself appears is inexplicably missing from the official TPR website but is available from other sources).

Pavlov’s work was groundbreaking and internationally recognized, earning him a Nobel Prize. It was especially impactful in the Soviet Union, where his renown made him untouchable  – the only living Nobel Prize-winning Russian could not easily be banished to the gulag, even when he criticized the government. Copycat labs sprung up, contemporaneously reported by Razran, effectively all pursuing questions of reflex. A scientist studying salivation in dogs was essentially a celebrity. Similarly, Bill Nye will never be banned from Twitter. (In a parallel case of parallel discovery, Vladimir Bekhterev developed a similar theory to Pavlov).

Pavlov’s findings also easily comport with philosophical positivism, a viewpoint that concerns itself only with observable facts. We don’t have to consider what the dog is thinking or feeling; we can learn about the animal through observable behavior. Pavlov himself disagreed with contemporaries who attempted to anthropomorphize the dog – describing the salivation response in terms of feelings, memories, or thoughts within the dog. Positivism has roots in Descartes’ seminal writings in the 1600s (“I think, therefore I am” is a statement of positivism), but modern positivism gained popularity in the mid-1800s with the writings of Comte, at precisely the same time as the first publications regarding evolution. Science writ large became about observable, measurable evidence.

By the early 1900s in Russia, evolution and positivism had both been popular and influential approximately one generation earlier. Animal reflex was a new but immensely influential and popular homegrown scientific industry. The ideas had been accepted and internalized by the mainstream. Culturally, the stage is set.

Enchmen’s Theory of the New Biology is almost comically a synthesis of evolution, positivism, and Pavlov’s then-new findings. It’s interesting to note that Enchmen personally knew Pavlov, was directly inspired by visiting Pavlov’s lab in-person, and they were at one point good friends. With the benefit of hindsight, foundational aspects of his theory are perhaps overly Pavlovian; particularly, he considers all human movement to be “reflex”:

Life is a word that does not mean animation at all, but a special kind of movement, namely, reflex movements, and nothing more. Reflex movements differ from other kinds of movement found in nature only in their greater complexity.

Of course Skinner separates operant and respondent behavior, and this distinction tends to persist to this day. To Enchmen, human speech, walking, and lung actions are “reflex,” or chains of reflex movements. Bekhterev proposed a similar understanding of reflex. Interestingly, Enchmen correctly notes that all atoms are in motion, meaning that all matter has “movement.” Living things have reflex, which is more complicated movement, which he also terms spatial. Additionally he notes in himself non-spatial phenomena, such as “experiencing joy.” This is distinctly Pavlovian; Pavlov noted that physical movement extends through time and space, while mental activity extends only through time. (Enchmen later uses synonyms for spatial and non-spatial, calling them “material” and “mental” respectively.) Non-spatial mental phenomena is approached with extreme, Descartesian caution by Enchmen, who notes that while he experiences non-spatial phenomena within himself, he could never be sure that it exists within another person (though he assumes it must be true). This we might term methodological behaviorism. 

In 1913, he wrote (but apparently did not publish) “Psychology before the tribunal of reborn positivism,” and the next year participated in the Russian civil war, derailing his scientific and philosophical work. His first publication was 18 Theses on the Theory of the New Biology in 1920, reportedly a pamphlet (an online sale lists it as 55 pages, while the Google Books entry says 33), followed thereafter by a short book, “The Theory of New Biology and Marxism” in 1923. 

And now is as good a time as any to note: Enchmen was a committed, dedicated Marxist. At the time in the Soviet Union, it was not always safe not to be a Marxist in public, but by every account Enchmen appeared completely dedicated to the cause. Evidence for this assertion includes paeans to Marxist philosophy within his published writing; fighting for the Soviet Union in war; convincing Pavlov not to defect; and occupying minor leadership positions in the Soviet bureaucracy. Enchmen continued to support Marxism, never speaking out against the philosophy – even when the Soviet regime officially spoke out against his.

In an era of the internet, and from the perspective of an American, it is hard to imagine what Soviet state suppression looked like in the early 1900s. Enchmen, perhaps due to his aforementioned commitment to Marxism and friendship with Pavlov, was never arrested, or executed, or “fallen out of a window.” But in some ways, he was erased. A senior Soviet propagandist wrote scathing criticisms of Enchmen’s work. This was a signal, directly from the government: like and subscribe at your own risk. 

How can it be that Enchmen considered his works Marxist, while other Marxists considered it worth destroying? Without getting into the weeds, Marxism involves firm philosophical perspectives, and considers them foundational to understanding history. This includes interpretations of human behavior through a Marxist lens. Enchmen’s argument was essentially: once the revolution comes, we won’t need Marxist philosophy. It seems that his critics heard only the second part of that statement.

Nikolai Bukharin, who was an influential Marxist propagandist, in 1923 wrote an acerbic cri-de-coeur entitled Enchmeniada: on the issue of mental degeneration. This was not, shall we say, an unbiased examination of Enchmen’s philosophy. It insults Enchmen’s writing style, his intelligence and mental health, his commitment to Marxism, and eventually even his actual philosophy. While Enchmen’s ideas veer from quite smart to extremely crackpot, the strident and insulting tone of Bukharin could leave a reader rooting for Enchmen. It does appear that Enchmen fired back in a similar tone, perhaps not helping his case. (Fired back being metaphorical, despite the fact that Bukharin was accused of being a traitor and executed in 1938).

But as we’ve alluded to earlier, this writing from Bukharin was the canary in the coal mine: the State was shutting down “Enchmenism.” The burgeoning following of university students that Enchmen had attracted was enough to spark an official suppression of his life’s work. According to Windholz, Enchmen reports that Stalin himself shut down his writing with an oblique threat. This, despite the fact that Enchmen had a brilliant-yet-impossible theory for bringing about the perfect communist revolution.

A barrier to a true communist revolution, in Enchmen’s estimation, is language. He believes that, in some method that may be included in his lost writings (or not – he is at times somewhat vague), people will take up his ideas and lose their ability to use language, and even to lose what we understand as “consciousness.” Without language, people will lose the ability to sort humans into classes, rendering everyone equal, and bringing about a truly perfect communist society.

We’re sorry to inform you, dear Reader, that this did not happen. It really doesn’t make sense. But also…it’s quite brilliant. Understanding the basics of relational frame theory, language does lend itself to the type of sorting and classifying that Enchmen thinks it does. And if humans truly lost language, human society would logically come to resemble animal society. While there are some animal societies with hierarchies (gorillas, chimpanzees), some animal societies are immensely successful without a hierarchy. In particular, the Argentine ant is one of the most successful organisms in the world due to cooperation between colonies.

What would humans have if not speech? Uh…analyzers. Windholz remarks that an early critic of Enchmen, Kornilov, noted that these are just “postulates.” A postulate is a basis for an argument – a statement. And yes, that’s what a reader concludes from reading Enchmen. We won’t have language, but we will internalize statements? It almost seems to be missing a step: 1) adopt analyzers, 3) language is erased, 4) perfect communist utopia.

Echmenism was forcibly halted, and though the philosophy was a mixed bag, it appears to have stunted development of a Russian behaviorist science altogether. Razran’s previously mentioned reporting on Soviet labs reveals a persistent interest in respondent behavior, with few instances of operant research. Certainly the most popular and influential behaviorist ideas were, for a time, American.

By far the most influential behaviorist in America was B.F. Skinner. His Walden Two was a relatively popular fiction depicting an ideal community harnessing the principles of behavior. People at times misunderstood Skinner’s philosophy, but it was all there in black and white. He printed exactly what he hoped the ideal community would look like, using his science of behavior. And it looked suspiciously…Marxist.

Skinner did not consider himself a Marxist. Somewhat incongruously, he refers to “himself” (rather, his characters who represent his philosophy) in the 1985 sequel to Walden Two, News From Nowhere, as an anarchist:

And he compares this philosophy favorably to Marxism:

In What is wrong with daily life in the Western world?, a title almost too on-the-nose:

This is just…Marx. Later in the article, that’s to whom Skinner attributes the idea. But Skinner was an American, and he made some of these assertions during a time where it was dangerous to be a Marxist, or a communist, or a socialist, in America. Some behaviorists were supportive of a Marxist perspective, particularly James Holland (who co-wrote a book with Skinner) and Jerome Ulman. But in contemporary sources, such as letters-to-the-editor, Alexandra Rutherford reports that people were just as likely to call Skinner a “despot.” Unbelievably, Skinner put forth Marxist ideas (eliminate money, the nuclear family is not necessary, work for the common good) and was rejected merely for trying to tell people what to do.

Skinner wanted to radically remake society. The pigeon is never wrong; neither is the human. Changing the environment in exactly the right way would change the organism. But a scientist first and foremost, he would discard that which was not useful.

Marx wanted to radically remake society. The problems with society are not in the people, but in the organization (capitalism, but also feudalism). Changing the organization of society in exactly the right way would improve the lives of all people. Marx himself was not involved with Enchmen, but as for Stalin or Bukharin: they would not discard any portion of their philosophy. If science disagreed with their philosophy, they would discard science.

What is there to make of Enchmen, and Enchmenism? Razran recounts his version in the final paragraph of a short article:

Or one of the few scholarly items written after the year 2000 about Enchmen, a Russian-language article for which we can only locate the following summary: 

In the early 1920-s the Soviet scientist and party functionary E.S. Enchmen (1891-1966) put forward an original conception which he called "a theory of new biology". Analysis proves that in its origin and content the "theory of new biology" is not so much a scientific or philosophical as an ideological phenomenon. In the context of the Soviet psychology of the 1920-s Enchmen's phenomenon should be regarded as a manifestation of the destructive effect of Marxist ideology on the psychological science.

Enchmenism was ahead of its time in 1923, but perhaps behind the times by 1949. On purely philosophical grounds, Russia may have stifled scientific innovation.

Postscript: reviving Enchmen

Windholz did some incredible reporting, getting his hands on Enchmen’s work from private archives in Russia – recall that this work was suppressed and hard to find. 

We were able to find references to Enchmen in Razran’s work, as well as Joravsky, through the Internet Archive and HathiTrust. Razran’s reporting on Russian labs was misattributed to the journal editor and therefore does not surface in a search; we may have found it due to a citation elsewhere. These were two authors who referenced Enchmen briefly in their extensive works about Soviet Russia.

In searching “Yenchmen,” we came across an original Russian-language printing of “The Theory of the New Biology and Marxism.” Of course, it’s written in Russian. Using optical character recognition (OCR), Google can translate a PDF file for free. However, it appeared to simply print the English translation directly on top of the Cyrillic, rendering the whole thing unreadable.

The Internet Archive also allows downloading of a plain text version of the PDF, itself using OCR, which resulted in a plain text document of Cyrillic – running this document through translation puts out what appears on its face to be an accurate translation (comparing the writing to the language quoted by Windholz, Razran, and Joravsky). The translation is available here.

Bukharin was easier to find, considering his status as state mouthpiece. Russians have posted some of his works in plain text to strange literary websites, which can be directly translated. Additionally, Russians still use LiveJournal and posted scans of official Soviet propaganda.

All recent Russian-language commentary on Enchmen appears to essentially repeat the details of the Bukharin conflict, probably due to the availability of Bukharin’s side of the argument, with some skepticism towards Bukharin’s account (look for yourself by pasting “Енчмен” into your search bar). Here is an example of a recent Russian-language article that presents the story in depth. Given the challenges with surveying the Russian-language corners of the internet, this is a surface-level impression and may not capture the experience of a native speaker.