---
title: "Pavlovian session"
chunk: 2/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlovian_session"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:30:19.379692+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Razenkov's speech ===
Ivan Razenkov spoke after Vavilov. He emphasized the importance of opposing the "reactionary idealist trend" in physiology following the example of Trofim Lysenko who contributed to a "decisive victory" of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin's teachings over Weismannism-Morganism. Razenkov praised Pavlov's contribution to practical medicine and criticized Pavlov's students for not applying the progressive ideas of Pavlov and Ivan Sechenov to theoretical and practical medicine. He blamed Pavlov's immediate disciples and successors: L.N. Fydorov, the former director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine, Leon Orbeli, the director of the Pavlov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology, Pyotr Anokhin, the head of the Moscow Institute of Physiology, and Aleksey Speransky, the head of the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology. According to Razenkov, these scientists did not fight hard enough to defend Pavlov's materialist theory against the assaults of Western idealist physiologists, such as Sherrington, Lashley and Fulton, and Pavlov's opponents in Russia, such as Beritov. Razenkov also expressed some self-criticism for not conforming with the Party and the Government's expectation of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He informed that the Government had created a new scientific institution, the Institute of Physiology of the Higher Nervous System, to advance Pavlov's teachings, and Pavlov's faithful disciple Konstantin Bykov had been named the director of that institute. Razenkov emphasized the importance of the application of the work conducted by Bykov and his colleagues to clinical practice. He concluded his speech with a praise to the "peerless scientist, Comrade Stalin".

=== Bykov's speech ===
The next keynote speaker, Konstantin Bykov, asserted that medical science must be built on the foundation of correct humanitarian sciences in addition to biology and psychology. He praised the triumph of Michurian biology based on the philosophy of materialism. He also praised the "decisive blow struck at reactionary idealist theories" by Pavlov. Bykov divided the history of physiology and psychology into two periods: idealistic pre-Pavlovian stage and Pavlovian materialistic stage. Bykov condemned the West-European theories of the pre-Pavlovian stage which explained complex nervous phenomena based on idealistic analytical physiology. The authors of these theories failed to recognize class roots of scientific views. According to Bykov, Pavlov made a transition from analytical to synthetic thinking. He discovered a new class of reflexes, conditioned reflexes. He then developed the theory of higher nervous activity. Under the Soviet System, Pavlovian physiology could develop and flourish. However, some of Pavlov's students failed to follow his theory of higher nervous function and instead diverted to irrelevant issues. Even worse, they accepted Western theories. Bykov named Pavlov's disciples who correctly followed the theories of their teacher: Anatoly Ivanov-Smolenskiy and Ezras Asratovich Asratian. Then, he named the ones who deviated from the right path: Orbeli, Anokhin, Speransky and their coworkers. In particular, Orbeli followed idealist sensory theories of Ewald Hering and Wilhelm Wundt and even claimed that they had similarities with Pavlov's materialist theory. Orbeli's associates A.G. Ginetsinskiy and A.V. Lebedinskiy wrote a textbook for physicians "Principles of the Physiology in Man and Animals". in which they treated Pavlov's results as inferior to Western studies. In Anokhin's case, Bykov noted that, although Anoknin had deviated from Pavlov's ideas when Pavlov was still alive, there was still some hope for him and he might correct his mistakes and contribute to Soviet physiology. Bykov praised the contributions of Pavlov's ideas to medicine, emphasized the importance of following the right direction of Pavlov's teachings and resisting false Western theories. Finally, he spoke about Stalin's work that suggested improvement of science through criticism and self-criticism.

=== Ivanov-Smolenskiy's speech ===
In his long speech, Anatoly Ivanov-Smolenskiy reviewed of Pavlov's achievements in the development of the theory of higher nervous activity. According to Ivanov-Smolenskiy, Pavlov's contribution to psychiatry was "of immense value" as opposed to the failure of foreign scientists who did not achieve anything important. Ivanov-Smolenskiy then praised some Russian physiologists and condemned the others. He praised L. A. Andreev and M. K. Petrova as the followers of Pavlov's legacy. He accused Anokhin, Kupalov, and Orbeli. Anokhin was blamed for suggesting that Pavlov's theory was isolated from foreign science and needed improvement, for leaning toward Sherrington's concept of integration, and for criticizing Pavlov's conception of cortical inhibition. Kupalov was accused of distorting Pavlov's conceptualization of reflexes. Ivanov-Smolenskiy characterized Orbeli's views of the relation between subjective experience and objective reality as anti-Pavlovian because — unlike Pavlov who believed that subjective, psychological experience was superimposed on the objective experience of the environment — Orbeli separated the subjective and objective and adhered to psychophysiological parallelism. Orbeli was also blamed for diverging from Pavlov's deterministic position on the mechanisms of higher nervous activity.

== Responses ==
In the sessions that followed the keynote speeches, a number of speakers continued to attack the accused Pavlovians, and the accused confessed to their errors and expressed apologies.

=== Asratian's speech ===
Ezras Asratian spoke on June 29. According to him, several Pavlovians failed the expectations of the Communist Party and the Soviet government. In particular, they failed to pursue research in several important fields, for example cortical localization of functions and fixation of inherited conditioned reflexes in the next generation. They also failed to challenge the anti-Pavlovian theories of Western physiologists.

== Consequence ==