The Psychopharmacological Revolution in the USSR: Schizophrenia Treatment and the Thaw in Soviet Psychiatry, 1954-64.

Twentieth-century psychiatry was transformed in the 1950s and 1960s by the introduction of powerful psychopharmaceuticals, particularly Chlorpromazine (Thorazine). This paper examines the reception of Chlorpromazine in the Soviet Union and its effect on the Soviet practice of psychiatry. The drug, known in the USSR by the name Aminazine, was first used in Moscow in 1954 and was officially approved in 1955. I argue that Soviet psychiatrists initially embraced it because Aminazine enabled them to successfully challenge the Stalin-era dogma in their field (Ivan Pavlov's 'theory of higher nervous activity'). Unlike in the West, however, the new psychopharmaceuticals did not lead to deinstitutionalisation. I argue that the new drugs did not disrupt the existing Soviet system because, unlike the system in the West, the Soviets were already dedicated, at least in theory, to a model which paired psychiatric hospitals with community-based 'neuropsychiatric dispensaries.' Chlorpromazine gave this system a new lease on life, encouraging Soviet psychiatrists to more rapidly move patients from in-patient treatment to 'supporting' treatment in the community.

Banning the Soviet Lobotomy: Psychiatry, Ethics, and Professional Politics during Late Stalinism.

This article examines how lobotomy came to be banned in the Soviet Union in 1950. The author finds that Soviet psychiatrists viewed lobotomy as a treatment of "last resort," and justified its use on the grounds that it helped make patients more manageable in hospitals and allowed some to return to work. Lobotomy was challenged by psychiatrists who saw mental illness as a "whole body" process and believed that injuries caused by lobotomy were therefore more significant than changes to behavior. Between 1947 and 1949, these theoretical and ethical debates within Soviet psychiatry became politicized. Psychiatrists competing for institutional control attacked their rivals' ideas using slogans drawn from Communist Party ideological campaigns. Party authorities intervened in psychiatry in 1949 and 1950, persecuting Jewish psychiatrists and demanding adherence to Ivan Pavlov's theories. Psychiatrists' existing conflict over lobotomy was adopted as part of the party's own campaign against harmful Western influence in Soviet society.