Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 50, no.

4,
July–August 2012, pp. 42–63.
© 2012 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com
ISSN 1061–0405 (print)/ISSN 1558–0415 (online)
DOI: 10.2753/RPO1061-0405500402

E.Iu. Zavershneva

Investigating L.S. Vygotsky’s

Manuscript “The Historical Meaning
of the Crisis in Psychology”

This article discusses the problems involved in dating the manuscript of

“The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology,” which is housed in
the Vygotsky family archive, and its connection to other works by Vygotsky
(Pedagogical Psychology, “The Science of Psychology,” “The Social Trans-
formation of Man”). Vygotsky’s personal notes on the problem of the crisis
in psychology are also examined.
The foundational work, “The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychol-
ogy” (HMCP), a “blueprint for the future of psychology” (Leontiev, 1990,
p. 39), remains one of Vygotsky’s most quoted works. No study dedicated
to the problem of the crisis (which psychologists label as “permanently rel-
evant”) fails to cite this classical text. Nevertheless, no information about
the original manuscript and the extent to which it matches the published text
of HMCP has been available. Our study attempts to remedy this deficiency
and offers preliminary answers to a number of historical, biographical, and
textual questions.
The monograph “The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology”
was first published in 1982 as part of the six-volume collected works of

English translation © 2012 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text © “Voprosy
psikhologii.” “Issledovanie rukopisi L.S. Vygotskogo ‘Istoricheskii smysl psikho-
logicheskogo krizisa,’” Voprosy psikhologii, 2009, no. 6, pp. 119–37. The author
thanks G.L. Vygodskaia and E.E. Kravtsova as well as T.A. Dmitrieva, for enabling
her research in the Vygotsky family archive.
Translated by Nora Favorov.

42
 july–august 2012 43

L.S. Vygotsky (Vygotsky, 1982). Our comparison of this publication with

the original manuscript uncovers a number of discrepancies. Even a casual
reader will easily detect obvious absurdities that could not have been in the
original: references to works by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Ivan Pavlov, and
other authors that were not published until the second half of the twentieth
century, careless errors (such as the mixing up of Immanuel Kant and Auguste
Comte), among other oversights that would have been entirely out of char-
acter for Vygotsky. Harder to detect errors include the removal of quotation
marks from quotations and ideologically motivated or merely careless word
substitutions (“abbreviated nature” [kratkost’] in place of “precarious nature”
[shatkost’]; “materialistic” [materialisticheskii] in place of “mythological”
[mifologicheskii], changes to the structure of the text (paragraphization),
and so on. Later editions of HMCP did not eliminate these errors, since they
simply reprinted the text of the original collected works.
Unlike many of Vygotsky’s other major works, the manuscript of HMCP
was never prepared for publication by its author and languished in the ar-
chives for more than fifty years. This foundational but somewhat uneven
work differs in structure and even tone from Vygotsky’s other works (as
B.G. Meshcheriakov has pointed out, it is written in a style more typical of
the author’s personal notes). Given this set of circumstances, the manuscript
should have been carefully studied before it was published (an effort that,
as far as we know, was never undertaken in the 1970s or 1980s). Finally,
not a single scholar of Vygotsky’s works has commented on the presence of
credible references within HMCP to publications that came out in 1929 (by
André Lalande and N.M. Shelovanov). If these references were accurately
reproduced, this casts doubt on the generally accepted dating of HMCP and
raises a number of questions relevant to the history of psychology.
Overall, available biographical information sheds little light on the circum-
stances surrounding the writing of HMCP. The common belief that Vygotsky
wrote this work in the Zakharino hospital (Iaroshevskii, 1993, p. 186; Leontiev,
1990, p. 33; Vygodskaia and Lifanova, 1996, pp. 99, 200; Vygotsky, 2004,
p. 7) is not supported by hard evidence and cannot currently be definitively
proved or disproved. This belief probably came about based on the testimony
of A.R. Luria (Vygodskaia and Lifanova, 1996, p. 200), which, as we have
stated previously, may refer less to the writing of HMCP than to the thinking
that forms its groundwork and rough preliminary notes (Zavershneva, 2009).
The correspondence Vygotsky conducted while in the hospital offers only
circumstantial evidence on this point. For example, a letter to L.S. Sakharov
dated February 15, 1926, contains an idea that was later expressed in HMCP,
that “an experimenter should be a detective, an inventor, a schemer, cunning,
a setter of traps, and infinitely flexible and bold” (Vygotsky, 2004, p. 7; cf.
44 journal of russian and east european psychology

Vygotsky, 1982, p. 406). In a March 15, 1926, letter to Luria we read: “For
me, the foremost question is the question of method; this for me is a question
of truth and therefore of scientific discovery and inventiveness” (Vygotsky,
2004, p. 9). In the “List of works by Prof. L.S. Vygotsky” appended to the
posthumous edition of Thinking and Speech (1934), HMCP is listed as the
manuscript “The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis,” and dated 1926. We
do not know who compiled this list—whether it was Vygotsky himself or
the publication’s editor, V.N. Kolbanovskii—however, it should be taken into
consideration.1 In his 1933 autobiography, Vygotsky indicates a different year:
1927 (see Leontiev, 1990, p. 141). T.V. Akhutina reports that Luria’s family
archive contains a document that mentions a conference of Vygotsky’s inner
circle (a “symposium”) devoted to the topic of the crisis in psychology that
took place in February 1927. This is essentially all the evidence gleaned thus
far from biographical literature regarding the timeframe of work on HMCP.
It is insufficient to definitively determine the year and circumstances of the
writing of this manuscript.
This dearth of information is what led us to turn to the original manuscript
stored in the Vygotsky family archive. The first task at hand was to fully restore
the author’s text of HMCP and clarify, to the extent possible, key references
and quotations and match the rough notes on HMCP that we have located
with the final version of the manuscript. Furthermore, additional archival
documents have been found that are directly tied to HMCP. Despite the fact
that it was not possible to definitively answer the question of the year in which
the manuscript was produced, we can state with certainty that it was written
after Vygotsky was discharged from the Zakharino hospital (in May 1926),
that it was begun in approximately mid-1926, and that it was completed, most
likely, in early 1927.

The manuscript’s physical appearance

A brief description of the original manuscript and a list of the main changes
made to the text of HMCP when it was published in the first volume of
Vygotsky’s collected works will soon appear in the journal Voprosy psik-
hologii. For now, suffice it to mention only the most important aspects of the
manuscript’s appearance, including those vital to determining when it was
produced.
The manuscript appears to be the final version of the text of HMCP and
represents the conclusion of work on the monograph. In our opinion, Vygotsky
completed the initial draft of HMCP but never undertook the task of editing it
for publication. The manuscript features marginalia that do not belong to Vy-
gotsky and is highly critical in nature (this criticism will be addressed below). It
 july–august 2012 45

may be that either the critic’s negative reaction or other difficulties confronting
Vygotsky while he was writing HMCP (or the new goals associated with his
work on cultural-historical theory) led him to decide not to publish HMCP
and instead to rework its main propositions into other articles, particularly,
“The Science of Psychology” [Psikhologicheskaia nauka] (Vygotsky, 1928)2
and “The Mind, Consciousness, and the Unconscious” [Psikhika, soznanie,
bessoznatel’noe” (Vygotsky, 1930a).
It can be presumed that there existed rough notes that were brought together
in the manuscript and supplemented with new material. This is attested to, in
particular, by extensive insertions on the backs of the pages in the first part
of HMCP using a symbol resembling the mathematical square root symbol.
Some of these comments are so extensive as to constitute separate topics of
discussion. One such insertion begins on page 35 and ends on page 43 of the
manuscript (Vygotsky 1982, pp. 342–52). One is completely divorced from
the overall line of reasoning, causing a semantic rupture that is commented
on by the author of the marginalia. This style of writing—transcription from
rough notes with the addition of fragments that represent a digression into
contiguous areas—is characteristic of, for example, Vygotsky’s work on the
final draft of “Tragedii o Gamlete” [The Tragedy of Hamlet] (1916), which
was supplemented with rough drafts from 1915.3
The text appears to have been written hurriedly, since Vygotsky sometimes
omits words or mechanically repeats them (yet another clue that the text
was copied from a rough draft). The fact that the handwriting or color of ink
changes over the course of the manuscript seems to suggest that HMCP was
written with interruptions. With a few exceptions, the distinctive segments of
text are rather large. There are few signs of editing: deletions are extremely
rare, and what corrections there are mostly take the form of one or two added
words above the line.
There is further evidence that Vygotsky never edited this manuscript. The
first section of the text is labeled with the Roman numeral I; however, other
sections are not so numbered (Arabic numerals are used to number some
chapters). No list of references can be found in the archive, and it is our sup-
position that none was ever compiled. In the original, references are given
in parentheses—the number of the source in the order in which it appears
in the text (rather than alphabetical order) followed by the page number. On
occasion the parentheses are empty. Insofar as the names of cited texts do not,
as a rule, appear in the manuscript (in a number of cases the author’s name
is also not indicated),4 the task of reproducing citations from the nineteen
and early twentieth century was formidable. Confusion also arises in regard
to the citation of foreign literature, as it is unclear which edition is being
referenced: the foreign-language original, or the Russian translation. These
46 journal of russian and east european psychology

circumstances created numerous challenges for the editors of the six-volume

collected works and resulted in citations of editions to which Vygotsky could
not possibly have had access.
The manuscript contains some corrections that belong neither to Vygotsky
nor to the unidentified reviewer who penned critical comments in the margins.
These corrections were entered into the original using a ballpoint pen and
consist in crossing out the names of Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, and Karl
Radek, as well as the addition of a small number of clarifications. The final
page of the original was substituted with a copy labeled “manu. 107,” where
the text of the final page has been rewritten with that same ballpoint pen. This
final part of the manuscript does not perfectly match that of the published
edition. The typewritten text of several of the final chapters of HMCP were
also left unedited. The typist left blank spaces in place of certain unfamiliar
names or terms (these spaces were never filled in).
In this article we quote a number of archival documents using the fol-
lowing conventions: fragments edited out of Vygotsky’s collected works are
reproduced in {braces}in bold; additions made by the editor of the six-volume
works that are not in the original manuscript are crossed out; and abbrevia-
tions expanded by us and added punctuation are enclosed in brackets. In all
quotes, italics and underlinings are Vygotsky’s.

Dating HMCP based on documents from a section of

Vygotsky’s family archive

Preliminary notes for the manuscript dated 1926 have been found in a note-
book kept by Vygotsky during his time at the Zakharino hospital and shortly
thereafter. Pages {29}–{31} of this document are primarily devoted to the
idea of creating a psychological analogue to Marx’s Das Kapital and applying
dialectical materialism to psychology (see Vygotsky, 1982, pp. 419–21). These
ideas represent the earliest known writings on topics that would later be spelled
out in HMCP. Other fragments associated with this work that are found in the
notebook could not have been written before mid-1926, insofar as the main
source they quote is an article by Iu.V. Frankfurt titled “G.V. Plekhanov on
the Psychophysical Problem” [G.V. Plekhanov o psikhofizicheskoi probleme],
which was published in the June 1926 issue of the journal Under the Banner
of Marxism [Pod znamenem marksizma] (Frankfurt, 1926). The notebook
allows us to establish when work on the manuscript began. A number of top-
ics are discussed only in the notebook and never make it beyond the author’s
own critical filter into the final manuscript of HMCP (primarily ideas devoted
to the psychophysical problem and Marx’s “reverse method,” as well as the
 july–august 2012 47

subject of the fetishism of consciousness). However, certain formulations are

transferred from the notebook to the manuscript, word for word (comments
on Frankfurt’s article, in particular). The proportion of HMCP that reflects
the ideas recorded in the notebook is relatively small and does not exceed 10
percent of the overall volume of the final manuscript.
Overall, the notebook offers evidence that HMCP was conceived at
Zakharino and written after discharge from the hospital. Analysis of this
document furthermore suggests that in the late spring of 1926 Vygotsky was
still contemplating The Psychology of Art (hereinafter, PA) and assembling
additional material for it. Notes devoted to the psychology of art alternate
with notes associated with Vygotsky’s new ideas that not only found expres-
sion in HMCP but also provided the main components of cultural-historical
theory (for a detailed description of this unique document, see Zavershneva,
2009 [translated in this issue, pp. 16–41]).
In addition to this notebook, two additional brief scratch-paper notes
that discuss the topics addressed in HMCP are found among Vygotsky’s
personal papers: “They Ask and They Argue: Is the Mind Dynamogenic?”
[Sprashivaiut i sporiat: dinamogenna li psikhika . . .] and “Toward a Definition
of the Object of Psychology” [K opredeleniiu predmeta psikhologii]. Both are
undated, however in all likelihood they were written while work on HMCP
was underway, although the second of these notes may belong to the period
when HMCP was already completed but research using the method of double
stimulation had not yet begun. “They Ask and They Argue” repeats some
of the ideas found in the Zakharino notebook and, in particular, formulates
(more clearly than in the notebook) the question of the specific nature of the
object of psychology:
the mind is connected only to the highest form of organ. mater. Ergo we must
ask about its function in this area (the higher the clearer. H[uman] anat. is the
key to the anat. of the monkey. Hints at the highest, etc.)—in soc. behav., the
str[uct]ure of personality, the mastery of nature and of self, cognition, provide
for activ. (in oneself and for oneself), freedom of will, etc. We must ask 1) about
its specif. functions, and not general ones, 2) about psycholog. functions.*
It is important to note that the term “function” does not yet have the full
range of meaning that it acquires in cultural-historical theory. It appears in the
context of a discussion of functionalism and psychovitalism that constitutes
the main content of this note. It is as if Vygotsky does not notice the heuristic

*Here and elsewhere, some abbreviations that could not be meaningfully repro-
duced in English have been omitted.—Trans.
48 journal of russian and east european psychology

potential of the concept “function” that would later bring renown to his theory,
although in the note we already find significant turns of phrase such as “mastery
of nature and of self” that were later so important to it (cf. the notebook and
ideas about governing one’s own behavior using a tool (Zavershneva, 2009, pp.
131–32). As in the Zakharino notebook, here too Vygotsky calls personality the
object of psychology:
Personality for psychol. = the body for biol. Marx looks at the mind as
emerg[ing] at the highest stg. of organic development . . . property.5 1. Prop-
erty does not give rise to science—see quality. Ergo. Psychol. has no basis
in the mind (property). 2. We do not ask about the biol. f. of the mind—we
have to seek its psycholog. function. The organism is understood without
the mind (contra psychovitalism), not true for personality.
Also in this note we find one of Vygotsky’s favorite “formulas”—evidently
for the first time—summarizing these thoughts. It is present in many of his
notes: “Psychologica psychologice.”6 The note does not contain any direct
references to HMCP.
The second scratch-paper note, “Toward a Definition of the Object of Psy-
chology,” features more chronological markers and also points to the fact that
at the time HMCP was being written, Vygotsky did not yet view the concept of
higher mental functions as one of his central theories. In both records, we see that
Vygotsky was planning to study higher forms of the mind using Marx’s “reverse
method.” This topic is also addressed among the notebook’s 1926 entries, where
the idea that consciousness is sign-mediated begins to take form. As investigation
of the notebook revealed, Vygotsky was initially guided by a broader theoretical
context and was planning to turn to the study of consciousness. In 1927 these
plans were adjusted in favor of studying higher mental functions (HMF). The
note “Toward a Definition of the Object of Psychology” reflects an intermedi-
ate stage in moving toward the idea of the cultural development of the mind
and the formation of HMF and is valuable in that it contains direct references
to HMCP (the idea of primary abstraction). From Vygotsky’s correspondence
with the members of his team it is known that by July 1927 he had already
passed through this stage and begun experiments using the instrumental method
(Vygotsky, 2004, p. 11). However, the archival document does not contain so
much as a hint at such ideas or studies. From the heuristic standpoint, it is not
as valuable as the earlier notebook. It is interesting that the very idea of plac-
ing function at the center of psychological research is subjected to criticism in
this record, while in the place of personality as the object of psychology (the
thesis of the notebook and “They Ask and They Argue”) we have “highly or-
ganized life,” which is more a methodological step backward than movement
forward. Meanwhile, it appears to have been a focus on the question of what
 july–august 2012 49

forms should be considered highly organized and specific to humans that led
to the emergence of the new theory in 1927. In this scratch-paper note, the
understanding of the higher in the mind and the idea of function as a unit of
analysis had not yet come into contact. To quote from this document:
1. If it is true that the mind is a property of highly organized matter, this
means that—
a) highly-org[a]n[i]zed = manif[est]ing higher forms of life, b) this
property is specific to matter, since it is living matter, highly alive, i.e., it
is a pro[per]ty of life itself as a state of this matter, c) the forms of life in
w[hic]h this pr[oper]ty is manifested obviously represent special, uniq[ue]
higher manifestations of life, i.e., my definition is the only mater[ialistic]
formulation of psychology. The subject of psychology is the highly org[a]
n[i]zed life that possesses this {in the left margin:} property . . .
4. Why are f[u]n[c]tions not suffic[ient] as the object of psychology?—
b[e]c[ause] you have to know what is functioning, the structure; because
beside functions there are mental phenomena (cf. Stumpf), b[e]c[ause] the
very concept of f[u]n[c]tion in psychology is particular and very complex,
and itself depends on the definition of the ps[y]ch[o]l[o]g[i]c[a]l and because
it cannot be a part of that definition. . . .
5. . . . Some people think that the obj[ect] of science is empir. objects, the
names of which are used for identifying the discipline’s object of research
(pl[a]nts, an[i]m[a]ls, water, etc.). That is not correct. The object of science
in a certain sense is created by science itself—out of its main abstractions
(see Meaning of the Crisis in Psychol.)—for example, the object of physics,
chemistry, the world in astronomy. If the ess[ence] of things matched their
manifestations—science would be superfluous: this also fully applies to
the object; if it belonged to the world of manifestations (= empir. object),
then the science of it would be superfluous. . . .
Cf. the role of primary abstraction (Crisis). We define the object to the
extent that science knows it. [. . .] Ps[y]ch. = the sci[ence] of ment. life.
But what is m[e]nt. life? Ps[y]ch[o]l[o]gy as a whole will show itself to
be the answer to this.
From the viewpoint of determining exactly when HMCP was written, this
entry, taken together with Vygotsky’s correspondence, gives us the outer
temporal boundary of the writing of HMCP (which can still be further nar-
rowed down): July 1927.

Dating HMCP based on references within the manuscript

Among the references contained in HMCP, it is the last two that offer the best
clues as to when the monograph was composed: one to the article by Iu.V.
50 journal of russian and east european psychology

Frankfurt published in the June 1926 issue of Under the Banner of Marxism
and another to Kurt Lewin’s dynamic psychology (removed by the editors
when the text was published in the first volume of Vygotsky’s collected
works). The Lewin reference, which comes in the final part of the manuscript
(Vygotsky, 1982, p. 431), may be exceptionally “fresh,” assuming Vygotsky
learned of Lewin’s approach from his book Vorsatz, Wille und Bedürfnis
(Lewin, 1926). This was the first major theoretical work in which Lewin
proposed the theory of dynamic psychology based on experiments conducted
under his guidance (B.V. Birnbaum, B.V. Zeigarnik, M.A. Ovsiankin, et al.).7
No works published in 1927 are referenced in the monograph.
We were also able to establish the sources of quotes of N.M. Shchelovanov
[in the collected works edition of HMCP—Trans.]. It turned out that a citation
of a 1929 article by Shchelovanov was erroneous; Vygotsky was in fact quoting
an article by Shchelovanov that was published in 1925 in a collection edited
by V.M. Bekhterev (Shchelovanov, 1925).8 The reference to a book by Andre
Lalande that came out in Paris in 1929 was also the result of an inaccurate edi-
torial insertion; evidently, Vygotsky was actually quoting two French authors
(J. Dumas and A. Lalande) based on an article published in 1923–24 (Dumas,
1923–24). It is also telling that HMCP contains no references to K. Bühler’s
book Krise der Psychologie. This work would likely have been mentioned if
HMCP was still being written in late 1927.9 Vygotsky does reference Krise
der Psychologie in his “The Science of Psychology” (1927),10 as well as in the
article “Structural Psychology” [Strukturnaia psikhologiia] (Vygotsky, 1930c),
where he offers an assessment of Bühler’s methodological position.
It should be noted that in 1927 Vygotsky was holding on to two major
manuscripts that remained unpublished: PA and HMCP. Evidently, he had not
given up on expressing the ideas they contained in print, since that same year
he wrote two articles that were basically brief summaries of these manuscripts.
It is our view that the articles “Contemporary Psychology and Art” [Sovre-
mennaia psikhologiia i iskusstvo] (Vygotsky, 1927), in which a number of
fragments from PA were reproduced word for word (only the final paragraph
is relatively new), and “The Science of Psychology” both served as substitutes
for PA and HMCP, respectively. In the archive we found the title page of “The
Science of Psychology” dated 1927 (in Vygotsky’s handwriting).
We are thus able to identify a relatively short “window” between mid-1926
and mid-1927 within which HMCP must have been written, although the outer
boundary of this period cannot be pinpointed using available documents.
Furthermore, the question of whether rough notes for HMCP were written
in the Zakharino hospital remains open. We presume that the February 1927
symposium on the crisis was conducted based on the manuscript (which was
probably completed in early 1927), since Vygotsky was not known for publicly
 july–august 2012 51

discussing ideas that he had not thoroughly thought through. He may have
become familiar with the book by K. Bühler during the period when he was
summarizing HMCP in “The Science of Psychology.”

Methodological works from the late 1920s and early 1930s

based on HMCP

Although HMCP was not published during Vygotsky’s lifetime, this manu-
script spawned several works that articulated its central ideas. It is not within
the scope of this article to analyze these papers; its objective is merely to point
to the connections between them and HMCP and to note the most essential
themes that unite them.
We should spell out the criteria used in identifying the works that grew out
of HMCP. The subject of the crisis in psychology (as well as the idea of “two
psychologies” and the rift within the system of the science of psychology)
was central to Vygotsky’s work. He entered psychology with it in 1924 and it
accompanied him to the end of his life. It could be said that all of Vygotsky’s
subsequent work—both theoretical and practical—were attempts to overcome
the crisis by creating a new general theory of psychology and even a research
paradigm. Many of Vygotsky’s texts refer to the crisis or to ambiguity in regard
to the object and methods of investigation, in particular, critical analysis of
individual directions in psychology, ideas concerning two psychologies, the
need to develop an objective indirect method, and the prospects of developing
a Marxist psychology were all addressed during 1923–25 (in Vygotsky, 1925a,
1925b, 1926a, 1926b, among others). A number of new topics were introduced in
HMCP, and Vygotsky undertakes his own methodological analysis of the crisis’s
problems. He discusses what a potential general psychology would look like
and describes some of its characteristics; for the first time we find a thorough
and well-grounded argument for the idea that psychology is split into only two
camps, of which one, the materialist camp, is the only heir to the undertaking
and the name of the science of psychology.11 The work brings together critiques
of individual schools of psychology; shows the logic behind the emergence
and development of the most prominent psychological theories; compares two
methods—the objective and the phenomenological; raises the subject of the
scientific concept; and discusses the positive significance of the crisis, along
with the leading role or practice—psychotechnics, in particular—in overcoming
the crisis and creating a new, monistic theory of mental phenomena.
With minor exceptions, all these topics are addressed in the article “The
Science of Psychology,” which is a sort of “repurposing” of the text of HMCP
to a new objective: a study of the crisis and the prospect of overcoming it
through Russian psychology.
52 journal of russian and east european psychology

The historical stage through which contemporary psychology is currently

passing in its development has been shaped by the two propositions outlined
above: first, there are many separate psychological streams that are seeking a
common channel so that they can join together in a single powerful current;
second, two systems of scientific knowledge that differ by their very nature,
two different psychologies that mingled over the course of centuries and
paralyzed one another, have now matured to the point that they are trying
to break the historical ties that bind them, to separate from one another and
transform themselves into two independent disciplines.
Russian psychology, which was developing until recently under the
powerful influence of Western European psychology, is not an exception
to this historical law. Both tendencies—toward unification and toward
schism—have been clearly evident throughout its historical journey to our
present time. It would be a task of special historical analysis to trace the
entire course of Russian psychology from this perspective, from its head-
waters to our time. (Vygotsky, 1928, p. 28)
In writing “The Science of Psychology,” Vygotsky did not use prepared pieces
of the manuscript (as he did in writing the article “Contemporary Psychology
and Art,” which replicated the text of PA); he bolstered his propositions about
the crisis with new factual content; however, even the formulations used in this
article are extremely similar to those used in HMCP, for example:
Historians will have no trouble seeing that psychological ideas depend
on the overall dynamic of social life, a dependence that can be easily dis-
cerned based on countless and perfectly obvious clues. They will be able
to demonstrate that the victory or defeat of each of the two psychologies
was predictably determined by the rise and fall of sociopolitical waves and
was fed by the progressive and reactionary moods of every era. (Vygotsky,
1928, p. 31; cf. Vygotsky, 1982, pp. 324–25)
Many of his thoughts, in particular, his idea of building a psychology based
on dialectical materialism, are formulated with greater clarity than in HMCP,
and by comparison with the monograph, the article is much better written and
organized. It is devoid of the internal contradictions and circular logic found
in HMCP, and gone are a number of complex philosophical questions that
still lacked “good” answers at the time HMCP was being written (they were
carried over into another article discussed below). Of particular interest is the
section devoted to the history of the Moscow school of psychotechnics. This
article was the first in a series of works that introduced the ideas represented
in HMCP into print.
Another work that relates directly to HMCP—“Mind, Consciousness, and
the Unconscious” (Vygotsky, 1930a)—was reproduced in the first volume of
 july–august 2012 53

Vygotsky’s collected works and is accessible to a broad audience. It addresses

the same themes addressed in HMCP and the 1926 notebook, including: the
need for a unified monistic theory of the mind based on dialectical materialism
(the unit of study of which would be the integral psychophysiological act), the
polemics of Edmund Husserl on the question of the phenomenological method,
the polemics of William Stern (a critique of his concept of psychophysically
neutral acts), and the question of the ontological status of the mind (discus-
sion of the theories of G.V. Plekhanov, who is a focus of attention in the
Zakharino notebook and HMCP). Commonalities can also be found on the
level of individual quotes12 and formulations.13 The article also represents a
step forward in comparison with HMCP, insofar as it offers a more thorough-
going treatment of the psychophysical problem. It is noteworthy that there
is no trace of cultural-historical theory in either of these two works. While
this may be understandable in the case of “The Science of Psychology” (in
1927, Vygotsky was still putting the finishing touches on his new theory and
refrained from discussing it in print), in the case of “Mind, Consciousness, and
the Unconscious,” which came out in 1930, there is no simple explanation.
This may suggest that this article was in fact chronologically closer to HMCP
than it was, for example, to “Studies on the History of Behavior” [Etiudy po
istorii povedeniia] or “The History of the Development of Higher Mental
Functions” [Istoriia razvitiia vysshikh psikhicheskikh funktsii].
Two other articles from 1930, “Structural Psychology” (Vygotsky, 1930c)
and “Eidetics” [Eidetika] (Vygotsky, 1930d), are devoted to specific problems
raised in HMCP. For example, a study of the phenomenon of eidetic memory
was used to show the fate of an individual discovery that, given the method-
ological crisis, was forced to expand into a whole system of views pretending
to the role of a general theory of psychology. “An individual truth stretches to
the boundaries of the universal,” the article’s author comments. The factual
basis comes into conflict with the theoretical superstructure, demonstrating the
impossibility of “realistic idealism,” the third path that Vygotsky wrote about
in HMCP. Arguments associated with cultural-historical theory are brought
to bear in assessing the theories of Erich Jaensch: an individual discovery, a
phenomenon of eidetic memory, is interpreted as an intermediate stage in the
historical development of the mind, specifically the stage of primitive forms of
behavior (see Vygotsky, 1929, and Vygotsky and Luria, 1930). It is telling that
in this article, eidetic memory is called “a profoundly progressive pedagogical
current approaching a direct recognition of the advantages of the labor school
(albeit in its bourgeois understanding and realization)” (Vygotsky, 1930d, p.
204), while by 1934, Vygotsky was writing a highly critical article on Jaensch’s
reactionary ideology, after praising him so imprudently four years earlier.
Indeed, by 1934, Jaensch had managed to claim a place of prominence within
54 journal of russian and east european psychology

“Fascist psychology,” and in 1932 massive purges had taken place in Soviet
scientific institutes. Against the backdrop of the growing Stalinist Terror,
Vygotsky was becoming increasingly vulnerable. An article like “Fascism in
Psychoneurology” [Fashizm v psikhonevrologii] (Vygotsky and Giliarovskii,
1934), was absolutely essential to fend off accusations that were already being
made against Vygotsky and his school. It should be noted that Vygotsky, in
attacking Jaensch, avoided explicit criticism of other Western psychologists,
many of whom were undeservedly painted with the Fascist brush by official
Soviet ideology. None of Vygotsky’s colleagues or rivals were “fed to the
dogs,” despite the fact that denunciations were standard practice in those days
as a way of demonstrating one’s own political reliability.
In the critical overview “Structural Psychology,” Gestalt psychology pro-
vides an opportunity to address the struggle between two opposing tendencies
in the development of psychology—materialism and idealism. Vygotsky char-
acterizes structural psychology as an elemental materialist doctrine that strives
toward monism and is developing in the same direction as Marxist psychol-
ogy. Despite ignoring the social and the cultural development of humans and
despite the stamp of duality placed on this doctrine, its adherents are claimed
to be closer than other Western psychologists to Marxist psychology and, it
therefore follows, to the truth (as Vygotsky saw it). The concept of Gestalt,
which was subjected to criticism in HMCP as one discovery among many, “a
frog that has grown to the size of an ox,” is now, in this 1930 article, given
high marks. Assuming “the necessary restructuring,” it is deemed entirely
capable of “becoming the primary instrument of psychological research.”
In order to achieve this restructuring, the article recommends developing
mastery in Marxist dialectics, which offer answers to many problems that
might otherwise appear unsolvable within the framework of Gestalt theory
(foremost among them, the psychophysical problem and the question of the
relationship between consciousness and the outer world, which Gestaltists, as
is well-known, resolved using the principle of isomorphism.14 Vygotsky then
introduces another typical twist: he discusses the kinship between Gestalt psy-
chology and Spinozism and, citing Bühler, laments the fact that the Gestaltists
are abandoning Spinoza’s monism in favor of Cartesian parallelism.
Other works expounding HMCP’s main propositions that deserve mention
include Vygotsky’s foreword to A.N. Leontiev’s book The Development of
Memory [Razvitie pamiati] (1931), the article “The Question of Pedology and
Closely Related Sciences” [K voprosu o pedologii i smezhnykh s nei naukakh]
(1931), and the monograph, A Theory of Emotions [Uchenie ob emotsiakh]
(1931–33). Despite the fact that HMCP was not published in the author’s
lifetime, its ideas did make their way into print. Furthermore, every single
 july–august 2012 55

one of HMCP’s central ideas is discussed in one or another of Vygotsky’s

methodological works of the late 1920s or early 1930s.

A textual analysis of the ending of HMCP

The ending of HMCP is encountered—using extremely similar formulations—

in Vygotsky’s earlier works. Until now, however, the ending itself has not
been available to the general reader. The version of this text published in the
six-volume collected works features many changes to the original, as in the
following representative excerpt: “{Here we have the only instance where
the words of the paradoxical psychologist—who defined psychology as
the science of the superman—are justified}: in the society of the future,
psychology will truly be the science of the new man {superman}.” The
“paradoxical psychologist” referred to in the deleted portion is, evidently,
Leon Trotsky. The ideologically unreliable “superman” has been replaced
with the “new man,” obviously, in order to remove any Nietzschean subtext
from the fragment (an analogous substitution was made in the text of The
Psychology of Art, where the published version uses “new man” in place of
“superman”).15 We cannot know for sure how the manuscript ended, insofar as
the last page is a copy of the text written with a ballpoint pen sometime during
the second half of the twentieth century. However we are able to compare
it with the endings of other works where the last two paragraphs of HMCP
are reproduced word for word and the reference to Trotsky’s book Literature
and Revolution [Literatura i revoliutsiia] (Trotsky, 1923)—the source of the
idea of the superman who overcomes his nature—is included. At least five
works contain quotes from Trotsky and ideas about the recasting of man,
as well as references to Proposition 17 from Spinoza’s Ethics: Pedagogical
Psychology [Pedagogicheskaia psikhologiia] (Vygotsky, 1926c); The Psychol-
ogy of Art, “The Science of Psychology” [Psikhologicheskaia nauka] ; “The
Socialist Transformation of Man” [Sotsialisticheskaia peredelka cheloveka]
(Vygotsky, 1930b), as well as a paper, “Psychology in Our School: How
Psychology Should Be Taught” [Psikkhologiia v nashei shkole. Kak nado
seichas prepodavat’ psikhkologiiu], which Vygotsky delivered before the
second All-Russian Psychoneurology Congress at a joint session devoted
to psychology, reflexology, and pedology held January 9, 1924.16 Below we
quote the ending of this paper in its entirety:
[E]veryone says, on the other hand, that psychology is truly now on a path
toward the achievement of a rationalization of the body’s most elemental
and blind forces and the mastery of the entire conscious and subconscious
apparatus of the mind and that it will subordinate it in the same way that
56 journal of russian and east european psychology

the world of outside forces is subordinated. Here, the boldest dreams will
pale in comparison with reality in the course of, perhaps, a few short years.
Trotsky talks in this regard about the consciousness of the new man, the
superman, but not in the Nietzschean sense of the word, not a new biological
breed, but a socially organized superman, enlightened through and through,
in every cache of the most elemental forces of the body, freed from the most
terrifying enslavement—enslavement to the self—and from the most bitter
dependence—on one’s own nerves and mind—by subordinating to himself
the play of the body’s inner forces as he does the outer forces of nature.17
The article “The Science of Psychology” offers yet another variation on
this theme:
But of course this psychology of the future—this theory and practice of the
superman—will resemble our contemporary psychology only in name, or, as
Spinoza so magnificently put it: non aliter scilicet quam inter se conveniunt
canis, signum cceleste, et canis, animal latrans, or, as the constellation Canis
resembles a dog, the barking animal (Spinoza, 1892, p. 29).18 This is why
the name of our science is dear to us—the name on which the dust of ages
has settled, but to which the future belongs. (Vygotsky, 1930b, p. 41)
It is interesting that in this article Vygotsky quotes not only Leon Trotsky’s
paper, “Questions of Cultural Work” [Voprosy kul’turnoi raboty] (Trotsky,
1924, pp. 83–84), which essentially repeats the ideas of his book Literature
and Revolution, but also the “renegade” Karl Kautsky, also in connection with
the idea of the superman (Kautsky, 1917, pp. 70–71):
Kautsky brilliantly demonstrated that the creation of the new man is not
the precondition for socialism, but its result. “Would we not be justified in
assuming that given such conditions a new type of man would be created
who stands taller than the tallest of types that culture has thus far produced?
This will be a superman, if you like, but he will be the rule, not the excep-
tion; he will be a superman compared with his ancestors, but not compared
with those around him.” (Vygotsky, 1928, p. 45)
While it goes without saying that the term “superman” made its way into
the works of Trotsky, Kautsky, and Vygotsky via Friedrich Nietzsche, they
imbued it with a different content. For example, in “The Socialist Transfor-
mation of Man” (1930), we see an attempt by Vygotsky to distance himself
from the non-Marxist philosopher:
In discussions of the transformation of man, of the creation of a new, higher
type of human personality and behavior, understandings of the new type of
man associated with Nietzsche’s writings on the superman are inevitably
encountered. . . . A mistake of this theory is that it ignores the fact that the
 july–august 2012 57

laws of historical human evolution are, at their core, different from the laws
of biological evolution, and that the fundamental distinction between these
processes is that man evolves and develops as a historical social being. Only
the elevation of all humanity onto a higher level of social life, only the lib-
eration of all humanity leads toward the emergence of a new type of man.
However this change in human behavior, this change in human personality,
must inevitably result in the subsequent evolution of man and the transfor-
mation of the human biological type. Man, in struggling against old age
and disease, in mastering the processes that determine his own nature, will
undoubtedly bring the very biological organization of human existence to
a higher level and transform it. (Vygotsky, 1930b, pp. 43–44)
The text of this article is primarily structured around quotes from Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels. The dreamy-prophetic tone with which Vygotsky
discussed the utopia of the superman in a new society found in early works
is replaced in “The Socialist Transformation of Man” with the tone of a
lecturer enumerating indisputable facts. The article brings in the term “new
man” and ideas about recasting man, but no longer links them to the works
of Leon Trotsky (his name is not mentioned). The corresponding fragment
in this paper cites Engels:
Engels said, in tracing the process of development from monkeys to humans,
that labor created man himself. One would be equally justified in saying
that the new forms of labor are creating a new man, and this new man will
resemble the old man, the decrepit Adam, only in name, in the same way
that, as Spinoza so eloquently put it, the dog, the barking animal, resembles
the heavenly constellation Canis. (Vygotsky, 1930b, p. 44)
All of this repetition and overlap speaks to the fact that this topic was, first
of all, extremely important to Vygotsky and, second, that his thoughts on it
were first formulated in 1923–24 and carried over with minor changes into
the texts of articles written before 1928 (in “The Socialist Transformation
of Man,” we see the further development of this theme in a new ideological
context). HMCP marks a dividing line between the first (1923–26) and second
(1927–31) periods of Vygotsky’s career (Zavershneva, 2006). It is not by
mere chance that HMCP features an ending that had been written three years
earlier. We see the use of this ending as the logical conclusion of an entire
period in Vygotsky’s career: the period of his quest for the new psychology
that emerged in response to the crisis in 1926–27.
In concluding our discussion of the ending of HMCP we should mention
one puzzle that we were unable to solve. There is a paragraph in the version
of HMCP that was published in the first volume of Vygotsky’s collected works
that is missing from the original manuscript: “When they speak of the recasting
58 journal of russian and east european psychology

of man as an undoubted feature of the new humanity and about the artificial
creation of a new biological type, this will be the first and only species in
biology to create itself. . . .” (Vygotsky, 1982, p. 436). We assumed that this
text was taken from another work by Vygotsky, but we were unable to find
an exact match. Possibly these words are from the missing original final page
of the manuscript, which may have been lost after HMCP was prepared for
publication in the collected works edition. But it is also possible that these are
not Vygotsky’s own words but rather a quite successful stylization express-
ing one of his important ideas: the idea of mastering one’s own behavior that
is fully expressed only in studies along the “instrumental psychology” line
(1927–31). This fragment is entirely consistent with Trotsky’s ideas expressed
in the booklets “Questions of Cultural Work,” “On the Culture of the Future,”
and others cited by Vygotsky 1924–27.19

Analysis of HMCP’s marginalia

If the author of the comments written in the margins of the HMCP manuscript
were to write a full-fledged review of the text, it would be highly critical, not to
say scathing. In the opinion of this person, the essence of the question addressed
by Vygotsky is poorly formulated and many of HMCP’s propositions lack sup-
porting arguments. The overall verdict on the work is that its “Social analysis is
very interesting but surprising and, it could be said, incomplete.” The reviewer
also reproaches Vygotsky with rationalism and Rickertism, with subtly blending
his positions with those of Ludwig Binswanger, with a gnoseological lack of
clarity in some of his terms,20 with “denying the structure of experience,” and
with ignoring specific facts from the history of psychology. While recognizing a
number of HMCP’s virtues, the author of the marginalia remarks, “It is possible
to do a marvelous job of uncovering the objective laws at play in the scientific
crisis without being able to uncover the objective laws at play in the facts studied
by science,” and soon thereafter, commenting on one of HMCP’s propositions,
adds, not without irony: “‘It is possible to study doctrines and learn something
about the objective laws at play in their appearance while learning nothing
about facts!’ If that’s the case, you can hardly criticize Chelpanov.”
The bulk of critical comments are in response to questions regarding theo-
retical and general psychology, the legitimacy of applying Marx’s “reverse
method” to psychology, the difference between real and scientific fact, and
the nature of the scientific concept. That most of these comments come at
the beginning of HMCP is explained by the circumstance that its first part is
written on only one side of the paper and the reviewer had plenty of space
to write on the back. It can be assumed that this person’s attitude toward other
 july–august 2012 59

sections of HMCP was no less critical, an assumption supported by the question

marks that pepper the text.
Some of the reviewer’s objections to Vygotsky’s ideas about the functions
of general and theoretical psychology include:
Theoretical psych. of the norm. person. So, there’s another psych.? And in
what sense is it not gen. theoretical psych., i.e., real theor. psy[?]. . . . Theo-
retical = general! When Binswanger denies this we understand, but you?! . . .
What is this biological discipline for which the object, means of investigation,
criteria, and objectives are different than for other biol. disciplines?
And shortly thereafter: “The fact that you spend so much time on the ques-
tion of the relationship between general and particular science (NB: and just
what is the relationship between general and theoretical science?) and return
again and again to the same formulations suggests that all is not well.” In
regard to Vygotsky’s thesis on general psychology (“it shares neither object
nor method with particular science”) the reviewer comments: “Again, deadly
formulations (for you!)” and sums up, “you seem to imply that general sci-
ence begins its work at the point where particulars leave off, and it uses their
readymade generalizations as they are. Then it is just the philosophy of the
object and not methodology. Where is the verification and restructuring as-
sociated with the work of general science?”
The author of the marginalia is skeptical of superficial attempts to apply Marx-
ism to psychology, as is Vygotsky in HMCP. For example, Vygotsky writes:
It may seem that if, in terms of their object, methods, and goal of study, the
distinction between general and particular science is relative and not absolute,
quantitative and not fundamental, then we have no basis for the theoretical
demarcation of sciences, and it might seem that there is no general science
distinct from particular sciences. But, of course, this is not the case. Quantity
turns into quality here and provides the basis for a qualitatively distinct sci-
ence; however, this distinct science is not entirely torn away from its given
family of sciences and transferred to logic. (Vygotsky, 1982, p. 318)
The reviewer makes the sarcastic remark, “It is not that ‘it may seem,’ but
based on your words, that is exactly how it is. The sacramental shift from
quantity to quality does not help.” Another remark is noteworthy, in that it
points to a real methodological problem:
It nevertheless remains an open question—when is it possible and permis-
sible for results obtained using different methods to coincide? Otherwise, the
method shapes the subject matter, etc. . . . If the general philosophical premises
differ, does this really exclude the possibility of particular results coinciding
60 journal of russian and east european psychology

and supplementing one another? . . . A.R. [Luria] will tell you[:] both Freud’s
method and Marx’s method are good. Let them reinforce one another.
Despite the fact that not all of these objections were entirely correct or
insightful, the reviewer did succeed in pointing to a number of weaknesses
in HMCP, and Vygotsky certainly would not have ignored this criticism, as-
suming it did indeed come from one of his contemporaries. Choosing not to
return to the manuscript (perhaps because much of it would have needed to
be completely rewritten?), Vygotsky decided to discuss its key ideas using
specific examples, problems, and theories (the approach urged by the author
of the marginalia) and create a whole new corpus of works closely tied to the
subject matter of HMCP (those listed above).
In summary, Vygotsky appears to have worked on the manuscript of HMCP
between mid-1926 and early 1927, after which work on it was ceased and it
was left unedited. The reasons for this may have been his intensive work on
a general theory of consciousness (that began in mid-1926, according to the
notebook he kept in the Zakharino hospital) and a theory on the development
of higher mental functions (conducted during the first half of 1927, according
to correspondence with colleagues), as well as the highly critical remarks
left in the margins of the manuscript by an unknown reviewer. Despite the
fact that the study was not published during Vygotsky’s lifetime, it served
as the basis for at least two important articles: “The Science of Psychology”
(Vygotsky, 1928) and “The Mind, Consciousness, and the Unconscious” (Vy-
gotsky, 1930a). Almost all of HMCP’s key propositions found expression in
its author’s other methodological works of the late 1920s and early 1930s. It
can be stated with certainty that HMCP represents a dividing line between two
periods of Vygotsky’s career, marking the end of the first period (1923–26), as
attested to by the manuscript’s ending, which matches the endings of works
published in 1923–25, as well as other archival documents.

Notes

1. All the more so as it represents the first naming of the work that is consistent
with the heading of the archival manuscript: “The Meaning of the Psychological
Crisis: A Methodological Study.” An inscription at the top of the title page reads:
“Beyond the [. . .] and the physical. First article.” The ellipsis indicates a tear in the
page and a single missing word (“mental”?). In his autobiography, Vygotsky refers
to the manuscript using the same title as the one in Thinking and Speech. The title
“The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology” comes from a typewritten
copy of several chapters of HMCP with a coversheet featuring this name written in
Vygotsky’s own hand.
2. In the bibliography compiled by G.L. Vygodskaia and T.M. Lifanova (Vygod-
skaia and Lifanova, 1996), the name of this article is listed as “Psikhologicheskaia
 july–august 2012 61

nauka v SSSR.” For the English translation of this article see this issue of the Journal
of Russian and East European Psychology, pp. 85–106.
3. A comparison of the rough and final drafts of the manuscript of “The Tragedy
of Hamlet” was performed by N.A. Levinson.
4. In particular, Vygotsky was unable to confirm his citation of Alexander Pfänder (Vy-
gotsky, 1982, p. 412), whose surname appears in the manuscript with a question mark.
5. Vygotsky is referring to the property of highly organized matter.
6. An idea of E. Spranger, who urged study of the psychological psychologically,
that is, in terms of its own specific nature.
7. It seems unlikely that Vygotsky is referring to Lewin’s later work: “Gesetz und
Experiment in der Psychologie” (1927).
8. The author wishes to thank A.A. Kazakov for his help in clarifying the Shch-
elovanov citation.
9. K. Bühler published the first version of this work in the form of an article in
the journal Kant-Studien in 1926 (Bühler, 1926) and later revised it in the form of
a book, which was published in 1927 (Bühler, 1927) (a second edition came out in
1929). For more on this see Brock (1994).
10. The reference is made in notes where Vygotsky, citing the 1927 edition, men-
tions that Bühler held the opposite viewpoint and believed that psychology should
unite under the banner of “idealism.”
11. In a foreword to a book by Karl Koffka (Vygotsky, 1926b), Vygotsky touches
briefly on the topic, but does not offer any arguments for his viewpoint. His proposi-
tions here seem more like slogans or the rough sketching out of future studies.
12. In particular, in references to Plekhanov, E. Dale, Hugo Münsterberg, I.P.
Pavlov, Husserl, and others, as well as in a quotation from Marx about the difference
between the form of appearance and the essence of things, which is found in HMCP,
the notebook (twice), and both articles analyzed in connection with HMCP.
13. “It seems to us,” {Hart interpreted it correctly, saying} that Freud is creating
here a certain concept that is difficult to imagine visually [the word {sebe} (to oneself)
is omitted, but does not significantly change the meaning] but that often exists in theo-
ries of physics. An unconscious idea, he says, is essentially just as impossible as an
ether without weight and without friction. It is no more and no less conceivable than
the mathematical concept ‘– +’.{√ – 1}” (Vygotsky, 1927, p. 58). This quote points
to an intersection with the text of HMCP on the question of the positive significance
of Freudian discoveries and to the source of the reference to the imaginary number
(the square root of –1): the idea belongs not to Vygotsky himself, but to Bernard
Hart (Hart, 1912), whose book Vygotsky quotes (Hart was one of the first authors to
introduce the British reader to the principles of Freudian psychoanalysis).
14. It is interesting that Vygotsky cites A.M. Deborin in this article and includes a
lengthy quotation from his book, Dialektika i estestvovanie. The reference to Deborin
is also in HMCP, but it was removed by the editors of the collected works. In 1930
Deborin was removed from his post as editor in chief of the journal Under the Banner
of Marxism and in 1931 he was the target of harsh criticism in a special resolution of
the Soviet Central Committee.
15. A comparison with the typed copy of The Psychology of Art produced during Vy-
gotsky’s lifetime and retained in the family archive was performed by N.V. Vorotylo.
16. In Pedagogical Psychology, The Psychology of Art, and “Psychology in Our
School,” the reference to Ethics Prop. 17 is absent; at the end of The Psychology of
Art there is a different quote from Ethics Prop. 2.
62 journal of russian and east european psychology

17. The manuscript of this paper is stored in the Vygotsky family archive. There
are three versions of the paper that differ slightly from one another.
18. This citation is valuable in that it points to the edition of Ethics with which
Vygotsky was working. According to G.L. Vygodskaia, this book was given to her
father in his youth by his father, Semen L’vovich Vygodskii. The book is also part
of the family archive.
19. In particular, on the final pages of The Psychology of Art this idea of Trotsky’s
is introduced using a lengthy quotation from “Questions of Cultural Work.”
20. “The name ‘the main generalization’ is not clear, its distinction from primary
abstraction? . . . For you, a real fact is simply a feeling. And where is the objective
fact[?] Perhaps it doesn’t exist at all? How is it that a real fact turns into its opposite
in order to become scientific?”

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Journal of Russian and East European Psychology.]

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