Wesleyan and The Soviet Union 1972-1977

In 1970 I took a post as professor of psychology at Wesleyan University, where I would work for over 20 years until going to work for UNESCO in Paris. At Wesleyan, I set up a brain research laboratory and began my teaching of related courses, including a laboratory research course and courses in the evolution of the brain and the evolution of social behavior, and eventually got involved in campus politics. I also started what would turn out to be a series of synthetic models of brain function, beginning with a general schema based on motor function.

The tenure process for me was especially difficult. I think I am the only person to be refused twice and make it on the third time around. The stress was so great that I got shingles.

With the failure of the American Independent Movement and the New Left, I was left with many questions about the political nature of the world. It was as if the movement had torn aside a veil that normally hides the functions of government and shown that it was not at all democratic and, instead, often opposed to the true interests of the citizens. And its revolutionary rhetoric, and to a lesser extent its revolutionary methods, had held out a promise to many of us that we could attain a new kind of world.

Many of my New Left comrades had considered themselves socialists or communists, but being from Missouri, I had to see for myself before believing. So I decided to go and live in a socialist country. After unsuccessfully trying to go to China or Cuba, I settled on my third choice and, using my scientific contacts, I ended up studying Russian and going to the Soviet Union. It was the second great leap of my life.

I was fascinated by the Soviet Union and read the newspapers and tried to understand what was happening around me. I tried to find colleagues to march in the May Day parade, but they were not interested. The 25th Party Congress took place while I was there and I had to vacate my hotel, the Budapest, to make way for delegations. Whenever I could, I would go to meetings called by the Party or by the trade unions, including cultural events such as the showing and discussion of films.

Nina was very hurt by the fact that I had left her alone in New Haven at a time when she was just finishing nursing school, but I set up a way for her to come over for a month and go with an interpreter on the rounds of the local doctor to see how their public health system worked. It became the basis for her excellent Masters Thesis at the Yale School of Nursing. Then Nina and I went to a trade union resort in June on the Black Sea where we got a feel for the vacations available at a nominal price to Soviet workers and their families. That spring I traveled widely, going to Leningrad, out to Novosibirsk in Siberia and down to Georgia.

In many ways I was fascinated and impressed by the scale and accomplishments of the Soviet Union, and became convinced that socialism was the way of the future. It seemed to me that the standard of living for workers was at least as high as that of American workers when you took into consideration the benefits of health care, childcare, vacations and cultural opportunities, the various aspects that are covered by the economic and cultural rights of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The argument could be made that Soviet political rights were not as extensive, although even here it was debatable because Soviet workers had trade union protection whereas American laws and power structure greatly impeded their rights of unionization. And some claimed that internal democracy at the grass roots level was greater in the Communist Party than in the US political parties. Needless to say, in later years when I tried to argue this, I was met with incredulity and even hostility by American audiences.

It would be another five years, in 1981, before I formalized my relationship with Soviet socialism by working with the American-Soviet Friendship Society in the context of working with the Communist Party USA.

Stages

1939-1957
Neosho

1957-1962
New York - Columbia

1962-1967
Yale - By What Ways

1967-1972
The New Left

1972-1977
The Soviet Union

1977-1982
Science

1982-1986
A Science of Peace

1986-1992
Fall of Soviet Empire

1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme

1997-2001
UN Intl Year for Culture of Peace

2001-2005
Internet for peace

2005-2010
Reports and Books

2010-2015
Indian Summer

2015-2020
Intimations of Death

2019-2024
La bonheur est dans le pre