Russian eugenics: how they wanted to create a superman in the USSR

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

At the beginning of the 20th century, especially after the First World War, Europe was captured by a new scientific passion: the teaching of improving the human breed - eugenics (ευγενής - noble). In that most interesting experimental era in various human affairs, this discipline was accepted by many with a bang, and many, as we know, even began to be realized.

Key dates of Russian eugenics

In 1920, the Department of Eugenics was organized in Moscow at the Institute of Experimental Biology on Sivtsev Vrazhka, and soon the Russian Eugenic Society was founded on its basis. The founding father and main ideologist of the department was the head of the institute, the son of an accountant of the Sorokoumovsky fur kings from the Old Believers' environment, Nikolai Koltsov, an advanced biologist. the most important fundamental principles of modern molecular biology and genetics and was the first Russian scientist to introduce the physicochemical method, which was included in the set of basic methods of biological research."

In 1922, the Russian Evgenicheskiy Zhurnal was published under the editorship of Koltsov. In St. Petersburg, the same work was undertaken by the Bureau of Eugenics in the Permanent Commission for the Study of the Natural Productive Forces of the USSR at the Russian Academy of Sciences. It took up the now usual anthropological and genetic work and propaganda: “the study of heredity issues specifically as applied to humans by arranging questionnaires, surveys, expeditions, etc.; the dissemination among the broad masses of information about the laws of heredity in humans and about the goals and objectives of eugenics by publishing popular books, brochures, arranging public lectures, etc.; giving advice of a eugenic nature to those wishing to get married and in general to everyone interested in their own heredity.

HomoCreator

The programmatic work of the founder of Russian eugenics Nikolai Koltsov - "Improving the Human Breed" - was published in 1923. The main idea of work is that it is necessary to create a new type of person - a creative person - HomoCreator. What pleases me, the scientist does not propose to sterilize anyone, put in concentration camps, mental hospitals and shoot. He is committed to supporting the most talented producers by creating a supportive environment for them. And he considered birth control the main danger for the development of good genes of the Russian person.

Nikolai Koltsov: “This new man - a superman,“Homo creator”- must really become the king of nature and subdue it by the power of his mind and his will. And if at the same time he does not always feel happy, he will sometimes suffer an insatiable thirst for more and more new achievements, yet, I believe, this suffering of holy discontent is a low price for the power and for the tireless work that will fall on his lot.

The best and only method of racial eugenics that achieves its goal is the capture of producers valuable in their hereditary properties: physically strong people, gifted with outstanding mental or moral abilities, and setting all these talents in such conditions under which they could not only manifest these abilities in to the full, but also to feed and raise a large family, and, moreover, by all means, mainly in comparison with people who do not go beyond the average norm.

Neither war nor revolution have such a pernicious significance for eugenics as a phenomenon that in a latent bloodless form undermines the health of the nation and mankind: this is a deliberate limitation of offspring, usually spreading among the people gradually and at first barely noticeable."

Stop degeneration

Biologist and geneticist Yuri Filipchenko believed that in order to prevent the degeneration of the Russian race, expressed in an increase in various psychopathologies and genetic diseases, artificial selection should be used instead of natural selection. This is the main goal of eugenics, according to him. At the same time, he divided eugenics into encouraging - this is the selection and maintenance of the best people, and negative - the prohibition on the reproduction of unsuccessful individuals. “In the end, it’s not so difficult to apply negative selection to a person if we resort for this purpose to that rather powerful coercive apparatus that the state power always possesses, and to keep unwanted elements of society from reproducing by means of known laws or in another more effective way.” Filipchenko cited America as an example, where in many states sterilization as the main way of eugenics was already used then.

Yuri Filipchenko: “Every human being has the right to his share of personal happiness, but not everyone has the right to be a father or mother. This point of view sometimes arouses strong protest, but this is only explained by our insufficient acquaintance with the laws of heredity, why it is so urgent to enlighten the broad masses of the people about the entire depth and strength of the latter."

Eugenic mathematician Karl Pearson (1857 - 1936): “The intelligent middle class is the backbone of the nation; thinkers, leaders, organizers of the latter emerge from it. Members of this class do not grow like mushrooms, but are the product of a long process of selecting the most highly gifted and intellectually adapted members of society … A healthy society should have its maximum fertility in this class, meanwhile, what do we find in reality? Progressive decline in fertility in the middle class; a strong movement towards familyless life or limiting the size of the family, capturing only the intelligent classes and the aristocracy of manual labor! Abstinence and restraint could be an eminently positive social factor if they were primarily to reduce the fertility of the misfit; but if they start from the opposite end, they are more than useless, they are nationally destructive in their consequences. The lack of talented people at a time of crisis is the worst of evils that can befall a nation. Sitting calmly in place, without any external struggle, a nation can degenerate and become weakened simply because it gives full scope to sexual selection and does not cultivate its best members."

Communism and sterilization

Evgenist Mikhail Volotsky really wanted to legalize sterilization. He carefully studied the experience of the pioneers of practical eugenics from the American state of Indiana.

From the Indian Sterilization Act: “Since heredity plays a supremely important role in the transmission of crime, idiocy, and congenital dementia, the Indiana General Assembly decrees that every government agency entrusted with the care of hardened criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles, appointed, in addition to the local physician of the institution, two more experienced physicians. It will be the responsibility of this commission to examine, together with the chief doctor of the institution, the mental and physical condition of those prisoners who will be transferred to them for this purpose by the doctor or the administrative council of the institution. If, in the opinion of the aforementioned commission of experts and the administrative council, it is considered unacceptable for such a prisoner to have offspring, and his physical and mental condition is recognized as not promising for improvement in the future, then doctors are charged with the obligation to perform such an operation to prevent childbirth. which will be recognized as the safest and most valid.

Mikhail Volotskoy: “When evaluating the method of sexual sterilization, we will first of all keep in mind that the production of operations should in no way and cannot pursue any punitive goals. In fact, who can think of punishing in such a strange way those unfortunate people, with the same for the most part criminally irresponsible subjects, like the mentally ill, imbecile, idiots, imbecillics, etc., against whom it is mainly directed this measure. On the contrary, it is natural that we must do everything in our power to somehow improve their situation, but at the same time, for eugenic and ethical reasons, we have no right to allow further procreation by them. Do we not achieve both by means of a timely performed completely safe and even painless operation? However, all these considerations are completely ignored by critics of the Indian idea, who stubbornly continue to see in the production of operations only a crude "act of cruel retribution."

Reduction of the mentally ill

This has been one of the key tasks of eugenics since its inception, because with the simultaneous development of psychiatry, the number of the mentally ill naturally increased, because they learned to distinguish between them. And so the Russian psychiatrist Viktor Osipov proposed his own radical system of getting rid of psychiatric patients: more abortions, boarding schools and other state measures. But the main and now topical proposal of the scientist was the prohibition of alcohol.

Victor Osipov: “Implementation of a prohibitive system in relation to alcoholic beverages; vigorous fight against the spread of syphilis; the widespread development of the cause of the treatment and care of the mentally ill, epileptics, idiots and mentally retarded, chronic alcoholics and drug addicts in general; legislative prohibition of marriages between blood relatives, marriages with the mentally ill, mentally ill, severe degenerates, chronic alcoholics and drug addicts (until they are cured), epileptics, syphilitics (subject to insufficient treatment of syphilis and infection close to the time of marriage); health protection of pregnant and breastfeeding women”.

Long-headed versus round-headed

Anthropologist Viktor Bunak has published an interesting eugenics article on the impact of war on the anthropological makeup of society. He pointed out that in all wars, the percentage of killed and wounded from the command staff is higher than that of ordinary soldiers, and therefore the war has a consequence of selection in favor of the less cultured sections of society. “The war is not leading to the reduction of one people at the expense of another,” writes Bunak, “but to the replacement of one racial element by another in the midst of the people themselves, both defeated and victorious. It should be said: the replacement is not of "racial" elements, but of "hereditary", hygienic and mental, leaving the question of the attitude of the latter to racial ones open. " War, according to Bunak, is an undoubted selection factor, reducing the types that are physically and mentally stronger and contributing to an increase in types that are less strong in these respects.

Victor Bunak: “This element, which is dwindling in numbers, is characterized by a long skull shape and, apparently, consists largely of representatives of the so-called“northern”race. At the same time, he is also a bearer of an entrepreneurial spirit, personal and social energy, as well as great mental strength. On this basis, some extreme representatives of this trend view all history, political or social, as an expression of the struggle between the two main racial types of Europe: the long-headed - northern and broad-headed - Alpine. These types, mixed in various proportions in the populations of all European countries, determine their history and cultural progress by their relationships. The decline in the number of long-headed blondes, who are the creators of the entire European culture, is an inevitable consequence of their high mental qualities and enormous energy. Victims of their noble vocation - they perish and give way to representatives of another racial type, characterized by mediocrity in their mental qualities."