Behavior: Censuring The Soviets

A white list for patients, a black list for their doctors

Apart from Pavlov and his dogs, Soviet psychiatry is perhaps best known for the breakthrough discovery of "sluggish schizophrenia" accompanied by "paranoid delusions of reforming society." This is a mysterious ailment, usually requiring sudden incarceration, that often strikes political dissenters in the U.S.S.R. Since the late '50s, when Khrushchev announced that "there are no political prisoners, only persons of unsound mind," the Soviets have relied on tame psychiatrists to label troublemakers insane.

In recent years, dissidents have reached the West with tales of...

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