BATTLEMENTS AND BRIDGES IN THE EAST : THE CZECHOSLOVAK PSYCHIATRIC CONGRESS WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION
Abstract
H. MASSERMAN,M.D.2It had long been my avocation while trayabout the world to learn how my colleagues elsewhere observe facts and form opinions-and to acquire a growing insight that the distinctions among âfactsâ and opinions are not as absolute as I had formerly imagined. When, therefore, I received an invitation from the Czechoslovak Ministry of Health to be âan honored guest and principal speaker at the First Czechoslovak Pyschiatric Congress with International Participation,â I welcomed an opportunity to help re-establish long-suspended relationships with our colleagues within the Soviet zone of influence, and attended the Congress at Jesenek, from September 7 to 11, 1959. The following is a highly condensed report of its proceedings.BACKGROUND OF THE CONGRESSthat âMarxist philosophy could not admit that man was basically irrational.â However, during the interregnum of the Triumvirate, of Malenkov, and in the early days of Khrushchev, the freedom of investigation demanded by the nuclear physicists and temporarily given to writers, poets and composers was also extended to psychiatrists,During the later periods of the Stalin regime, and especially during his prewar purges, all non-Marxist psychologic or sociologic ideologies grew increasingly suspect in the USSR, and those that could be considered anti-Marxist became anathema. To