Contact building: emotional exchanges between counsellees and counsellors in the late socialist period in Poland.

In Poland after World War II, the related fields of sexology, sex education and sex counselling developed a distinctive model of communication between counsellees and counsellors. This article focuses on Wieslaw Sokoluk, one of the key Polish youth counsellors and sex educators active during the late socialist period (the 1970s and 1980s), looking at his path to becoming a sex educator and youth counsellor as well as his practice in both fields. It treats his story as a case study that illustrates the distinctive development of the related disciplines of sex counselling and education. It specifically focuses on the communication between Sokoluk and his counsellees, school pupils, correspondents and readership. It shows how the distinctive methods underpinning emotion-driven communication between counsellor and counsellee developed, while presenting them as products of particular economic, political and religious conditions of late socialism, including state-funded education and healthcare as well as the relative sexual openness resulting from the struggle between the state and the Catholic Church.

Family Planning Advice in State-Socialist Poland, 1950s-80s: Local and Transnational Exchanges.

This paper scrutinises the relations between different models of family planning advice and their evolution in Poland between the mid-1950s and the late 1980s, focusing on their similarities and dissimilarities, conflicts and concordances. From 1956 onwards, the delivery of family planning advice became a priority for both the Polish Catholic Church and the party-state, especially its health authorities, which supported the foundation of the Society of Conscious Motherhood and aspired to mainstream birth control advice through the network of public well-woman clinics. As a consequence, two systems of family planning counselling emerged: the professional, secular family planning movement and Catholic pre-marital and marital counselling. We argue that reciprocal influence and emulation existed between state-sponsored and Catholic family planning in state-socialist Poland, and that both models used transnational organisations and debates relating to contraception for their construction and legitimisation. By evaluating the extent to which the strategies and practices for the delivery of birth control advice utilised by transnational birth control movements were employed in a 'second world' context such as Poland, we reveal unexpected supranational links that complicate and problematise historiographical and popular understandings of the Iron Curtain and Cold War Europe.

The best of leaders at the worst of times: medical scientist and war premier.

Professor Juan Negrín López was Prime Minister of the democratically elected left-wing government of Spain for the latter two-and-a-half years of the three-year Civil War which ravaged the country between 1936 and 1939. The side loyal to the government lost, partly because of the generous aid received by their opponents from Germany and Italy, partly because of the Anglo-French agreement, observed by most countries but ignored by Germany and Italy, to outlaw arms supplies to either side, partly because of internal dissent, and partly because of the greater military capability of the enemy. Negrín led the country with tenacity and wisdom, but is remembered with ambivalence in Spain, and hardly at all elsewhere, although he spent the years of his post-war exile in the UK and France. This paper draws attention to a member of the medical profession who achieved both academic and political distinction, but whose career ended in a disaster which he was powerless to prevent. Among his admirable qualities, he should be remembered for his courage. Like most wars, the Spanish Civil War had its share of psychopaths and villains - but also its share of heroes, and Juan Negrín belongs among their number.

[On Conditioned Rats and Stressed Workmen : Rudolf Baumann and the Discourse About Stress and Environment in the GDR]. / Von konditionierten Ratten und gestressten Werktätigen : Rudolf Baumann und der Stress- und Umweltdiskurs in der DDR.

The emergence of cardiovascular diseases from stress, i.e. psychosocial pressure, was a constitutive element in the international medical discourse of the 1960s and 1970s. This article describes an East German variant of the stress discourse, developed by Rudolf Baumann and his associates at the Institute for cortico-visceral pathology and therapy in Berlin-Buch. The group sought to develop a genuinely materialist approach to the problem of psychosocially caused diseases, as well as ways of therapy and prevention suited to a socialist health system. At the same time, it was constantly drawing on Western concepts and practices. By examining this project in international context, congruences and differences between Eastern and Western perceptions of the stressful effects of industrial society are worked out. Furthermore, the article discusses that the concept of stress implied ambitious programs for social prevention and therapy, the realization of which in both political systems was constrained by the social reality.

En el aniversario 60 del triunfo de la Revolución cubana / In the 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution

Cuando salga a la luz este número de la Revista Cubana de Salud Pública estaremos celebrando en todo el país, y en muchos lugares del mundo, el aniversario 60 del triunfo de la Revolución cubana el 1.º de enero de 1959. La victoria de las fuerzas revolucionarias no significó la sustitución de un gobierno por otro, sino que representó un cambio radical de la estructura económica, política y social de la nación. Esta transformación posibilitó la creación de una nueva conciencia en el pueblo y en las generaciones venideras, con un escalón superior de desarrollo y un enfoque distinto en la educación en general, y en la médica, en particular, lo que viabilizó crear un sistema de salud que respondiera a las necesidades de nuestro pueblo y de la cooperación internacional. Los autores de este editorial lo quieren es significar el hecho, por cuanto resume en sí mismo la expresión y comienzo de las transformaciones que en materia de salud pública se implementarían. Evidentemente, solo una Revolución como la cubana, auténtica hija de los valores humanistas de los hombres y las mujeres que la han hecho posible, podía llevar adelante los cambios que el país necesitaba. ¿Por qué una nación pequeña, de pocos recursos materiales, bloqueada por el imperio más poderoso y terrible de la historia, pudo proponérselo y logró convertirse en una potencia médica, que no solo garantizó la salud a su pueblo, sino que, empleando sus escasos recursos, formó miles de ...(AU)

En el aniversario 60 del triunfo de la Revolución cubana / In the 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution

Cuando salga a la luz este número de la Revista Cubana de Salud Pública estaremos celebrando en todo el país, y en muchos lugares del mundo, el aniversario 60 del triunfo de la Revolución cubana el 1.º de enero de 1959. La victoria de las fuerzas revolucionarias no significó la sustitución de un gobierno por otro, sino que representó un cambio radical de la estructura económica, política y social de la nación. Esta transformación posibilitó la creación de una nueva conciencia en el pueblo y en las generaciones venideras, con un escalón superior de desarrollo y un enfoque distinto en la educación en general, y en la médica, en particular, lo que viabilizó crear un sistema de salud que respondiera a las necesidades de nuestro pueblo y de la cooperación internacional. Los autores de este editorial lo quieren es significar el hecho, por cuanto resume en sí mismo la expresión y comienzo de las transformaciones que en materia de salud pública se implementarían. Evidentemente, solo una Revolución como la cubana, auténtica hija de los valores humanistas de los hombres y las mujeres que la han hecho posible, podía llevar adelante los cambios que el país necesitaba. ¿Por qué una nación pequeña, de pocos recursos materiales, bloqueada por el imperio más poderoso y terrible de la historia, pudo proponérselo y logró convertirse en una potencia médica, que no solo garantizó la salud a su pueblo, sino que, empleando sus escasos recursos, formó miles de ...(AU)

El Proyecto de Constitución de la República de Cuba / The Project of Constitution of the Republic of Cuba

Cuando salga a la luz este editorial, se habrá recorrido la mitad de camino del proceso de consulta popular del proyecto de la nueva Constitución del pueblo cubano, comenzado el 13 de agosto y que culminará el próximo 15 de noviembre. Es un proceso único en el mundo, donde el pueblo deviene en órgano constituyente de la nación. Como parte de ese proceso se discute el proyecto en todos los centros de trabajo, de estudio, en las comunidades y barrios, con los obreros, campesinos, estudiantes, profesionales, artistas, científicos, vecinos, las organizaciones políticas, de masas, sociales y en las unidades militares.En el Informe Central del Primer Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba,1)refiriéndose a la discusión y análisis del proyecto de Constitución de 1976, primera de la etapa revolucionaria, el compañero Fidel Castro Ruz destacó el proceso de ejemplar democracia en la consulta con el pueblo al expresar que “alrededor de 6 millones 200 mil personas tomaron parte en la discusión del proyecto”. Es un principio de la Revolución cubana que el pueblo participe en la conformación de las principales normas, políticas y leyes del país.En la Constitución vigente, proclamada en 1976 y reformada en 1978,1992 y 2002, se declara que Cuba es un Estado socialista, cuya soberanía reside en el pueblo, del cual dimana todo el poder del Estado. La Constitución institucionalizó muchos aspectos de la vida nacional que ya se venían aplicando por acuerdos del Consejo de Estado o de Ministros.En estas líneas trataremos de darle un vistazo a la Constitución vigente y a la propuesta analizada en la consulta popular en los aspectos referidos a la salud.La atención a la salud y a la educación han sido...(AU)

Robert Owen, utopian socialism and social transformation.

This paper critically scrutinizes accounts of Robert Owen's life and works focusing on his purported "utopianism" and his supposedly deficient "socialism." It suggests that such positions have relied on questionable assertions about the potential of particular modes of social transformation, and a failure to acknowledge the distinction Owen makes between the practical arrangements necessary to begin the process of transformation, and those arrangements that would ultimately prevail in "the new moral world." It also argues that such accounts may contribute to the development of fatalistic narratives surrounding cooperative values and projects involving strategic compromise. In response, the paper reconsiders the significance of Owen through the lens of a "strategic presentism" that considers how Owen's ideas can be thought of as significant contributions to theorizing social transformation.

The Island of Alternatives: Power, Medical Science, and "Gentle Birthing" in Socialist Czechoslovakia.

Beginning in the early 1980s, medical experts and birthing women increasingly voiced criticism of what had long been the technocratic, depersonalized nature of obstetric treatment in Czechoslovakia, despite the limited opportunities for them to do so publicly. A few maternity hospitals responded to the complaints by introducing radically different regimens of care. This article examines the history of one reformist project that took place in the small town of Ostrov nad Ohrí. Ostrov means "island" in Czech and, during the last decade of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the Ostrov hospital became an island of alternative obstetric care, embracing Leboyer's method of "gentle birthing," acupuncture, fathers in delivery rooms, and assorted technological innovations that aimed to spark fundamental change in familial and social relationships, and humanize childbirth. While many medical professionals decried these reforms as nonsensical and dangerous, a number of parents-to-be flocked to Ostrov to give birth, circumventing the official rules mandating that they receive healthcare in their area of residence. This proactive consumerist behavior among expectant parents, in tandem with the call of some physicians for more attention to individual and family needs, despite the opposing official political discourse, is evidence of a grassroots movement for market-oriented principles in healthcare that reflected broader societal change during the last decade of the Communist regime.

Crafting socialist embryology: dialectics, aquaculture and the diverging discipline in Maoist China, 1950-1965.

In the 1950s, embryology in socialist China underwent a series of changes that adjusted the disciplinary apparatus to suit socialism and the national goal of self-reliance. As the Communist state called on scientists to learn from the Soviets, embryologists' comprehensive view on heredity, which did not contradict Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976)'s doctrines, provided a space for them to advance their discipline. Leading scientists, often trained abroad in the tradition of experimental embryology, rode on the tides of Maoist ideology and repositioned their research. Some of their creative realignment of previous research questions, materials, and traditions to Marxist philosophy and agricultural objectives generated productive programs. In particular, Tong Dizhou (1902-1979) translated Engels's dialectics of nature into a research question about cytoplasmic inheritance. His continuing investigation on it led to the first goldfish "clone" through a nuclear transplantation experiment; Zhu Xi and his associates transferred a goldfish model in embryology into studies on improving carp aquaculture, leading to a rare success in the Great Leap Forward of 1958. These directions for embryology continued well into the 1960s. At a time when global embryology was diversifying and began to be molecularized, eventually forming "developmental biology," socialist embryology took shape in China with a different set of epistemic and practical commitments. The history of its development challenges and enriches our understanding of the concrete process of change in one discipline under Mao, showing ways in which scientists creatively adapted state-sanctioned ideologies and visions to do productive work outside the framework of molecular biology during the Cold War.

[International relationships in ophthalmology in the German Democratic Republic (GDR)]. / Internationale Beziehungen der Augenheilkunde in der DDR.

International relationships in ophthalmology in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) were directed by the government and predominantly promoted relationships to socialist countries in Eastern Europe. The lack of freedom of travel, restrictions of import for scientific journals and general prevention of contacts by the State security service led to a stagnation in daily practice and in research, mainly from 1961 until 1989.

"Unnatural Fornication" Cases Under State-Socialism: A Hungarian-Slovenian Comparative Social-Historical Approach.

This comparative social-historical study examines different versions of state-socialist body politics manifested in Hungary and Slovenia mainly during the 1950s by using archive material of "unnatural fornication" court cases. By analyzing the available Hungarian "természet elleni fajtalanság" and Slovenian "nenaravno obcevanje" court cases, we can shed light on how the defendants were treated by the police and the judiciary. On the basis of these archive data that have never been examined before from these angles, we can construct an at least partial picture of the practices and consequences of state surveillance of same-sex-attracted men during state-socialism. The article explores the functioning of state-socialist social control mechanisms directed at nonnormative sexualities that had long-lasting consequences on the social representation of homosexuality in both countries.

The Psychoprophylactic Method of Painless Childbirth in Socialist Czechoslovakia: from State Propaganda to Activism of Enthusiasts.

This paper explores the history of the 'psychoprophylactic method of painless childbirth' in socialist Czechoslovakia, in particular, in the Czech and Moravian regions of the country, showing that it substantially differs from the course that the method took in other countries. This non-pharmacological method of pain relief originated in the USSR and became well known as the Lamaze method in western English-speaking countries. Use of the method in Czechoslovakia, however, followed a very different path from both the West, where its use was refined mainly outside the biomedical frame, and the USSR, where it ceased to be pursued as a scientific method in the 1950s after Stalin's death. The method was imported to Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s and it was politically promoted as Soviet science's gift to women. In the 1960s the method became widespread in practice but research on it diminished and, in the 1970s, its use declined too. However, in the 1980s, in the last decade of the Communist regime, the method resurfaced in the pages of Czechoslovak medical journals and underwent an exciting renaissance, having been reintroduced by a few enthusiastic individuals, most of them women. This article explores the background to the renewed interest in the method while providing insight into the wider social and political context that shaped socialist maternity and birth care in different periods.

[Anarchists, Assassins and Revolutionaries. The Psychopathologization of "Political Criminals" between 1880 and 1920]. / Anarchisten, Attentäter und Revolutionäre. Zur Psychopathologisierung "politischer Verbrecher" zwischen 1880 und 1920.

"Political criminals" of the early 20th century were adjudged to be psychopaths, a term which was generally accompanied by a negative moral judgement. However, other more positive appraisals were also made at this time. These contradictory moral judgements by psychiatrists expose the need for an examination of the historical development of concepts, traditions and moral debates associated with political criminals (anarchists, assassins, revolutionaries). This will be undertaken in the context of psychiatry/ criminology, security (and surveillance) policy as well as culture and the arts in German-speaking countries from 1880 to the early 1920s.

The Moral Career of 'Outmates': Towards a History of Manufactured Mental Disorders in Post-Socialist China.

This study focuses on 'manufactured mentally ill' (bei jingshenbing, [symbol in text]) individuals in post-socialist China. In Chinese society, bei jingshenbing is a neologistic catchphrase that refers to someone who has been misidentified as exhibiting symptoms of mental illness and has been admitted to a mental hospital. Specifically, it refers to those individuals who were subjected to unnecessary psychiatric treatment during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Based on archival analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, this study addresses the ways in which the voices of bei jingshenbing victims and those who support them reveal China's experiences with psychiatric modernity. It also discusses the active role of these individuals in knowledge production, medical policymaking, and the implications for reforming the psychiatric and mental health systems in post-socialist China.

Michael Young, the Institute of Community Studies, and the Politics of Kinship.

This article examines the East London-based Institute of Community Studies, and its founder, Michael Young, to show that sociology and social research offered avenues for left-wing political expression in the 1950s. Young, who had previously been Head of the Labour Party Research Department during the Attlee government, drew upon existing currents of psychological and sociological research to emphasize the continuing relevance of the extended family in industrial society and to offer a model of socialist citizenship, solidarity and mutual support not tied to productive work. Young and his colleagues at the Institute of Community Studies promoted the supportive kinship networks of the urban working class, and an idealized conception of the relationships between women, to suggest that family had been overlooked by the left and should be reclaimed as a progressive force. The article shows that the Institute's sociological work was informed by a pre-existing concern with family as a model for cooperative socialism, and suggests that sociology and social research should be seen as important sources of political commentary for scholars of post-war politics.

La doctrina social católica en el proceso industrializador de la España franquista: el caso del grupo farmacéutico Alter / The social catholic doctrine in the industrializing process of Francoist Spain: the case of the Alter pharmaceutical group

Los Laboratorios Alter, y el grupo de empresas generadas en torno a Juan José Alonso Grijalba (1894-1962) durante el franquismo, tuvieron como fundamento empresarial la doctrina social católica, de la que este farmacéutico fue firme defensor y propagandista. En este trabajo esbozamos la biografía de este empresario, exponemos sus principios ideológicos y analizamos el modo en que tales teorías se pusieron en práctica, en los Laboratorios Alter, desde tres aspectos: económico, cultural-recreativo y moral-religioso. La actuación empresarial que traslucen los escritos de Juan José Alonso son los de un «patronazgo patriarcal», su aspiración parece la de convertir Alter en una «fábrica-convento» bajo las bases programáticas del humanismo católico, en las que el empresario asume un rol claramente despótico, y en la que la intervención del obrero se reduce a aceptar las normas -y las prebendas- ofrecidas por el empresario (AU)

Alter Laboratories and the group of companies developed by Juan José Alonso Grijalba (1894-1962) under Franco’s regime held the Catholic social doctrine as the foundation of his business. This pharmacist was a strong advocate and propagandist of these ideas. In this paper, we outline the biography of this entrepreneur, describe his ideological principles, and analyze how these theories were implemented in the Alter Laboratories in their economic, culturalrecreational, and moral-religious dimensions. The business approach revealed by the writings of Juan José Alonso is a «patriarchal patronage»; his goal appears to have been the conversion of Alter into a «factory convent» with the programmatic foundations of Catholic humanism, in which the employer assumes a clearly despotic role and the intervention of workers is reduced to accepting the standards and perks offered by the employer (AU)