Letter of Ivan Pavlov to the Council of People’s Commissars. 1920

To the Council of People’s Commissars Academician I.P. Pavlov’s petition

All of my life I have preferred a straightforward, open way of action. Other than that being my nature, the half-century of scientific laboratory work (physiological) also had an effect: nature does not adapt to trickery. I have decided to do the same in this matter. I most humbly ask of the Council of People’s Commissars to allow me to start correspondence (even if it is controlled) with my foreign scientific friends and comrades on the topic of finding me a place, out- side of my homeland, where I could be sufficiently provided for along with my wife and without any difficulty continue my research, which I dare to consider very important and to which my brain is still completely adept, maybe even especially so with the enormous amount of material collected over such a long time and my abilities to focus my thoughts on it.

Staying in Russia at this time I cannot carry out this work not only as I would prefer and completely fruitfully, but also I am completely afraid. This because of many points that I found to be true for me, not even considering the extraordinary and what are now largely insurmountable material limitations of all forms in today’s Russian laboratories and the lack of communication or connection with the worldwide scien- tific communities.

These are the reasons.

I was never involved with politics actively and was never a part of any political party since I was not willing to part with the freedom of thought I got so accustomed to in the laboratory and which is detrimental to the search for truth; I also did not want to distract myself from my chosen, life’s work. This does not mean that I closed my eyes to the surrounding real- ity. With my habitual laboratory thoroughness I also collected in my mind general observations about life, systemized them, analyzed and came up with conclusions. So now, here I am as an ancient experimentalist of life, however elementary, I am deeply convinced that the Russian socialist experience is doomed to absolute unhappiness, it will give no result other than political and cultural ruin to my homeland. Without fail, this thought gnaws at my mind and keeps me from focu ing on my research. In the long run, this attitude more or less gradually weakens one.

Therefore, I do not want to and cannot without the will make myself into a socialist or Communist, that is to refuse all that is mine and become a serf of others. I want to have complete control of the fruits of my intellectual work, which by their ideological content in the form of scientific results have no nationality and are and will continue to be useful to all people. With them I hope to, outside of creating for myself a few comforts and pleasures, to reward and thank those who have helped me selflessly throughout my life, especially in the difficult initial portion of my research work, of course, first is my wife and taking care of her in her old age should she happen to outlive me. This is my second point.

Third, although I now hold three positions, which means I get salaries from three places, it is still only a total of 25 thousand rubles a month. Sometimes a lack of funds forces me to, in the required season, to do the work of a gardener (not always easy at my age) and to constantly work around the house in the role of a servant, a helper to my wife in the kitchen and keeping the house clean, which all together takes away the larger and best part of the day. Further, my wife and I don not eat well in either quantity or quality (years without seeing white bread, weeks and months without milk or meat, the main staple in our diet being black bread, most of which is of bad quality or millet that is not very good either etc.) which naturally is leading to our gradual thinning and weakening. All this after half of a century of research work which has been rewarded with valuable results and accepted by the whole scientific world.

In the strength of all of this I ask you to allow me along with my wife the freedom to leave Russia and also allow those members of my family who agree to accompany us and to help us with their youthful strength once we become decrepit. I also ask that you do not keep us from using our current property (the belongings in our home) to give us its value in making the adjustment to a new place, at least at first, tolerable.

Academician I.P. Pavlov

My address: Petrograd., Vas. Ostr. line 4, building 2, apt. 11.

The 11th day of June 1920.

[Reserve 5, list 1, case 1172, page 32. The original consists of 4 handwritten pages, written by hand by I.P. Pavlov.]

Pavlov, Ivan (1849–1936)—prominent physiologist, did research on nervous system activities and the process of digestion, founded a school of physiology. In 1904, received the Nobel Prize. A member of many foreign academies, universities, and societies.

After the October Revolution, a special government decree, signed by Lenin on January 24, 1921, noted «the outstanding scientific services of Academician I.P.Pavlov, which are of enormous significance to the working class of the whole world».

The Communist Party and the Soviet Government saw to it that Pavlov and his collaborators were given unlimited scope for scientific research. The Soviet Union became a prominent centre for the study of physiology, and the fact that the 15th International Physiological Congress of August 9-17, 1935, was held in Leningrad and Moscow clearly shows that it was acknowledged as such. Stayed in Russia until the end of his life.