Who’s Crazy Now?

Since 1962, at least four hundred perfectly sane men and women have been declared insane by Soviet mental-health authorities and committed to mental hospitals because of religious or political opinions. These dissidents are not sentenced to a term of imprisonment, but are “treated” until they “recover”—that is, until they recant the offending beliefs. They are surrounded by the genuinely—often violently—insane. They are treated with powerful tranquilizers that cripple the memory, lump the emotions, scramble the powers of concentration, and undermine the ability to think.

The political abuse of psychiatry by the Soviet Union exists because Soviet psychiatrists are willing to diagnose the healthy as sick, and because their Western colleagues have until now let them get away with it. This summer, that may change.

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David Frum

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Since 1962, at least four hundred perfectly sane men and women have been declared insane by Soviet mental-health authorities and committed to mental hospitals because of religious or political opinions. These dissidents are not sentenced to a term of imprisonment, but are “treated” until they “recover”—that is, until they recant the offending beliefs. They are surrounded by the genuinely—often violently—insane. They are treated with powerful tranquilizers that cripple the memory, lump the emotions, scramble the powers of concentration, and undermine the ability to think.

The political abuse of psychiatry by the Soviet Union exists because Soviet psychiatrists are willing to diagnose the healthy as sick, and because their Western colleagues have until now let them get away with it. This summer, that may change.