Psychiatr Pol
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Historical Article
[To cast a spell on reality. On actions of Soviet authorities in connection with the 6th Congress of the World Psychiatric Association at Honolulu].
At the 6th Congress of the World Psychiatric Association, held at Honolulu in August 1977, its participants accepted by acclamation a--so called--"Hawaiian Declaration" and a Resolution of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The Declaration condemned all kinds of abuse in psychiatry, and the Resolution condemned the abuses in the Soviet psychiatry in particular. The Congress of Honolulu carried out, at last, the action initiated at the Congress of Mexico City six years earlier. ⋯ Aware of the fact that this time the pressure to condemn the misuses practiced in the Soviet psychiatry would be ever stronger, the KGB and the Ministry of Health of the USSR began their "preparations" for the next Congress as early as in 1976. This article describes the tactics of action promoted by the Soviet authorities in order to prevent the condemnation. The Author made a proper use of some documents that he had recovered at the Moscow "Centre for Storing the Contemporary Archives".