This contribution analyzes the pattern of how the Soviet drive to participate in international public health expert organizations was permanently entangled with the state’s agencies of academic policing – and political agendas proper. Using the League of Nations’ Health Organization, the World Health Organization, and the World Psychiatric Association as case studies, I reconstruct how Soviet politics intervened with scholarly endeavors and forced scholars to take on political roles and decisions. Through a three-step longitudinal comparison, my article provides an insight into the restrained pattern of Soviet expert engagement. The contribution argues that, although the state’s surveillance and domination over scholars were sustained throughout the entire studied period, each new iteration of detachment and withdrawal was less total in scope and more difficult to legitimize for the domestic expert community itself.

This contribution analyzes the pattern of how the Soviet drive to participate in international public health expert organizations was permanently entangled with the state’s agencies of academic policing – and political agendas proper. Using the League of Nations’ Health Organization, the World Health Organization, and the World Psychiatric Association as case studies, I reconstruct how Soviet politics intervened with scholarly endeavors and forced scholars to take on political roles and decisions. Through a three-step longitudinal comparison, my article provides an insight into the restrained pattern of Soviet expert engagement. The contribution argues that, although the state’s surveillance and domination over scholars were sustained throughout the entire studied period, each new iteration of detachment and withdrawal was less total in scope and more difficult to legitimize for the domestic expert community itself.