Brief Encounter: Acupuncture, Pavlov, and Scientific Exchange Between China and the Soviet Union, 1949–1961

This article traces exchanges of personnel, knowledge, and practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) between China and the Soviet Union during a brief window of Sino-Soviet friendship in the 1950s and 1960s. It argues that TCM theory was reshaped by incorporating Pavlovian theories to modernize and validate acupuncture through a theory of mechanisms of higher nervous activity, with the framework of holism, specific research methods, and concepts such as “biologically active points” becoming sedimented within the TCM system. In turn, Soviet medicine embraced acupuncture, with its use enduring long after the Sino-Soviet split of 1959, in keeping with the internationalist spirit of the Soviet Scientific Technological Revolution. The article challenges theories of Soviet scientific exchange as “imperial scavenging,” demonstrating that China was as much an active agent in these interactions, with both sides making use of each other’s expertise for their own ends, often with mutual respect and enthusiasm.