St. Petersburg was the main scientific center of the Russian Empire and remained so in the first decades of Soviet power. It is no accident that a new psychology was born in this city, the ideologist of which was V.M. Bekhterev. The essence of the new psychology is stated in a number of articles and speeches of the 1900s. and in the book «Objective Psychology» in 1907. Until the end of his days, Bekhterev developed his theory, gradually transforming it into reflexology, which was subjected to devastating criticism in the early 1930s. Pupils and employees of Bekhterev refused it.