was its theoretical overideologization as a result of the strict demand to severely preclude any deviations from the "exclusively scientific" concept of Marxism–Leninism. This showed, in particular, in the fact that Soviet psychiatry under the totalitarian regime considered that penetrating the inner life of an ill person was flawed psychologization, existentionalization. In this connection, one did not admit the possibility that an individual can behave "in a different way than others do" not only because of his mental illness but on the ground alone of his moral sets consistently with his conscience. It entailed the consequence: if a person different from all others opposes the political system, one needs to search for "psychopathological mechanisms" of his dissent. Even in cases when catamnesis confirmed the correctness of a diagnosis of schizophrenia, it did not always mean that mental disorders were the cause of dissent and, all the more, that one needed to administer compulsory treatment "for it" in special psychiatric hospitals. What seems essential is another fact that the mentally ill could oppose the totalitarianism as well, by no means due to their "psychopathological mechanisms", but as persons who, despite having the diagnosis of schizophrenia, retained moral civic landmarks. Any ill person with schizophrenia could be a dissident if his conscience could not keep silent, Kondratev says. According to St Petersburg psychiatrist Vladimir Pshizov, with regard to punitive psychiatry, the nature of psychiatry is of such a sort that using psychiatrists against opponents of authorities is always tempting for the authorities, because it is seemingly possible not to take into account an opinion by the person who received a diagnosis. Therefore, the issue will always remain relevant. While we do not have government policy of using psychiatry for repression, psychiatrists and former psychiatric nomenklatura retained the same on-the-spot reflexes. As Ukrainian psychiatrist Ada Korotenko notes, the use of punitive psychiatry allowed of avoiding the judicial procedure during which the accused might declare the impossibility to speak publicly and the violation of their civil rights. Making a psychiatric diagnosis is insecure and can be based on a preconception. Moreover, while diagnosing mental illness, subjective fuzzy diagnostic criteria are involved as arguments. The lack of clear diagnostic criteria and clearly defined standards of diagnostics contributes to applying punitive psychiatry to vigorous and gifted citizens who disagree with authorities. At the same time, most psychiatrists incline to believe that such a misdiagnosis is less