Gantt went to Russia in the 1920s with the American Relief Administration, and became a student of Pavlov.  Moving to Johns Hopkins in 1929, he founded the Pavlovian Laboratory, and devoted his career to understanding the connections between physiological functions and behavior. He translated many of Pavlov's works into English. This book was published in 1928, 11 years after the Russian Revolution, and marked the beginning of Stalin's first Five Year Plan.