Twenty-five years before Pitirim A. Sorokin came to Harvard, President Lowell made up his mind to form a Department of Sociology. An obvious prerequisite, however, was a sociologist; and not until 1931, when Sorokin appeared to deliver a few guest lectures, did Lowell find one worthy of the first chairmanship.

During the 20 years that followed his appointment, Sorokin has spent much of his time at the University doing research in the science of Love, work to counteract "man's predatory instincts." With the forming of the new Research Center in Altruism, he has been relieved of much of his teaching and administrative responsibility, and now spends a $20,000 a year grant trying to systematize culture.

Sorokin's first intimate contact with the motivations behind men's action came in 1904, when he was swept up in the revolutionary spirit sweeping Russia. At the age of 15, he became a member of the Social Revolutionary Party--"morally one of the purest actions imaginable." It was an almost inevitable step for his peasant background combined with an extensive (if largely self-administered) education to give him an acute sense of the misery of the people. He was, in his own words, "a mongrel of mongrels," and often remonstrated to Lenin and Trosky, "It is I who am the village laborer, not you."

It was at this same period, during the First Revolution, that Sorokin first went to jail; five prison terms were yet to come in the 18 hectic years which followed. Of his first sentence, Sorokin comments, "The warden gave me the use of his office, and it turned out to be the safest place to keep revolutionary literature."

Nineteen-seventeen came, and "every one knew the old regime was over." Sorokin also saw that the Socialists were destined to lost their post-Revolutionary struggle with the Bolsheviks. As a delegate to the First (and only) Soviet Congress, he was in a good position to view the political trend. "Things were going the wrong way," he meditates sadly. "I could see that it was not to be a bloodless revolution. Why I was not shot I shall never know; the profound reason, I guess, is that I am just lucky."

Lenin's attitude, however, gradually changed. Sorokin was offered a position in the Bolshevik Government. He refused, accepting instead his old professorship at the University of St. Petersburg. "Unfortunately," he remarked wryly, "you cannot teach Sociology without political implications."

"By 1922, I should have been shot a hundred times by Bolshevik standards," Sorokin says; "the chances of flight were about a hundred to one against me." The Communists, nevertheless, let him escape, but soon regretted their leniency. Immediately after leaving Russia, Sorokin received a telegram from his wife. It read: "Grandmother was very sorry she didn't give you the last blessings." Grandmother was the Secret Police.

Exhausted from his experiences, Sorokin stayed with Jan Masaryk for a short time in Czechoslovakia. "He was a truly great man,' says Sorokin. "He did not lose his simplicity throughout his whole life." In 1923, Sorokin was invited to come to Vassar, and delivered his first lecture after three weeks in the United States. "My accent is atrocious now, but it was super-atrocious then," he laughs.

The professorial profession is the only comfortable one," Sorokin insists. Then, pulling pamphlets and books in five different languages from his desk, he says: "Besides, quite a number of people seem to attach significance to my work. I probably compete for the position of the most translated scholar."

Two hobbies take up much of Sorokin's spare time: music and gardening. "This is a bad year for azaleas," he laments. Then brightening, he adds, "At least gardening is more harmless than going as an export to Washington."