Russian AT is a full representative of the praxeological approach, basing on Marx, which roots can be traced back to Aristotle's idea of the ability to initiate activity being the essence and the generative function of psyche. It should be also taken into account, that young Soviet psychology developed in close relation with Russian biology and physiology, aiming to become an "objective" science and grounding on works of Sechenov and Pavlov (Mironenko, 2009a). Ivan Sechenov (1829–1905), internationally acknowledged physiologist, whose works "Who Must Investigate the Problems of Psychology, and How?" (1873b), "Psychological Studies" (1873a), and "Elements of thought" (1878), greatly impacted the development of "objective psychology" in Russia, founded the tradition of considering psyche as, first of all, a function of nervous system enabling movement of the organism, its active interaction with the environment. Sechenov used to say: "psyche is born and dies with motion".

Another factor, which should be taken into account in our assessment of the creation of Russian AT, is the specificity of Russian cultural tradition, denying pragmatism and rationalism of the Western culture. The concept of "Natural Man", spontaneous and complacent, for whom freedom is just an absence of external compulsion, was denied by eschatological Russian culture (Dostoevsky Tolstoy, etc.), which traditionally focused on intra-personal conflicts, on the conflict between spiritual and natural drives in human being, who is striving to get free from his own weaknesses and passions. Russian philosophy (Berdjaev, Solovyev, etc.) traditionally dwelt on ethical problems, on conscience and responsibility, based on the postulate of the freedom of will. This gave Russian AT a specific "spiritual" touch (Mironenko, 2008). That was the generative situation for the creation of AT, which accounts for its specific character, combining materialistic determinism and romantic belief in freedom of will.

The main theoretical propositions of Russian AT, which were formulated by Rubinstein, are (Rubinstein, 1940):

A. The Psyche is an attribute of the material world, engendered in the course of active interaction of the individual with the environment. Psyche serves to make this interaction more effective for the individual, serves the needs of individual and promotes the survival. Thus Psyche is not an independent substance but a specific procreation of the material world (Philosophical monism and materialism).