In the 1930s the situation in the country changed. Repressions and political persecutions of psychologists followed as a result of their failure to accomplish both unrealistic tasks set by the Soviet government. These repressions "interrupted" the development of applied and practical psychology in Soviet Russia for many decades. Vygotsky, who was closely connected with practical work, was blamed for ideological sabotage. Cultural-Historical theory was labeled "a pseudoscientific, reactionary, anti-marxist and hostile theory" (Leontiev et al, 2005; Luria, 1994). Henceforth, works by Vygotsky were not published in the USSR until 1956, when his "Intellectual processes and speech" was re-published. Moreover, books by Vygotsky were destroyed in the libraries in 1936. And only in 1982, the edition of six volumes of works by Vygotsky, mainly manuscripts from archives unpublished before, was started. His early death in 1934 from tuberculosis, which he refused to treat, is often interpreted as a sort of a suicide[20] (Leontiev et al., 2005).

At the beginning of the 1930s the normal pace of collaborative work of Vygotsky – Luria – Leontiev at the Psychological Institute in Moscow ceased. In 1931 the Psychological Institute and the department of Psychology in MGU were closed, and teaching of psychology was stopped. It turned out to be necessary to look for another place to work. A good chance was an invitation to Charkhov, a city in the Ukrainian republic of the USSR. The three scientists took the invitation but only Leontiev moved to Kharkhov totally, and it is there that "Leontiev's" school began (the period of the so called "Kharkov school"). Luria was continuously travelling between Moscow and Kharkhov Vygotsky's presence in Kharkov was rather scarce; he spent more time in Moscow.

At this complicated moment a rupture between Vygotsky and Leontiev occurred. This fact is generally acknowledged by all biographers, though the exact reasons and motives remain obscure. It is generally acknowledged that this rupture was caused by serious theoretical disagreement alongside personal matters (Leontiev et al., 2005).

The hypothesis concerning the former can be based on analysis of some private letters of the two people and on memoirs.

We can assume that it was the time when Leontiev entered on his own road, developing ideas of Vygotsky in his own way, the way which was never fully approved by Vygotsky himself. In his autobiography published in 1999 (Leontiev, 1999), Leontiev wrote: "During this period I directed a number of experimental research projects based already on new theoretical positions which I had developed in concern of the problem of activity".