 In 1929 the USSR had 70 psychiatric hospitals and 21,103 psychiatric beds. By 1935 this had increased to 102 psychiatric hospitals and 33,772 psychiatric beds, and by 1955 there were 200 psychiatric hospitals and 116,000 psychiatric beds in the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities built psychiatric hospitals at a rapid pace and increased the quantity of beds for patients with nervous and mental illnesses: between 1962 and 1974 the number of beds for psychiatric patients increased from 222,600 to 390,000. Such an expansion in the number of psychiatric beds was expected to continue in the years up to 1980. Throughout this period the dominant trend in Soviet psychiatry ran counter to the vigorous attempts in Western countries to treat as many as possible as out-patients rather than in-patients.
