Development of Marxist theory and theoristis/philosophers in the USSR?

[stud40111]

I am a newbie here, so please bear with me if I ask some rather silly (at least to those more knowledgeable than I) questions.

How much was marxist/communist theory developed in the Soviet Union post-Stalin? Was philosophy and what not actually encouraged in the education systems and was it debated in public forums? Or was it something that only occurred behind the closed doors of the ruling party?

Furthermore, did any prominent thinkers or philosophers emerge in the Soviet Union after Stalin who's works and theories and admired or adhered to among today's leftists, i.e. post-1991 (when the Soviet Union fell)?

If anyone would be willing to shed some light on the above questions, I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

[Drace]

I don't know much myself on this topic but you might find this interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_in_the_Soviet_Union

Also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Soviet_philosophers

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It ossified into the continual repetition of the basics of dialectical materialism (with each book almost word-for-word the same as all the rest), and commentaries on them, with no innovation at all.

The most 'original' thinker was probably Ilyenkov, but even he was a hack.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/

Oizerman comes next, a slightly less inventive hack.

http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/oizer-dmhp1b.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teodor_Oizerman

Without doubt one of the most boring and repetitive intellectual eras in human thought -- except, perhaps, for that in China since 1949.

You would be well advised to pass it by in silence.

[stud40111]

Rosa,

What makes the "hacks" hacks? Lack of originality? Something else?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

A hack is someone who is just concerned to repeat and defend a received view (a bit like the way that most theologians operate), either because they are merely 'prize fighters' for a ruling elite or are writing under some sort duress.

In the case of these Russian 'thinkers', you only have to read a few of their books and articles to see they are concerned only to repeat, over and over, the received dogmas passed down from Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and/or Stalin.

They are not alone, the vast majority of non-Russian dialecticians (be they Communist, Maoist, Trotskyist, Libertarian Leftist, or Non-Leninist dialecticians) are also more content to repeat these sacred truths than they are to develop a scientific view of the world.

I have tried to explain why this is so here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

[btpound]

I disagree Rosa. But what else is new!

It can't say I am in any way an expert on Soviet Philosophers, but I really like this guy, Evgeny Pashukanis. He was more of a theoritician than a philosopher. His magnum opus is The General Theory of Law and Marxism. It is a great book if you are looking into the subject of law in a materialistic way. (ie why does law exist? From what social phenomena does it grow out of? etc.)

[Winter]

I am a newbie here, so please bear with me if I ask some rather silly (at least to those more knowledgeable than I) questions.

How much was marxist/communist theory developed in the Soviet Union post-Stalin? Was philosophy and what not actually encouraged in the education systems and was it debated in public forums? Or was it something that only occurred behind the closed doors of the ruling party?

Furthermore, did any prominent thinkers or philosophers emerge in the Soviet Union after Stalin who's works and theories and admired or adhered to among today's leftists, i.e. post-1991 (when the Soviet Union fell)?

If anyone would be willing to shed some light on the above questions, I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

I can't think of any prominent figure who furthered the cause of Marxism after Stalin. I'm sure the revisionist party tried to lead the masses into believing that they were furthering the cause of communism but reality was a different story. Just like how our governments try to tell us we're living in a democracy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Btpound:


I disagree Rosa. But what else is new!

Well, I defy you to find half a dozen original works (out of the many hundreds) on dialectical materialism (or anything else not involving science, technology and/or mathematics) written in the USSR between, say, 1930 and 1989.

Or, indeed, anywhere else, for that matter.


It can't say I am in any way an expert on Soviet Philosophers, but I really like this guy, Evgeny Pashukanis. He was more of a theoritician than a philosopher. His magnum opus is The General Theory of Law and Marxism. It is a great book if you are looking into the subject of law in a materialistic way. (ie why does law exist? From what social phenomena does it grow out of? etc.)

Pashukanis wrote his most original work (The General Theory of Law and Marxism, 1924) before the deadhand of Stalinism enforced doctrinal uniformity on Russian intellectuals.

Now, try and find some originality after, say, 1930.

Here is how he was rewarded for his originality:


From 1925 to 1927, Pyotr Stuchka, another Soviet legal scholar, and Pashukanis compiled an Encyclopedia of State and Law and started a journal named Revolution of Law. In 1927, he was elected a full member of the Communist Academy, eventually becoming its vice-president. He and Stuchka started a section on the General Theory of State and Law at the Academy. However, in 1930, Nikolai Bukharin was attacked by Stalin, because he insisted that the state must wither away to bring forth communism, as Marx had advocated, and stripped of all his political posts. Pashukanis soon came under pressure from the government as well. As a result, Pashukanis started to revise his theory of state. He stopped working with his friend Stuchka. It is unclear whether Pashukanis's transformation was simply the result of fear for his safety, or whether he actually changed his mind. He was rewarded by being made director of the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law (predecessor of the Institute of State and Law of the Soviet Academy of Sciences) in 1931. In 1936, he was nominated Deputy Commissar of Justice of the USSR and was proposed for membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

However, Pashukanis, like Nikolai Krylenko and others, was denounced as part of a "band of enemies" by Andrey Vyshinsky, the Prosecutor General of the USSR and mastermind of Stalin's Great Purge. The philosopher Pyotr Yudin was also active in attacking Pashukanis. In February 1937, Pashukanis was arrested and Vyshinsky replaced him at the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law. Alfred Krishianovich Stalgevich, a longtime critic of Pashukanis, took over his courses at the Moscow Juridical Institute.

Pashukanis, after publishing many 'self-criticisms', was eventually denounced as a "trotskyite saboteur" in 1937, and executed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Pashukanis

And that is why every subsequent Russian theorist turned into a hack.

[ZeroNowhere]

Isaak Illich Rubin was pretty decent (some people whose opinions I respect hold him in higher regard than that), but was also killed in 1937. So yeah, perhaps there weren't that many left.


In the case of these Russian 'thinkers', you only have to read a few of their books and articles to see they are concerned only to repeat, over and over, the received dogmas passed down from Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and/or Stalin.And imputing them to Marx, of course. Just like the vast majority of 20th Century Marxism, with a few notable exceptions, and in their case their main novelty was generally simply restating Marx.

[#FF0000]

Furthermore, did any prominent thinkers or philosophers emerge in the Soviet Union after Stalin who's works and theories and admired or adhered to among today's leftists, i.e. post-1991 (when the Soviet Union fell)?

Slavoj Zizek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek) falls into that category. He's a Slovenian philosopher that's basically a superstar nowadays.