Ethics in Soviet Philosophy

Abstract

Soviet Marxism-Leninism and its philosophy of dialectical materialism occupy a special, controversial, place in the history and theory of Mandan and Marxist thought. Officially, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has seen itself as standing in true apostolic succession to Marx and Engels. It has devoted much effort to sponsoring and controlling (as a task of fundamental political importance) the propagation of a Marxist-Leninist philosophy, grounded in the classics of Marxism, allegedly representing a coherent and systematic Marxist view of the world. Soviet Marxism has become a pervasive official ideology of the Soviet State, taught in schools and universities as the only truly ‘scientific’ world outlook, deviation from which is at best an error and at worst a counter-revolutionary act. Sympathisers have claimed that the Soviet Union is the only country in which, for fifty years, a vast collective effort has gone into the study, systematisation and popularisation of Marxist thought; the results, therefore, should be viewed as those of a devoted and coherent school of Marxists, bringing many informed minds and a wealth of theoretical and practical experience to bear on each problem of Marxist philosophy.