The Catechism of the Social Sciences: Can It Be Reconciled with Renewal?

Abstract

Criticism of the social sciences does not occupy last place among the multitude of new ideas raised by perestroika. The reference is to school subjects in their special, departmental understanding known to everyone who has gone through the Soviet system of higher education. The cartridge clip of these subjects included History of the CPSU, Scientific Communism, Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, and Marxist-Leninist Political Economy. For almost three-quarters of a century, an army of many thousand social-science teachers instilled the ideological credo of the apparatus that manages Soviet society in students in all specialtiesfrom engineers to cooks, from physicians to comedians, from merchandisers to archaeologists and astronomers in an enormous volume at all institutes, universities, technicums, and training schools. While this credo has changed in the course of Soviet history, the orientation of the social sciences toward brainwashing [ideologicheskaia obrabotka soznaniia] youth has remained constan...