The Development of Soviet Sociology, 1956-1976

Abstract

On June 19, 1958, a group of prominent Soviet philosophers, economists, and historians met in the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences, and established the Soviet Sociological Association (SSA). As Soviet sociologists prepare to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first professional organization, we have an opportunity to review the progress of Soviet sociology as an academic discipline and examine its prospects for future development. The case of Soviet sociology, despite its apparent idiosyncrasies, is a paradigmatic one. It provided a rare opportunity to observe in vivo the evolution of sociology into an academic discipline. It is partly for this reason that it continues to attract so much interest outside the Soviet Union. The first reactions in the West following the emergence of Soviet sociol­ ogy reveal a peculiar mixture of surprise, skepticism, and hope (Labedz 1956, 1963; Brodersen 1957; Roucek 1958; Kassof 1961, 1965; Merton & Riecken 1962; Ahlberg 1964; Feuer 1964). As sociological research contin­ ued to advance in the 1960s, a note of optimism about the future of Soviet sociology could be easily detected (Fischer 1964, 1966, 1967; Weinberg 1964; Allen 1965; Parsons 1965; Kiss 1966; Simirenko 1966, 1969; Vucinich 1968). Among the works of the current decade, probably the most thorough general review of the field available includes a book by Weinberg (1974), an article by Lipset (1973) on Soviet stratification research, and two works by Gouldner (1970) and Simirenko (1973), which present alternative mod­ els of the development of academic sociology in the USSR and the USA. With perhaps two exceptions (ShaHn 1976; Simirenko 1976), recent works deal with the past and largely neglect the organizational and theoreti­ cal developments of Soviet sociology in the last few years. Yet there is good reason to believe that the events of the current decade have been crucial for