Socialist Humanism Research Articles

Constellational Modernisms: “Socialist Humanism” and “Contextual Art” in Ion Bitzan and Wanda Mihuleac's Graphic Art of the 1970s

Constellational Modernisms: “Socialist Humanism” and “Contextual Art” in Ion Bitzan and Wanda Mihuleac's Graphic Art of the 1970s

Soviet Marxist Humanism: from the Class Struggle to the Renaissance of Human

The article considers the main ideas of Soviet Marxist humanism. It is shown that, despite ideological control over culture and science, an original version of Marxist humanism has been developing in Soviet philosophy since the mid 1930-s. Unlike other countries, where the publication of Marxs Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts played a key role in the emergence of Marxist humanism, this publication did not have the same impact in the USSR. Soviet Marxist humanism results from the debates about proletarian culture and humanism in 1920–30-s and also evolves as an anti-fascist movement. Studying the subject, we analyze three key narratives: proletarian humanism, socialist humanism and communist humanism. Proletarian humanism (M. Gorky, M. Petrosyan), in our opinion, historically corresponded to the period of irreconcilable ideological struggle with abstract humanism and fascism. Socialist humanism (N. Bukharin, P. Fedoseev, F. Konstantinov) was investigating necessary material and spiritual conditions to bring up a comprehensively developed personality. Communist humanism (I. Frolov) reflected the process of scientific and technological revolution and historically corresponded to de-escalation of international relationships and political course towards democratization and transparency.

Многоликий чилийский социализм: Хулио Сесар Жобет

The Chilean socialist movement, the Socialist Party, was very different from the parties of the same name both in Europe and in Latin Ameri-ca, being a party of revolutionary Marxism, standing on the positions of anti-imperialism, Latin Americanism, anti-reformism. This party was distinguished by internal ideological pluralism, when right-wing, social-democratic tendencies and extreme left, guided by the experience of the Cuban revolution, as well as Trotskyists and Maoists, coexisted within one party. This party consisted of an outstanding intellectual, historian, publicist Julio Cesar Jobet, who was a kind of theoretician of the party. This article is devoted to the analysis of his views and politi-cal positions. He was a popularizer and disseminator of Marxist thought in Chile. His Marxism was distinguished by a special reading. At the center of his thought were the problems associated with socialist humanism. His activity contributed to the adoption of many of the provisions of his theory by such leading politicians of the Socialist Party as Salvador Allende or Eugenio González. The purpose of the article is to show the influence of Jobet's position on such issues as humanism, democracy, freedom, criticism of Soviet totalitarianism, revolutionism as opposed to the reformism of the Communist Party of Chile on the formation of the policy of the "Chilean path to socialism" during the period of the Government of Popular Unity (1970-1973).

Humanism Contra Post-humanism

Abstract Post-humanism accuses humanism of inventing a human subject who is domineering and destructive. As a remedy, it redefines the human as a being informed by passivity and finitude and bound by ontological vulnerability. In so doing, it undermines the creative and transformative power of human agency and obliterates politics and history as shaped by human actions. Noting how this intensifies the experience of alienation and de-humanisation, the essay looks to Marxist and socialist humanism to resuscitate the idea of humans as agents of history. Humans are not a problem to be overcome; rather, they are the means through which a more viable world can be achieved, for humans and non-humans alike.

Onwards and upwards to the kingdom of beauty and love. Herbert Marcuse’s trajectory to socialism

Socialists today can learn from Marcuse. Starting from this premise this paper discusses and elaborates on Herbert Marcuse?s trajectory to socialism. Marcuse successfully eluded the trap of ?economism?, and turned to subjectivity in search of a socialist solution. The transition to socialism is possible through the creation of new anthropology expressed through the concept of ?new sensibility?. The prototype of a new socialist human is an anti-superman. Peace and beauty are important characteristics of Marcuse?s socialism. ?Libertarian socialism?, ?feminist socialism?, ?integral socialism?, ?socialist humanism?, ?socialism as the work of art?, and ?utopian socialism? are all terms that testify to Marcuse?s open and many-faceted understanding of socialism in all of its complexity of meanings. Some of those meanings can inform debates on future prospects of socialism.

Five-Year Plans, Explorers, Luniks, and Socialist Humanism: Anton Sovre and His Blueprint for Classics in Slovenia

About a year before the pandemic struck, personal archives of Anton Sovre (1885–1963) were rediscovered, and they eventually made their way to the National and University Library in Ljubljana. During the fifties, Anton Sovre was the undisputed éminence grise of the field of classics in Slovenia and among the new sources now available to researchers is an essay on “Perspective Development of Classical Philology” from 1959. The document was written in the tradition of the Five-Year Plans, and its rhetoric is often amusing. Its content, however, was written mainly by Sovre’s best student. At that time, Kajetan Gantar (1930–2022) had already defended his PhD thesis on Homer. Due to political reasons, he was initially blocked from getting a university position. However, the situation changed somewhat during the thaw in the sixties, when he could finally get the position of lecturer, and he eventually became the leading classical scholar and translator in the country and Sovre’s successor. His proposal for the future of the discipline shows strategic thinking, which was confirmed by the decades that followed.

Analysis of Contemporary Anglophone Kenyan Novels From as Aspect of Socialist Realism: Socialist Humanism

This study entitled Analysis of Contemporary Anglophone Kenyan Novels From as Aspect of Socialist Realism: Socialist Humanism attempts to read different Contemporary Anglophone Kenyan novels through the lens of Socialist Realism aspect, Socialist Humanism. Socialist Realism appeared for the first time in a speech of 17th May 1932 by Ivan Gronsky, and gaining worldwide recognition with postcolonial literary works, has been a focal point of different scholarly studies. In Kenya, the author like Ngugi wa Thiong'o wrote literary works which can be seen in Socialist Realist eyes. The motivation behind taking up this topic is to fill the research gap in reading different novels from Kenya in one volume and to be able to observe the trend in the practice and significance of using Socialist Realism. In doing so, the paper aims to show the re-emergence of Socialist Realism literary theory and Socialist Realist authors after it was considered as an outdated literary theory, and how different novelists from Kenya have applied the feature that Socialist Realism is known for. Three novels have been chosen for this study namely; Dust, A Journey Within, and Was Nyakeeru My Father?. The novels were published after 2000 G.C. To read these novels, a theoretical framework is formed using Socialist Realism’s feature theorized by different critics. The study concludes that different novelists in Kenya used the Socialist Realism feature, Socialist Humanism associating it with their contexts, connecting it with their respective historical background, shared current statues, commenting on existing economic, social, and political situations.

An activist stage craft? Performative politics in the First British New Left (1956–1962)

ABSTRACT The First British New Left (NL) (1956–1962) formed around two journals, The New Reasoner (NR) edited by E.P.Thompson and John Saville, and the Universities and Left Review (ULR) edited by Stuart Hall, Gabriel Pearson, Raphael Samuel and Charles Taylor. Both sought a ‘new’ socialism which, based on a loose concept of socialist humanism, restored the role of the individual and revitalised a popular left movement. Early commentators critiqued its lack of robust theory and organisational structure. More recently, others have proposed that, particularly amongst the ULR cohort, with this ‘new’ socialism emerged a ‘new’ activist politics. Building on this, I examine the ULR’s activism as a performative politics which stressed active participation over theory and dissolved any distinction between means and ends. Whilst Thompson and Hall have tended to be considered the main protagonists in shaping this, I argue that it was Samuel, an experienced organiser, who was most responsible for shaping their early agenda. His role has been neglected because he wrote no ‘position piece’ but, appropriately for an activist politics, expressed his ideas through his actions. ‘Reading’ his performances, then, illuminates more fully both the scope and the limits of this activist politics.

THE EMANCIPATION OF MASTURBATION IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY HUNGARY

AbstractIn this article, I discuss the emancipation of masturbation in twentieth-century Hungary, focusing on the socialist, Kádár era (late 1950s to late 1980s), which I claim was the time when the discourses concerning masturbation underwent profound transformation. I use Thomas Laqueur's periodization of discourses on masturbation in the West and make the case that in Hungary, due to its twentieth-century political and intellectual history, which affected both the institutionalization of sexology and discourses on sexuality, there is a markedly different chronology. In Hungary, interwar socialists were the first to suggest a new approach toward masturbation but these ideas remained marginal during the Horthy regime and in the ‘Stalinist’ 1950s. In the early years of the Kádár regime, debates about sexual morality reformulated what should be understood under socialist sexual morality. The concept of socialist humanism, especially Imre Hirschler's work, linked early 1960s sex education with the interwar socialist discourse on sex and paved the way to the emancipation of masturbation and the establishment of a post-Stalinist, socialist sexual ethics. In the 1970s and 1980s, iconic sexologists like Vilmos Szilágyi and Béla Buda moved away from socialist humanism and continued Hirschler's work, but mirroring the perspectives of contemporary Western science.

Analysis of <i>Yvonne Owuor’s</i> Dust from the Perspective of Socialist Realism Literary Theory

This study entitled Analysis of Yvonne Owuor’s Dust from the Perspective of Socialist Realism Literary Theory attempts to read a Contemporary Anglophone Kenyan novel through the lens of Socialist Realism. Socialist Realism appeared for the first time in a speech of 17th May 1932 by Ivan Gronsky, and gaining worldwide recognition with postcolonial literary works, has been a focal point of different scholarly studies. In Kenya, the author such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o wrote literary works which can be seen in Socialist Realist eyes. The motivations behind taking up this topic are to fill the research gap in reading a novel from Kenya and to observe the trend in the practice of Socialist Realism. The paper aims to show the re-emergence of Socialist Realism literary theory and the presence of Socialist Realist authors; after it was considered an outdated literary theory. And how the novelist from Kenya has applied the features that Socialist Realism is known. One novel has been chosen for this study, Dust. The novel was published after 2000 G.C. To read the novel, the theoretical framework forms at using Socialist Realism different features theorized by critics. The study concludes by finding major features of Socialist realism in the novel. These are optimism, socialist Humanism, class-ness, people-ness, Romanticism and positive hero. And the novelist in Kenya used Socialist Realism associating it with their contexts, connecting it with their respective historical background, shared current statues, commenting on existing economic, social, and political situations.

SOCIO-COGNITIVE STRATEGY OF “SOCIALIST HUMANISM” AS A SYSTEM OF REPRESSIVE SOCIAL ACTIONS

This article presents an authored version of socio-cognitive modeling of repressive social action – as one of the political pillars of the Soviet state, rooted in its political discourse. The urgency of such modeling can be attributed both to the importance of a deep understanding of social processes and the obvious complexity of the “collective memory” of society and the continuity and non-linearity of cognitive reconstruction processes that go on. The sources of the research include reliable data of historical and sociological nature (“The GULAG History”) and documentary and fiction texts the reliability of which is universally recognized (the works of the former GULAG prisoners V. Shalamov and A. Solzhenitsyn). The author substantiates his methodology by turning to the traditions of the “sociology of knowledge” and modern interdisciplinary research. The marked significance of cognitive systems that construct the very reality of various social groups and kinds of social behavior can be considered as general supporting principle. Based on the material of Stalin’s era, the article explores the instrumental-operational strategy of the social activity of a single or collective subject. This cognitive-mental structure operates within the framework of a destructive-affective cognitive-pragmatic program, the main principles of which are internal inconsistency, dogmatism, simulation, mytho-ideologization of both external reality and the consciousness of the subject of social action. Simulative mytho-ideological virtualism (duality) of “socialist humanism” is the only “correct filter” for the political consciousness of the Soviet person for defining reality, their place, role and cognitive-mental status in it. The “depersonalized subject” of social action perceives the “orders” of the dominant cognitive-pragmatic program as a system of “socio-cognitive axioms” that guarantee harmonious functioning of all social systems. The social action itself is recoded. Thus a repressive social action is perceived by the performer of the “will” of the program as the best way to strengthen social stability. The author distinguishes four groups of repressive social actions: preventive-prophylactic action (agitation, self-control, surveillance, informing, etc.); repressive-investigative action (arrest, complex of investigative actions); repressive-transformational action (forced labor in the mode of “remoulding” of consciousness); and repressive-liquidation action. Neither the subject nor the object of such an action is a source of social action, since they are reduced to the status of “tools” that fulfill the “will” of the program.

The Problem of Morality in Historical Materialism of the First Half of the Twentieth Century

The article analyzes the elements of the sociology of morality in the historical materialism of the first half of the twentieth century. The author believes that since the end of the XIX century. in the Russian Empire, and in the 1920s in the USSR the original school of Marxist sociology was formed. This process was interrupted in the 1930s. Representatives of this school considered historical materialism to be the sociology of Marxism and proposed to develop it accordingly. This point of view was presented most consistently by N. I. Bukharin. Among the common themes of the theorists of historical materialism of that time were the normative ways of regulating social life, primarily morality. Elements of the sociology of morality in historical materialism appeared in connection with the contradictions in revolutionary practice. Among the Bolshevik leaders were ascetics and people who tried to take everything from life. Contradictions in moral practice divided the Bolshevik Party from top to bottom. The article analyzes the texts of A. A. Bogdanov, V. I. Lenin, N. I. Bukharin, E. A. Preobrazhensky, and L. D. Trotsky. It is shown that the Bolshevik theorists formed different vectors of movement of the sociological theory of morality. A. A. Bogdanov and N. I. Bukharin moved in the direction of substantiating socialist humanism. V. I. Lenin, L. D. Trotsky, and E. A. Preobrazhensky viewed morality as a system of utilitarian class norms. In the Trotskyist version of historical materialism, the theory of morality was brought to openly inhuman conclusions.

The Practices of Hope: Literary Criticism in Disenchanted Times, by Castiglia, Christopher

<i>The Practices of Hope: Literary Criticism in Disenchanted Times</i>, by Castiglia, Christopher

Гуманистическое измерение биорациональности

The concept of rationality is characterized by immanent uncertainty: is it a rationality of life or a rationality specifed by the concept “life”? For the philosophical discourse, the concept of rationality is most important. This paper aimed to demonstrate how the concept “life” specifes the concept “rationality”. There are two strategies used to determine rationality: absolutist and relativist; they are not mutually exclusive, but presuppose each other. Rationality is knowledge of a special kind and, like truth, is procedural. It is obvious that in Nietzsche’s philosophical aspect of life, which does not deny the ability of the human mind, the mind is just a servant of life. The Nietzschean will to power sounds like a hymn to human freedom. The essence of the Nietzschean concept of life is represented in his “Die at the right time!” manifest. Nietzsche’s position coincides with liberal humanism, but contradicts the ideas of socialist humanism. The scientifc study of life is multidisciplinary. In this context, life is analysed as the basis of human freedom: from the ability of chemical autocatalysts to mutate, through the “power of will” to human freedom. The “power of will” characterizes the range of an organism’s freedom in its movement towards death. At the stage of post-non-classical science, interdisciplinarity is replaced by transdisciplinarity, which means going beyond scientifc knowledge into the sphere of culture and everyday life. The scientifc and the philosophical understandings of life are drawn closer together.Biological rationality appears as a dilemma: life is rational because it is a prerequisite for freedom, while ending one’s own life to assert freedom is also rational. The realities of the digital society chart a coursefor rationality to go beyond humanism. Biological rationality is a signifcant stage in the development of rationality, which is eliminated by its further development.

СОЦІАЛІСТИЧНИЙ ГУМАНІЗМ І РЕАЛІСТИЧНІ ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ В МИСТЕЦТВІ У НАУКОВІЙ СПАДЩИНІ ВОЛОДИМИРА АНТОНЕНКА

In the article is considered the ideas of ukrainian philosophy of soviet period V. Antonenko, and so the influence of the ideology of that time on the formation of the scientific worldview of the scientist is analyzed. Theoretical reconstruction of V. Antonenko's views on socialist humanism is carried out, principles of which he shows as the highest form of humanism, contrasting the anti-humanist essence of Christian preaching "love of neighbor" and depicts socialist reality as a practical embodiment of true humanistic ideas. Analyzed of views V. Antonenko on art the socialistic realism, which is presented as the highest stage in the development of progressive world art. The scientist traces the origin of art, explains how it was brought to life, what contribution religion has made to its best achievements. V. Antonenko explores the anti-religious and anti-church orientation of the works of many representatives of fine arts. He is analyzing the views of idealist aesthetics and theologians on art. V. Antonenko thoroughly researches the stages of development of humanism, traces its social and cultural movement, which arose in the XIV century. in Italy; studies the humanistic ideas of the leading figures of the Renaissance, who found their further development in the works of the ideological predecessors of the French Revolution of the XVIII century; explores the humanistic ideas of the utopian socialists of the nineteenth century; studies the period of development of Ukrainian and Russian art in the period of radical destruction of old traditions and the influence of religious ideology on their formation; considers a whole galaxy of outstanding artists of the second half of the nineteenth century, who glorified culture and began to speak a new about art as a higher product of human genius, about the principles of realism in art. V. Antonenko's research on the relationship between art and other forms of social consciousness, which are related to the problems of forming norms and principles of communist morality, is analyzed.

M. N. Roy and the Frankfurt School: Socialist Humanism and the Critical Analysis of Communication, Culture, Technology, Fascism and Nationalism

Manabendra Nath Roy (1887-1954) was the founder of the Communist Parties of Mexico and India and a socialist-humanist philosopher. In the Western world, his works are today widely ignored and forgotten. This article introduces some philosophical aspects of Roy’s thought. It engages with foundations of his theory and shows its relevance for the study of communication, culture, technology, the human being, fascism, and nationalism. Frankfurt School thinkers such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm were interested in similar topics to Roy. This article also compares the approach of Roy and the Frankfurt School. It shows parallels between Roy and the first generation of the Frankfurt School with respect to themes such as the dialectic of technology and society, the dialectic of the Enlightenment, fascism, nationalism, and authoritarianism. In the age of new nationalisms and authoritarian capitalism, global environmental crises, capitalist crisis, and the digital crisis, socialist-humanist theories such as M. N. Roy’s can inspire struggles for a humanist and socialist society as antidotes to the acceleration and deepening of the three crises.

Praca i słowa: humanizm socjalistyczny Karola Marksa w świetle foucaultowskiej tezy o kresie człowieka

The aim of this paper is to compare philosophical methodologies of Karl Marx and Michel Foucault. The comparison is centered on the problem of humanism: whereas socialist humanism can be seen as a core belief of Marx's historical materialism, Foucault on the other hand is often described as the one of the most fierce critics of humanism. Presented analysis consists of: reconstruction of Marx's notion of work and its ontological and epistemological consequences, reconstruction of Foucault's critique of Marx's outlooks presented in The Order of Things and analysis of Foucault's thesis about the death of men. The author points out that the philosophical methodologies of Marx and Foucault are in fact similar to a large degree, as both philosophers can be described as materialists, nominalists. Furthermore, both for Marx and Foucault the human subject is to be thought as historical and socially manufactured being.

HUMANISME KARYA-KARYA SASTRA PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER: SEBUAH PERGULATAN DISKURSIF

Until now Pramoedya Ananta Toer is still recognized as a great Indonesian writer. For this reason, many people doubt that Hanung Bramantyo as popular movie director can perfectly and deeply adapt Pramoedya’s literary works into movies. Some scholars agree that one of the fundamental values in Pramoedya’s works is humanism. However, since Pramoedya visited China and was involved in Lekra, their opinions were split into two categories of humanism: universal humanism on the one hand and the socialist humanism on the other. This research attempted to scrutinize whether Pramoedya is on one of the humanism categories or beyond both categories. Theoretical framework of this research is Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory combined with Bhabha’s concept Location of Culture, while the method is the appropriate discourse analysis method. This research found that Pramoedya’s humanism is beyond universal and socialist humanism. In his articulations of humanism as uncovered from his literary works, there are different positions taken by Pramoedya according to different discursive arenas in wich the humanism articulated. In other words, Pramoedya’s postcolonial humanism is located in the liminal area that is always in contestation and negotiation.

The Politics of Sentiment in Tony Harrison’s The School of Eloquence

Tony Harrison’s filial sonnets, from his major ongoing sonnet sequence The School of Eloquence (1978–), are widely regarded as among the most moving poems in the language, and have conversely been criticized for sentimentality. Blake Morrison observes that the focus upon the sentiment of the filial sonnets has obscured their political concerns. What has not been noticed is the sonnets’ politics of sentiment. Harrison’s merging of filial and political concerns and the way his socialist humanism is refracted in these intimate sonnets is examined in this article in relation particularly to the great elegiac sonnet ‘Marked with D’ and ‘Heredity’, the brilliant, little-discussed verse epigraph to the sonnet sequence. A purpose of this article is to show the extent to which the filial sonnets merge empathy and politics and express powerful personal and political feeling in their own terms.

The Literature of “Socialist Humanism”: Compassion as a Variation of Ideological Manipulation

[straipsnis lietuvių kalba; santrauka anglų kalba]&#x0D; Straipsnio dėmesio centre – Mykolo Sluckio romanas Laiptai į dangų (1963). Romano pagrindu tikrinama sovietinėje Lietuvoje politinio atlydžio laiku susiformavusi idėja apie „socializmą žmogišku veidu“, „socialistinį humanizmą“. Keliamas klausimas, kokiomis intencijomis „socializmo žmogišku veidu“ periodu vaizduojamas luošasis. Siekiama tekstą dekonstruoti – stebėti, kaip ideologija išsiskleidžia diskurse, kokius prieštaringumus atveria. Tiriama, kaip luošojo figūra lemia kūrinio siužetą, manipuliacijas personažų charakteristikomis, opozicijomis, kitais įtaigavimo būdais. Taip pat stebima, kaip šiuo atveju veikia literatūros tradicija. Kūriniui skaityti svarbus jo sociokultūrinis kontekstas, „socialistinio realizmo“ ir „socialistinio humanizmo“ sampratos išsklaida, teksto retorinės operacijos.