Soviet Marxism Research Articles

Sartre'sCritique de la Raison Dialectique and the opacity of Marxism-Leninism

Far more interesting than the as yet stumbling East-West dialogue is the give and take between Soviet and non-Soviet Marxist philosophers. This exchange has been going on for some years: unfortunately, it seldom has been anything more than puerile polemic. With the publication of Sartre's Critique1 the situation has completely changed. This book is conceived as a total critique of Marxism-Leninism, accomplished through a 'penetra tion' to the real meaning of Marx. To the considerable extent that Sartre succeeds in this volume in re-presenting Marxian man and the Marxian view of society he issues a challenge to Marxist-Leninists, which they can ignore only at the peril of seeing the entirety of dialectical and historical materialism dismissed as so much bad commentary. The situation described in this article is significant not only for the status of Marxism-Leninism but also for an understanding of the point to which Sartre and a certain form of existentialism have progressed. We shall, therefore, begin with the almost impossible task of briefly outlining the content of Sartre's Critique. In a second section we shall extract the critiques he specifically directs toward Marxism-Leninism and attempt to see to what extent they are valid. Finally, we shall examine the responses which Sartre's work has evoked from the Soviets.

The Treatment of Problems of Marxist Ethics in the Postrevolutionary Works of Lenin

During the first Soviet years, problems of morality attracted the attention of a broad range of philosophers, scholars, and public figures. The main direction of ethical thought in the USSR was developed in the works of Lenin and his co-workers - N. K. Krupskaya, A. V. Lunacharskii, M. S. Ol'minskii, E. M. Iaroslavskii, and other Soviet Marxists. In these writings we find the theoretical groundwork for the norms of the new communist morality.

The Deradicalization of Marxist Movements

Marxism-Leninism, as the Soviet Marxist ideology is called, has never been wholly static; it has evolved over the years by a process of accretion, elimination and redefinition of dogma. But in the first post-Stalin decade, there were changes of unusual scope and significance in this sphere, accompanying and in some ways mirroring the general processes of systemic change which Stalin's death precipitated in Soviet society. This paper seeks to interpret the post-Stalin Soviet ideological changes, especially as they bear upon the politics of world revolution. In doing so, it attacks the broader theoretical problem of what goes on in radical political movements and their ideologies as these movements settle down and accommodate themselves to the existing world. For some such tendency appears to be involved in the Soviet case.The year 1956 was the watershed of post-Stalin ideological change in the U.S.S.R. In the Central Committee's report to the Twentieth Party Congress—the first congress held after Stalin's death—Nikita Khrushchev announced a series of doctrinal innovations affecting particularly the line of Communist Marxism on international relations and the further development of the world Communist revolution. One was the revision of the Leninist thesis on the inevitability of periodic wars under imperialism. On the ground that the world-wide forces for peace were now unprecedentedly strong, it was proclaimed that wars, while still possible, were no longer fatally inevitable even though “imperialism” continued to exist in large areas. Not only could the antagonistic socio-economic systems peacefully coexist; they could and should actively cooperate in the maintenance of peaceful relations. At the same time, coexistence was a competitive process, economics being the principal arena of competition.

Russian Sectarianism in New Soviet Marxist Scholarship

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Cybernetics and Marxism-Leninism

In the course of the nineteenth century it became clear that the unfettered speculation obtaining in philosophy frequently could not be useful in science. However, in the Soviet Union it is asserted that natural science can draw its correct "theoretical conclusions" only by relying upon the philosophic and the methodological teachings of dialectical materialism. Certain Soviet Marxists have, on allegedly philosophic grounds, rejected Western genetics, the resonance theory of the chemical bond, the principle of uncertainty of quantum mechanics, relativist cosmology, the relativization of space, time, and matter, probability theory, and symbolic logic. The intriguing question then remains whether Soviet dialectical materialists determine the validity of scientific theories and accomplishments on the basis of a priori judgments derived from philosophic analysis or whether the Soviet attacks on Western scientific thought are, rather, political and ideological in nature.

A Preliminary Scheme for the Economic Regionalization of Cuba

The authors propose a scheme of economic regionalization for Cuba, based on Soviet Marxist principles. These include the idea of objective existence of a region, independently of man's will; the need for considering future developmental prospects; energy supply; the prerequisites for integrated development of the regional economy; the presence of a regional specialization; maximum promotion of a geographical division of labor, and the factor of the country's defense capability. The resulting system of six regions in described.

Bukharin and the Planning of Science

Arational, planned state is both the goal and the promise of socialist and communist theorists. Combining a modern belief in the infinite potentiality of the human mind with organizational experience in a state formally devoted to planned activity, the Soviet Marxists have claimed unique authority for their assertion that only through control and planning can man obtain the maximum benefit from his environment. The

A Soviet Marxist View of Structural Chemistry: The Theory of Resonance Controversy

Previous articleNext article No AccessA Soviet Marxist View of Structural Chemistry: The Theory of Resonance ControversyLoren R. GrahamLoren R. Graham Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 55, Number 1Mar., 1964 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/349792 Views: 18Total views on this site Citations: 11Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1964 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jeffrey I. Seeman The Many Chemists Who Could Have Proposed the Woodward‐Hoffmann Rules (Including Roald Hoffmann) But Didn't: The Theoretical and Physical Chemists † **, The Chemical Record 22, no.55 (May 2022).https://doi.org/10.1002/tcr.202200052Eric D. Glendening, Frank Weinhold Pauling’s Conceptions of Hybridization and Resonance in Modern Quantum Chemistry, Molecules 26, no.1414 (Jul 2021): 4110.https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26144110Anna I. Krylov The Peril of Politicizing Science, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 12, no.2222 (Jun 2021): 5371–5376.https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475Stephen Weininger Reaktionen und Synthesen – aber lieber keine Theorie, Nachrichten aus der Chemie 67, no.44 (Apr 2019): 16–18.https://doi.org/10.1002/nadc.20194085465Vasily Vitalievich Ptushenko, Nataliya Evgenievna Zavoiskaya EPR in the USSR: the thorny path from birth to biological and chemical applications, Photosynthesis Research 134, no.22 (Aug 2017): 133–147.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-017-0432-5Elena Aronova Citizen Seismology, Stalinist Science, and Vladimir Mannar’s Cold Wars, Science, Technology, & Human Values 42, no.22 (Mar 2017): 226–256.https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243916687643José Luis P. B. Silva, Nídia Franca Roque Teoria da ressonância: história e ensino, (Jan 2011): 339–357.https://doi.org/10.7476/9788578791261.0016Valeria Mosini A Brief History of the Theory of Resonance and of its Interpretation, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 31, no.44 (Dec 2000): 569–581.https://doi.org/10.1016/S1355-2198(00)00029-0Stephen G Brush Dynamics of theory change in chemistry: Part 2. Benzene and molecular orbitals, 1945–1980, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 30, no.22 (Jun 1999): 263–302.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0039-3681(98)00028-4Mary Jo Nye Aristocratic Culture and the Pursuit of Science: The De Broglies in Modern France, Isis 88, no.33 (Oct 2015): 397–421.https://doi.org/10.1086/383768Robert P. Multhauf, Bernard S. Finn, Aleida V. H. Cattell, Gertrude B. Calvert, and Diana D. Menkes Ninetieth Critical Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (To 1 January 1965), Isis 56, no.44 (Oct 2015): 490–657.https://doi.org/10.1086/350074

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932. David Joravsky

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsSoviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932. David Joravsky Robert PalterRobert Palter Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 73, Number 3Apr., 1963 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/291451 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1963 University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Soviet Marxism and Biology

Soviet Marxism and Biology

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932

Soviet City Planning: Current Issues and Future Perspectives

Abstract Rapid urbanization, a high pace of industrialization, and the demands of Soviet Marxist ideology have confronted Soviet city planners with enormous tasks. These are further complicated by the disadvantageous position of local government units as opposed to industries located in their territory, the manner in which national economic planning sometimes hinders efforts at local planning, and certain weaknesses of the city planning profession in both training and methods. While there is a great and continuing quantitative increase in apartment housing, the existence of the individual house poses special problems for city planners, and the construction of local facilities and services has not kept up with housing. The planner's attack on urban problems has recently focused on two programs: design of residential areas as largely self-contained micro-districts, and the reduction of center-city concentration via the satellite city.

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932. David Joravsky

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsSoviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932. David JoravskyBernard BarberBernard Barber Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 53, Number 3Sep., 1962 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/349623 Views: 4Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1962 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Harry Woolf, and Aleida Cattell Eighty-Eighth Critical Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (To 1 January 1963), Isis 54, no.44 (Oct 2015): 515–667.https://doi.org/10.1086/349789

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932. David Joravsky

<i>Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932</i>. David Joravsky

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932.

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932.

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917–1932. By &lt;italic&gt;David Joravsky&lt;/italic&gt;. [Studies of the Russian Institute, Columbia University.] (New York: Columbia University Press. 1961. Pp. xiv, 433. $7.50.)

Journal Article Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917–1932. By David Joravsky. [Studies of the Russian Institute, Columbia University.] (New York: Columbia University Press. 1961. Pp. xiv, 433. $7.50.) Get access Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917–1932. By Joravsky David. [Studies of the Russian Institute, Columbia University.] (New York: Columbia University Press. 1961. Pp. xiv, 433. $7.50.) Nicholas DeWitt Nicholas DeWitt Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 67, Issue 2, January 1962, Pages 419–420, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/67.2.419 Published: 01 January 1962

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932

Originally published in 1961. Russian Marxist philosophy of science originated among men and women who gave their whole lives to rebellion against established authority. The original tension within Marxist philosophy between positivism and metaphysics was repressed but not resolved in this first phase of Soviet Marxism. In this volume the author correlates the development of ideas with trends in the Cultural Revolution and against this background it is possible to understand why debates over general philosophy gave way to conflicts over specific sciences in the aftermath of the first Five Year Plan and why there was a genuine crisis in Soviet biology.

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932

Soviet Theory of Classes

Whereas the classic Marxism defines the class lines legalistically, congruent with the property lines, soviet Marxism faces a real difficulty in solving the class problem. Soviet demography tends to omit the class concept altogether; the party ideology requires the postulates of a dictatorship of the proletariat to remain unchanged. Soviet society experiences an occupational stratification with a reasonable degree of social mobility; it seems that the tenets of soviet Marxism supply a suitable rationale for those successfully upwardly mobile. SOPHISTICATED sociology outside the boundaries of the socialist states a long i_} time ago abandoned attempts to reduce social reality to one variable. But among governments which profess to strive for a communist society nineteenth century social frustrations have been retained and codified. Thus the concept of class has become the fundamental premise on which the forceful erection of a modern totalitarian state must rely. Actually, however, the picture of society framed by Marxism-Leninism (which functions as a soviet sociology) is not too clear. On the one hand, there are demographic manuals and reports by the census bureaus which either treat the class question as a matter of occupational stratification or of ruralurban differences or omit it altogether. On the other hand, soviet social theory with its, continuous historical references to Marx and Lenin still tends to treat the class question as the basic tenet of the very existence of the soviet state. Let us then first scrutinize the soviet theory and later relate it to the soviet practice. Apparently Marx was not able to find enough sociological information in the reading rooms of the British Museum to provide him with a solid basis for a theory of stratification; nonetheless, patches of social information provided by the industrial revolution, and Marx's own historical retrospection induced him to conceive of society as a matrix of class conflict. The very existence of the class conflict diverted his attention from the conflicting parties, the classes themselves. His illness and resulting death prevented Marx from finishing his only chapter on classes.' There Marx distinguishes among the three major social groups in a capitalist society, as exemplified by nineteenth century England: workers, capitalists, and landowners. Class characteristics are derived from the legal forms of the ownership of the means of production (labor, machines and shops, land) rather than from the kind of revenue and income (wages, profits, and rents). All groups (classes) have in common the capitalist characteristic of a commodity market situation. Thus, the 1 Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. III (Berlin: Dietz,

The History of Technology in Soviet Russia and Marxist Doctrine

Soviet Marxists. It is of central importance both to the general philosophy and to the theory of history by which they defend their political program; it has long been used in the ideological education of specialists; and in the past few years study of the subject has been urged, as Professor Zvorikine points out in the preceding article, as a method of humanizing technical specialists, of saving them from the stultifying narrowness of their competence. The first two aspects of this attraction stem directly from Marx and have been felt by his spiritual descendants on both sides of the Russian frontier. To understand the peculiarities of Soviet Marxist work in the history of technology, one must see it in its specifically Soviet context.