Soviet Social History Research Articles

Marxism, Psychology, and the Soviet Mind

Marxism, Psychology, and the Soviet Mind Garret J. McDonald (bio) Hannah Proctor, Psychologies in Revolution: Alexander Luria's "Romantic Science" and Soviet Social History. 268 pp. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. ISBN-13 978-3030350307. 59.99. Wladimir Velminski, Homo Sovieticus: Brain Waves, Mind Control, and Telepathic Destiny, trans. Erik Butler. 128 pp. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017. ISBN-13 978-0262035699. $19.95. Anton Yasnitsky, ed., A History of Marxist Psychology: The Golden Age of Soviet Science. 218 pp. New York: Routledge, 2020. ISBN-13 978-0367340063. $46.95. Nearly four decades have passed since the publication of the Russian psychologist Alex Kozulin's call-to-arms, Psychology in Utopia (1984), which presents six case studies of famous Russian and Soviet psychologists in an effort to contextualize the development of Soviet psychology within Soviet social history. Kozulin examines the interactions among Marxist philosophy, the science of psychology, and social history, challenging other scholars to expand upon his work. While the text does not advance any overarching conclusions per se, Kozulin aimed for the book to represent "a socially informed study of Soviet psychology that [distinguishes] between the actual conditions of its development and those secondary interpretations that are invented in order to present these conditions in an ideologically coherent form."1 Designed to challenge both Soviet and Western scholars, who had long conceptualized psychology as either merely a single component of a broader history of Soviet science or as a theoretical issue entirely excluding historical analysis, [End Page 145] Psychology in Utopia opened the doors to thoughtful historical analyses of Soviet psychology. Five years later, the historian of Soviet science David Joravsky's seminal text, Russian Psychology (1989), provided the definitive response, one that continues to dominate the English-language historiography.2 Sweeping in scope and ambition, Russian Psychology examines the entirety of the development of the Russian "sciences of the mind" (namely psychology, psychiatry, physiology, and psychoanalysis) from the mid-19th century to the 1970s. The world contemporary to Kozulin and Joravsky—littered for years with consistent accusations by Soviet dissidents and Western media that Soviet psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience had been coopted by the regime to enforce party ideology and repress dissenting voices (a notion only recently reexamined in the academic literature)—was ripe for these publications, which stood well above any of their Cold War era counterparts due to their meticulous research, intricate analyses of the inner mechanisms of Soviet psychological practices, and earnest consideration of the influence of Marxist philosophy and society at large in scientific developments.3 For almost a decade after the Soviet collapse and subsequent "archival revolution" of the 1990s, Joravsky's scholarship remained the sole go-to text on Soviet psychology. In fact, during this period Western interest in the Russian sciences of the mind seemed to wane altogether, with the exception of Daniel Todes's notable exploration of the laboratory practices and research of Ivan Pavlov and a few disjointed studies concerned with the legacy of Freud and [End Page 146] psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union.4 As academic interests in the field grew once again in the first decade of the 21st century, none challenged Joravsky's monumental text directly. Scholars instead carved out niches within which to explore individual scientists or specific social and political issues, such as criminality, homosexuality, and governance.5 This has remained the case until quite recently, as a few brave scholars seek to build a broad consensus concerning the precise development, forms, and functions of a distinctively "Marxist" psychology and take sincerely, yet critically, the ideas born of the marriage between the socio-economic philosophy of Marxism and the sciences of the mind. Psychology and Revolution Hannah Proctor's monograph Psychologies in Revolution represents an ideal starting point as a bridge between the traditional biographical approach and Kozulin's call for a broader social history of psychology. The text is, at least in part, a biography of the Russian neuropsychologist Aleksandr Romanovich Luriia (1902–77), built upon Joravsky and more recent literature concerned with Luriia's collaborator, Lev Semenovich Vygotskii (1896–1934).6 The book is, however, much more than a conventional biography. Luriia—whose life and work spanned the experimental psychology of...

Consumption, Man, and Gender: Historical and Philosophical Analyses (the Example of Early Soviet Society)

The research is directed on the field of history of consumption’s expansion, as well as inclined to the understanding of the gender standards and models in consumption. It is based on the theoretical achievements of gender studies, philosophy and sociology of consumption. Whereas consumption is a process that is closely connected with a gender perspective, it forces to examine the issue of constructing gender by means of consumption. Thus authors used attention the cross-disciplinary methodological approach, which allows to explore the interrelations between gender and consumption. It has been considered the way of construction feminity and masculinity in the everyday practices, as well as the formation of gender models and standards in consumption irrespectively of the career level or material status of the research actors. The case study of this article are the construction of feminity and masculinity in the everyday consumer practices in the early Soviet society, which allows to “open” the new faces of Soviet social history – consumers. Making historical analogies provides opportunity for a critical understanding of the Soviet ideological project devoted to the constructing of a "new Soviet man" and "new Soviet consumer". Despite the proclaimed principle of gender equality by the Bolshevik authorities, these changes did not significantly transform the everyday consumer practices, because in the sphere of domestic consumption most of the functions were still performed by women. However, the development of consumption had influenced the emergence of gender ideology, which resulted in expanding the opportunities for women to work in the sphere of production and distribution of consumer goods and services, as well as intensified their political participation.

Impact of the Opening of Soviet Archives on Western Scholarship on Soviet Social History

The opening of formerly closed and classified archives following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a remarkable experience for historians working in this field. Our data base abruptly expanded in a quantum leap, changing our situation from one roughly comparable to that of researchers on early modern Europe (working with the limited range of sources generated by a relatively unambitious state with a small literate population) to that of researchers on any other developed twentieth‐century state (working with the huge array of records generated by a modern bureaucratic state and literate society). From the standpoint of researchers, this brought many changes. Field‐specific research skills painfully acquired in the period of archival dearth suddenly become more or less redundant. Different skills and strategies were often required to deal with the new situation of abundance. This essay examines the extent and peculiarities of Western scholars' access to Soviet archives in the decades before 1991, and the nature and variety of archival sources becoming available to Western scholars for the first time, and the impact these had on research and interpretation of Soviet social history.

Soviet Society in the Cold War World New Perspectives

Soviet Society in the Cold War World New Perspectives Until recently, research in the field of Soviet social history on the one side and Cold War historiography on the other side went separate ways. Experts on the Soviet Union focused on the inner history of primarily Stalinism, whereas diplomatic and military historians dominated Cold War research with a strong bias for the Western perspective. This research report seeks to give an overview of contemporary scholarship that tries to over come that divide, outlining new trajectories and pointing at potential backlogs. In a first step, it presents a number of new monographs on the Cold War and asks to which extent they incorporate the Soviet point of view and social historical phenomena of the so called home front of the Cold War. Most research on the Cold War now uses a multiperspective approach, it gives analytical room also to actors on the Soviet and Third World side of the conflict, it takes their ideological mindsets seriously and it has discovered cultural diplomacy as a meaningful source to reconstruct them. Repercussions on Soviet society beyond political decision makers and party ideologues, however, are still largely absent from most Cold War monographs. The second paragraph then changes perspectives, assembling recent literature by historians of the Soviet Union who have transnationally broadened their view and analysed aspects of relations between the Soviet Union and the (Third) World. While most work is still traditional diplomatic history, there is also a tendency towards an examination of individual and group interactions across the Iron Curtain, and of Soviet perceptions of the world abroad through modern media and literature. A last paragraph finally discusses the contribution a transnationally amended Soviet history could make to the debate on global history. The Soviet path to modernity did not happen in a completely sealed-off world, it shared indeed many phenomena with the Western one. At the same time, a global history of the second half of the 20th century needs to consider the world-wide fascination for and fear of the Soviet economic and social project.

Church and state in Soviet Russia: Russian orthodoxy from World War II to the Khrushchev years

The Stalin era has been less accessible to researchers than either the preceding decade or the postwar era. The basic problem is that during the Stalin years censorship restricted the collection and dissemination of information (and introduced bias and distortion into the statistics that were published), while in the post-Stalin years access to archives and libraries remained tightly controlled. Thus it is not surprising that one of the main manifestations of glasnost has been the effort to open up records of the 1930s. In this volume Western and Soviet specialists detail the untapped potential of sources on this period of Soviet social history and also the hidden traps that abound. The full range of sources is covered, from memoirs to official documents, from city directories to computerized data bases.

« Byvshie » v uslovijah NEPA

AbstractDid members of the former bourgeoisie find “great opportunities” or new problems in the NEP?This article deals with one of the least studied aspects of Soviet social history. The author uses a large body of sources, some of which appear in scientific research for the first time. She addresses the question of the NEP’s contribution to members of the former bourgeoisie : were the “great economic opportunities” promised by the authorities real or fictitious ? To what extent did the economic concessions made to private capital go along with political concessions ? The author convincingly demonstrates that the NEP period was characterized by a constant opposition of two tendencies, economic and political liberalization on the one hand, and the maintenance (and in some cases the harshening) of ideological dictatorship on the other. Ignoring or underestimating any of these two tendencies would be an inadmissible simplification of historical reality.

«Byvšie» v uslovijah NEPA : «širokie perspektivy» ili novye problemy ?

AbstractDid members of the former bourgeoisie find “great opportunities” or new problems in the NEP?This article deals with one of the least studied aspects of Soviet social history. The author uses a large body of sources, some of which appear in scientific research for the first time. She addresses the question of the NEP’s contribution to members of the former bourgeoisie : were the “great economic opportunities” promised by the authorities real or fictitious ? To what extent did the economic concessions made to private capital go along with political concessions ? The author convincingly demonstrates that the NEP period was characterized by a constant opposition of two tendencies, economic and political liberalization on the one hand, and the maintenance (and in some cases the harshening) of ideological dictatorship on the other. Ignoring or underestimating any of these two tendencies would be an inadmissible simplification of historical reality.

A Researcher's Guide to Sources on Soviet Social History in the 1930s

A Researcher's Guide to Sources on Soviet Social History in the 1930s

A Researcher's guide to sources on Soviet social history in the 1930s

A Researcher's guide to sources on Soviet social history in the 1930s

The Fiction Film as a Source for Soviet Social History: The Third Meshchanskaia Street Affair

The Fiction Film as a Source for Soviet Social History: The Third Meshchanskaia Street Affair

Legal Journals and Soviet Social History

Legal Journals and Soviet Social History

Statistical Sources for the Study of Soviet Social History in the Prewar Period

Statistical Sources for the Study of Soviet Social History in the Prewar Period

The Woman Question in the USSR

With a pardonable degree of oversimplification, the Marxist analysis of the woman question can be paraphrased as follows: Women's inferior status under capitalism is a consequence of their dependence upoll men within the context of the bourgeois family. This in turn derives its raison d'etre from the existence of private property. The implication is thus clear: the abolition of private property will lead to farreaching changes in the nature of the family; it will lead to the emergence of women from the confines of the domestic hearth, to their assumption of the full range of political, economic, and social roles. The socialist revolution, then, will result in the eradication of sexual inequality and of exploitation of women by men, just as it will result in the elimination of class inequality and the exploitation of workers by the owners of property. The essays in the volume under review (a selection of papers given at a conference on the status of women in Russia held at Stanford University in the summer of 1975) allow one to assess the validity of this alnalysis. They provide a valuable addition to our knowledge of the political, social, and economic position of women in the Soviet Union today. They also offer sonme fascinating insights into the course of female emancipation in the USSR over the past fifty or sixty years. The Stanford conference was an ambitious attempt to bring together Americaln scholars working on the topic in a variety of disciplines, and the papers in the volume reflect this eclecticism. The resulting publication is not without its faults, but it should constitute essential reading for students of Soviet social history, sociology, politics, and economics for years to come. It can also be read with profit by those with an interest in the wider field of women's studies. What, then, is the status of women in the USSR today? How successful have Soviet authorities been in achieving sexual equality? How valid is the Marxist analysis of the sources of female subordination? As several papers document, women now play an extensive role in the Soviet economy. Rates of female labor force participation in the USSR are probably the highest in the world, and women make up approximately half of the gainfully occupied population. Moreover, women are found in substantial numbers in a range of professional and semiprofessional occupations (for example, as physicians, pharmacists, and even engineers) that are usually male preserves in most Western countries. Second, substantial numbers of women can be found in positions of political responsibility-particularly in the state (Soviet) hierarchy and in the judiciary. Finally, despite problems in the area of illegitimacy and paternity and a certain amount of sex-specific legislation in the field of employment, for the most part, neither the legal system nor standard administrative procedures make distinctions on the basis of sex.