Soviet Social Order Research Articles

Aphasia or Scientific Revolution? (Discourses of Soviet Marxist and non-Marxist Economists in the 1980–1990s)

The change of discourse among Soviet economists preceded the change in the social structure of the USSR. Due to these changes, there appeared a number of socio-economic phenomena that could not be described in terms previously known to economists of the time. This led to a painful disorder of the collective cognitive structure shared by Russian economists – aphasia. The changes that took place in the economy of the country could not be described in Marxist terms of progress: the latter did not allow the «restoration of capitalism» after many years of «mature socialism» domination. At the same time, barter, non-payments, and the financial pyramid built by the state did not fit into the liberal discourse either. The main force behind the delegitimization and destruction of the Soviet social order was the Marxists. They defined the phenomena they observed as «non-socialist», which led them to the conclusion that the bureaucracy and the nomenklatura dominated the USSR. From the ugly pseudo-socialist state, they suggested moving towards «true socialism». But the democratic transformations they proposed largely coincided with those that figured in the official authoritative Marxist discourse. Against this background the gradual transition to the dominance of the liberal economic discourse is quite natural. However, at the first stage of the political confrontation the calls for economic liberalization were accompanied by the sympathy of domestic liberals for authoritarianism A. Pinochet, which could not but cause their subsequent discredit. Nevertheless, after 1998 there was a rapid period of «normalization» of the discussion. Liberal discourse becomes the main one and acquires respectability, both in politicians’ discussions (including the communists) and in the academic environment. The discourse of Yu.V. Yaremenko made it possible to see the structural imbalance of the Soviet economy. Under these conditions, the transition to the market «cut off» most of the non-competitive industries leading to the fact that Russia was among the poor countries. The decisions to release prices and launch a decentralized mechanism for bank lending to investments were necessary to eliminate the main structural imbalances. This approach has been relegated to the periphery of economic discussions. The interpretation of the transition of speech practices from Marxism to the modern economic mainstream as a scientific revolution is a retrospective rationalization of the catastrophe that occurred. The period during which most of the judgments of Russian economists were poorly correlated with the observed phenomena. Most works of that time are now forgotten. The author characterizes now forgotten ways of discussing economic phenomena as aphasia.

Символический капитал посмертного наследия Хлебникова и Маяковского sub specie авангардной перформативности скандала. Семиотическая прагматика авангардного поведения и жизнетворчества

Apart from offering a new glance upon the reasons of the “last personal conflict” between Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov, this paper explores the differences in “discursive recognition” of the two major Russian Futurist poets. These differences reflect the Soviet reception of two prominent symbolists: Andrei Bely and Alexander Blok. The “approved” symbolist Blok was preferable to the “controversial” and “bewildered” Bely, who was published less frequently. In a similar fashion, the “good” futurist Mayakovsky was in a much better position than the “problematic” Futurist Khlebnikov, who published almost nothing during the Soviet era. Our understanding of the posthumous legacy of these poets depends largely on what we can call “collective memory,” using the post-Durkheimian concept developed by the French philosopher Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945). This concept differs from “individual memory” in that collective memory is shared, transmitted, and at the same time deliberately “constructed” by the people who make up the modern social habitus. Halbwachs' ideas were taken up by Jan Assmann with the concept of “communicative memory” (a collective memory based on everyday communication) and James E. Young, who introduced the concept of “collective memory”, advocating memory as initially fragmented, “selectively assembled” and, above all, specifically individualistic. This article defines the behavioral and publishing strategies of the authors in the context of the dominant Soviet social order, analyzing how they were accepted into the ever-changing Soviet “cultural memory”. The paper demonstrates several significant inconsistencies in each author's strategic maneuvers and dwells on the possible reasons for their successes and failures.

Soviet Secrecy: Toward a Social Map of Knowledge

Abstract This article offers a framework to model the epistemological terrain of the circulation and regulation of knowledge in late-period Soviet society. It proposes that secrecy and openness operated in a mutually constitutive “social map of knowledge” that was constantly shifting due to the inability to maintain secrecy as a stable category. Investigating the domain of Soviet science, this article sheds light on the work of institutions such as Glavlit, the state censorship authority, which supported the state’s goal to maintain the contours of secrecy as a static category by repeatedly issuing edicts and restructuring the apparatus of secrecy in the face of constant and destabilizing social, cultural, and technological pressures. This stable but volatile condition encouraged a common language of “speaking in secret” that cut across the Soviet social order. The “social map of knowledge” was one with high peaks, where valuable knowledge was placed in the hands of those with power, even as these peaks were under intense pressure to collapse from a parallel market of speculation marked by rumor, suspicion, and conspiracy theories. This form of “stable volatility” became impossible to maintain in the 1980s, when a deluge of information flooded Soviet society.

Анти-Аузан: критика одной социальной философии Часть 2.

<span>Джон Коммонс подчеркивал, что его институциональная экономика опирается на прагматизм Чарльза Пирса в своем методе исследования и на прагматистскую философию Джона Дьюи в своем видении предмета исследования. Отбрасывание новой институциональной экономической теорией (НИЭТ) прагматистской философии и составляет основу осуществленных ею радикальных деформаций понятийного аппарата исходного институционализма. Это касается видения природы человека, концепции социального института и понятия трансакций. В статье на основе осовремененного изложения содержания этих понятий в институциональной экономике Дж. Коммонса осуществляется критика деформации этих понятий в НИЭТ, изложенных в книге декана экономического факультета МГУ А. А. Аузана «Экономика всего. Как институты определяют нашу жизнь». А. А. Аузан, как и многие авторы учебников по НИЭТ, следовал колее (path dependence) профессии советского политэконома. Аналогично тому, как политэкономы социализма опирались на марксизм, послуживший идеологией при создании советского социального порядка, так А. А. Аузан пытается интерпретировать уже постсоветский социальный порядок в терминах НИЭТ, отражающей идеологию, послужившую возникновению этого порядка, то есть идеологию неолиберализма.</span>

ГІБРИДНІ ОЗНАКИ ПРОТИСТОЯННЯ ПОЛЬЩІ ІЗ УСРР І РСФРР У КОНТЕКСТІ ДИПЛОМАТИЧНОЇ БОРОТЬБИ ПІД ЧАС ГЕНУЕЗЬКОЇ КОНФЕРЕНЦІЇ (1922 Р.)

The article analyses the Poland’s policies with regard to the Russin Socialist Federation Soviet Republic and the Ukrainian SSR during the preparation and holding the Genoa Conference (April 10 – May 19, 1922). At present, researches on the hybrid warfare practices are of vital importance, and such practices had already been developed since the beginning of the twentieth century. Of particular importance are the practices when the states have diplomatic relations with each other and do not carry out warfare activities de jure, however, they create a permanent state of military threat to one another and formally deny their own responsibility for creating such a state. Within the context of international politics in Europe, this problematics has not yet been elaborated. This research chronologically covers the period from January 1922 to the end of May of the same year. Additionally, the analysis subject includes the Romania’s policy with regard to the Soviet Republics during the same period, because its policy was conditioned by coordinated actions with Poland. The study is based on the analysis of the operations reports of the Counter-Banditry Division of the All-Ukrainian Extraordinary Commission for the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevics) of Ukraine regarding the cross-border situation between the Ukrainian SSR and the territories of Poland and Romania (in particular, Eastern Galicia – occupied by Poland, and Bessarabia – occupied by Romania). A peculiarity of the research approach is a retrospective review of these operations reports in the context of the diplomatic struggle during the 1922 Genoa Conference. In parallel with the analysis of Poland’s policies regarding the territories with the Soviet social order, an analysis of the actions of the Soviet delegation during the international conference in Geneva was carried out, including consequences of the Treaty of Rapallo, which was concluded between the RSFSR and Germany. Considerable attention is paid to the analysis of the international political situation of Poland, the RSFSR, and the Ukrainian SSR on the eve of the Genoa Conference and its transformation as a result of the conclusion of the Rapallo Treaty on April 16, 1922. In the same context, an analysis of the transformation of Poland’s policy on the Soviet cross-border territories was carried out. The problematics of the use of Ukrainian People’s Republic military forces and the White Guards by coordinated efforts of Poland and Romania in creating a permanent military threat to the Soviet territories was singled out. The study established that the states tried to avoid the long-term war, given the negative track record of World War I, amidst the global capitalist economy of 1920s. Therefore, they tried to concentrate their major efforts on changing their international political position by means of diplomatic actions, which were reinforced by methods of economic pressure and permanent military threat as a conclusive argument. Poland’s policy of creating a permanent military threat to the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR was unsuccessful because of Poland’s complicated political situation and the aggressive actions of the RSFSR to exploit systemic contradictions in the international politics of Europe after the First World War.

“We’re all mad here…” Soviet leadership and its impact on education through the looking glass of Raymond Williams’s cultural materialism

Despite a vast body of literature on Soviet leadership, very little work in this field seems to have engaged in a critical discussion about its specific impact on educational practice. This inference prompted the author to revisit the key junctions of her experiences of Soviet social order during 1980s, when she was working as a teacher of English at a primary school in Tbilisi, the capital of the Soviet Georgia. The author’s interest in the field was further piqued by the ambition to take Raymond Williams’s concept of cultural materialism outside its typical application confined to literary theory and use it instead as a tool for dissecting Soviet leadership in the attempt to examine its impact on Soviet educational landscape. The paper aims to substantiate that a broader appropriation of Williams’s ideas of cultural materialism extended beyond its original domain of literary theory, can add a rich stratum to the interpretation of Soviet leadership phenomenon, offering a number of valuable insights into its inherent concepts.

Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama (review)

Reviewed by: Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama Vitaly Chernetsky Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama. By Birgit Beumers and Mark Lipovetsky. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2009; pp. 316. $25.00 paper. This volume is a comprehensive introduction to innovative Russian drama emerging over the past decade. The book is lucidly written yet makes bold and constructive use of a wide range of theoretical concepts, from anthropology to Lacanian psychoanalysis. To date, drama has been fairly marginalized within the study of Russian literature; thus this volume fills a very important lacuna. While the book's principal focus is on "New Drama" as a specific movement within Russian literature and theatre that emerged around 1999, Beumers and Lipovetsky also provide extensive historical and cultural context for this phenomenon. [End Page 478] Performing Violence opens with two prefatory essays, one by Kirill Serebrennikov, the theatre director most closely associated with the movement, and the other by Sasha Dugdale, the leading English translator of the plays by New Drama authors. The latter provides an eyewitness account of the birth of the movement, an unforeseen result of a series of seminars sponsored by the British Council in Moscow involving several writers, directors, and other members of London's Royal Court Theatre. These talks, and in particular the introduction of verbatim drama (documentary drama) spurred a surge of interest in the form among young Russian playwrights. Within a few years, what once seemed like tentative experiments of younger authors eager to break the dominance of plays by classic and foreign authors on the contemporary Russian stage coalesced into a heterogeneous though clearly identifiable movement. For the first time in many years, drama, rather than poetry or prose, appeared to be at the forefront of innovation within Russian literature. As Serebrennikov notes in his foreword, the principal accomplishment of New Drama is "the recording of a new linguistic reality"; it "forced the actor to speak the language of today" as heard on the streets of Russia (11). While the phenomenon of New Drama did not spread widely beyond the core group of playwrights and experimental theatre stages, this is the first school of playwriting in Russia to receive international recognition in our time, particularly in Britain, where many of these plays have been staged in recent years. A dominant feature of New Drama is its neo-naturalist aesthetic, with unprecedented prominence given to representations of violence. New Drama's main thematic preoccupation is the deep crisis of identity that has characterized post-Soviet society. New Drama playwrights' strategies of tackling this problem range from appeals to shared existential experiences and memories, to bold interrogations of the place of the Self vis-à-vis the Other and a return to the in-your-face performance characteristic of the 1920s Soviet avant-garde theatre. Although many of these playwrights reject what they believe to be the dominant features of postmodernism, especially in its consumerist incarnation, Beumers and Lipovetsky disagree, arguing that the hyper-naturalism of the Russian New Drama builds on the foundations of a wide range of postmodernist cultural strategies—and this is particularly pertinent to the carnival of cruelty observable in these plays, and in the eroticized charge manifested in them through such violence. In their theoretical model, Beumers and Lipovetsky emphasize the ritual aspects of play and the sacralization of theatrical language and space, linking New Drama experiments with the tradition begun by Chekhov and radicalized by Artaud and Genet. Russian New Drama does not seek to represent or reflect life, they assert; instead, it aspires to create a magic/ritual space of performative existence and a special type of communication with the audience. The ubiquitous violence in these works has several functions: first, it demonstrates the disintegration of Soviet social order and the ensuing chaos; second, it reflects a new social reality linked to the redistribution of both symbolic and economic capital; and finally, it points to the sacred by performing the ritual of transgression. Beumers and Lipovetsky deftly trace the place and logic of violence within Russian culture from the early post-revolutionary days to the years after the collapse of the USSR. In particular, they point...

Pre‐Revolutionary in Form, Soviet in Content? Wartime Educational Reforms and the Postwar Quest for Normality

The war and the postwar years were an important and generally underestimated phase in the history of theSoviet educational system, since the school system created during this period continued to the end of the regime with some modifications. Although many of the reforms were discussed and planned during the 1930s, the war proved an ideal time for sweeping reforms—far less resistance to some of the more controversial and economically inefficient changes. The reforms included selective rehabilitation of features of the pre‐revolutionary schools, a policy with a number of high‐level supporters and promoters. The combination of reforms and funding patterns reflected the Soviet state's ideological and economic priorities, as it used the school system to enshrine and perpetuate a particular vision of the new Soviet social order, one characterized by hardening social barriers when it came to quality of life, access to education and other social mobility opportunities.

Science and the Soviet Social Order ed. by Loren R. Graham

642 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE threatens the traditional universalism and openness in science. But the historian might be consoled by Lorraine Daston, who argues that nationalism in science had already begun during the Napoleonic time. John Krige discusses England’s participation in CERN and shows that scientists not only function as advisers in science policy questions but also can actually decide these questions. What this means for the development of modern scientific technology remains to be examined in detail. Could one ask for ajoint study by Kranakis and Krige on this point? This nicely edited and produced volume concentrates on the history of science—also included are Roger Hahn and Michael Hunter’s treatment of the role of the academies for the growth of science, Matti Klirige and J. B. Morell’s discussion of the role of universities, and Robert Friedman and David Edge on the significance of prizes and award systems in science. It also points to important problems, and raises important questions in the territory between history of technology and history of science. Anders Lundgren Dr. Lundgren, of the Department for History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University, specializes in the history of chemistry. He has published on 18th-century chemistry and Swedish history of science and is now working on the history of biochemistry in Sweden. Science and the Soviet Social Order. Edited by Loren R. Graham. Cam­ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. Pp. ix + 443; notes, index. $35.00. Anti-industrialists in the Soviet Union often capture U.S. press attention. They include environmentalists, rural writers who idealize holy, peasant Russia, and an increasing number of nonspecialists. This volume brings together essays exploring the historical basis of these views and long-term, coexisting protechnology trends in Russian and Soviet culture. Editor Loren Graham clearly identifies the issues, and their grounding in Soviet studies and historical interactions of tech­ nology and culture, including the current debate over science as a construct of society versus its international character and nature. The essays continue the tradition of such diverse scholars as Kendall Bailes, Nancy Frieden, and Camilla Gray. They bring us up-to-date, in most cases, and investigate new tensions between technological achievements and their cultural and political milieu. Unfortunately, they omit the cinematic arts. And, in spite of the broad title, the authors rarely mention science apart from technology; they concentrate on technology’s influence on culture, slighting the oppo­ site issue, the influence of culture on science and technology. More­ over, most of the essays treat society as a single entity and do not TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 643 address the different ways science or technology affects different economic or regional strata, women or men, city or rural folk. In a very upbeat, optimistic discussion of communication technol­ ogies, S. Frederick Starr argues that, by selecting information avail­ able through new technologies, a formerly dependent “subject” is transformed into a “citizen” (p. 44). Seymour Goodman posits a controlled spread of the information revolution, empowering a managerial class. However, he draws heavily on “Western” experience for his analysis and does not convince the reader that the average Soviet manager influences policy. A challenging essay by Douglas Weiner discusses the relation between ecology and conservation. He outlines protagonists’ efforts to define and defend theoretical positions, the entry of philosophers into the debates, and the efforts of the intellectual elite to influence Soviet policies. Weiner ties the broadening discussion in the Soviet Union with comparable trends in Europe and the United States. Mark Adams focuses on “the relative roles of the ‘biological’ versus the ‘social’ in shaping human nature and behavior.” Adams identifies the Soviet characteristics of the debate and anchors it in a discussion of scholars, students, and institutions. His presentation is compelling; one misses the immediacy of his descriptions of personal client systems and institutional settings in the later essays. Harley Balzer surveys the education, professionalization, and na­ scent political activity of engineers. He studies the decline in engi­ neers’ prestige, linking it to factors in economic failures, changing social structure, and the Communist party’s involvement. Paul Josephson discusses the success of the party and scientists in nuclear power engineering and rocketry...

Science and the Soviet Social Order

Science and the Soviet Social Order

Science and the Soviet Social Order

Science and the Soviet Social Order

Science and the Soviet Social Order

Science and the Soviet Social Order

Political emancipation and the domination of nature: The rise and fall of Soviet Prometheanism

Abstract Frolov, I. T. (1990) Man, Science, Humanism: A New Synthesis (Buffalo, NY, Prometheus Books), 342 pp. Graham, L. R. (Ed.) (1990) Science and the Soviet Social Order (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press), ix + 443 pp. Understanding the place of science in Soviet culture is essential if we are to understand the distinctive character of the Soviet Union, its failings and contradictions, and its prospects for the future. This paper examines Soviet conceptions of the role of science in the socialist project. Focusing on Loren Graham's collection Science and the Soviet Social Order, the article critically assesses the claim that science and technology have been liberalizing influences on Soviet political culture. The paper concludes by considering Ivan Frolov's, Man, Science, Humanism, which attempts to reform Soviet conceptions of science by establishing a Marxist ‘scientific humanism’. Although Frolov challenges the idea of science as a means to subordinate nature, his approach is belied by hi...

Science and the Soviet Social Order. Edited by Loren R. Graham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1990. ix, 443 pp. $35.00, cloth.

Science and the Soviet Social Order. Edited by Loren R. Graham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1990. ix, 443 pp. $35.00, cloth.

SALT and Soviet Nuclear Doctrine

The euphoria in some quarters of the American strategic community following the SALT I accords was largely based upon the inference that Soviet agreement to a virtual ABM ban signified fundamental agreement on strategic nuclear doctrine. Many concluded that this provided a hopeful basis for further collaboration in strategic nuclear arms control. Subsequent disillusionment has been triggered by the slow pace of SALT II and the continuing Soviet strategic buildup.1 The result has been a growing pessimism that divergent strategic doctrines preclude significant strategic accommodation. One strain of determined optimism about SALT even argues that reconciliation of nuclear doctrine be placed first on the SALT agenda, as a necessary basis for substantive agreement.2 There are, however, structural and ideological barriers to any explicit reconciliation of nuclear doctrine. Barring the mostthorough-going transformation of the Soviet system, these appear insurmountable. Until 1953, Soviet military thought, like all other significant aspects of Soviet life, was constrained by a primitive Stalinist orthodoxy. In military thought, this orthodoxy did not extend beyond the assertion of the decisiveness of Stalin's so-called permanently operating factors. These were: the stability of the rear; the morale of the armed forces; the quantity and quality of divisions; the equipment of the fighting forces; and the organizational abilities of the commanders.3 Coupled with the asserted superiority of the Soviet social order, based upon the Marxist-Leninist science of society, these factors amounted to a theological assertion that the Soviet Union would prevail in any future conflict. This recipe, expounded by the greatest military genius of modern times, precluded the possibility that other factors, such as nuclear weapons or the element of surprise, could affect the outcome of war. Not only was this a prescription for avoiding reassessment of the lessons of the Great Patriotic War (in which the surprise