Soviet Sociology Research Articles

To the 100th Anniversary of Professor V.N. Shubkin (1923–2010). Today we Remember Vladimir Shubkin

The memoirs of colleagues and students of V.N. Shubkin (1923–2010), one of the founders of Soviet sociology, who in the 1960’s initiated longitudinal studies of the processes of young people transitioning from education to labor, are published. The article discusses the scientist’s views on sociological theory and the methodology of social knowledge. The researcher’s relations with students, colleagues, government officials are described.

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY OF SABIT MUKANOV

Literary and critical works are the sphere of creativity an academician-writer Sabit Mukanov. In the classic article by Sabit Mukanov «Kazakh literature and Ibrai» (1924) an assessment of the Kazakh literary science is given, in the article «On fiction» (1926) the problem of fiction, and in the article «On the novel» (1939) theoretical issues related to the genre of the novel. Almost all articles are devoted to the theme of Soviet literature. In the literary-critical articles of Sabit Mukanov, the general problems of national literature were studied. In addition, rousing reviews were given by scientists about the critical work of academic writer Sabit Mukanov, and the subtleties of critical work were revealed. From the literary-critical articles of the writer, a chronicle of the literary process, artistic formation and development during the period of Soviet sociology was presented. From the point of view of a new approach to the scientific heritage of Sabit Mukanov, there are still enough points that he is studying. Therefore, we consider it right to give an objective assessment of the literary work of the writer from the point of view of the 21st century. It can be said with full confidence that in the literary and creative work of Sabit Mukanov, the actual problems of literary criticism and his own point of view in terms of their significance and weightiness represent a separate research work.

Ukrainian Sociology of Perestroikatimes: Reconstruction of Restoration Processes

The article is devoted to the stages and specifics of the formation of Ukrainian sociology in the period of perestroika. In particular, it is determined that in the era of “perestroika”, domestic sociology consisted of four conventional segments: scientific-academic, scientific-university, factory, and party-ideological. Each of them had its own structural and organizational construction and was characterized by a specific dominant area of activity: theoretical and academic sociology, applied (in the field of social planning, sociology of labor, management), sociology of education and ideological activities. The article notes that, although formally domestic sociology has become an independent, legitimized at the state level scientific discipline, focused on socio-cultural problems of the population, only after the country gained independence in 1991, it inherited the experience of previous generations of sociologists and relied on it, while being inextricably linked with the historical transformations that took place in the course of the national revival. The fact that for a long time Ukrainian sociology was formed as a part of the general Soviet sociology has a negative consequence; in particular, there is still no understanding of this science by the society. Thus, the lack of objective information about the real capability of sociological science, public ignorance of the value of sociological knowledge (including the example of foreign experience of developed countries) led to a distorted perception of the general concept of “sociology”, the emergence of widespread stereotypes about sociology as public opinion polls on certain issues.

Late Soviet Sociology about Old Age and Gender: There Were Theoretical Insights

The focus of the article is construction of old age and gender in the late Soviet sociology. The author is engaged in secondary analysis of the texts based on the empirical research conducted in the 1970s-1980s. The author argues that Soviet sociologists produced empirically based knowledge about Soviet elderly, which contradicted with ideological claims of the party state. Their texts were balancing between ideological loyalty and positivist knowledge. Researchers were well informed about international sociological discussion of the time: they criticized ‘bourgeois’ disengagement theory of ageing and hailed active ageing paradigm. Empirical studies confirmed however that the life of Soviet elderly was very different from the normative model of active ageing Soviet style. Not many aged citizens were engaged in social activities, most of them experienced shortage of contacts, loneliness and social exclusion. Biographical passage to retirement has been fearful and traumatic experience with lack of institutional help and family care as the preferred option. Men showed more vulnerability to the losses of retirement than women did who are claimed to be better adapted to the life outside paid job due to the Soviet gender contract. Thus, Soviet sociologists in fact were critical to the elderly care regime of the late-Soviet period, though expressed their criticisms in the veiled way under the disguise of the ideological clichés. Though Soviet sociological research was mostly policy oriented and is criticized for its ‘theoretical poverty’, the author argues that certain theoretical insights are fruitful and relevant for the current research on ageing in Russian society.

The Problem of Public Consciousness in Soviet Philosophy and Sociology

The article gives a theoretical survey of the concepts of social consciousness and depicts the history of formation of this concept in the 1950–70s in the works of Vladislav Kelle and Matvey Kovalzon, Evald Ilyenkov, Vasily Tugarinov et al. The philosophy of this period was characterized by the antinomy between the increasing dogmatism of diamat/histmat and the tendency towards convergence with world philosophical thought. The struggle between ideological and scientific attitudes in Soviet humanities intensified. The scientific spirit permeated through the formation of sociology and its increasing influence at both empirical and theoretical levels of analysis. During this period the problems of dialectics of individual and social consciousness, forms of social consciousness and mechanics of their functioning, correlation of social consciousness with public opinion, etc., are under investigation. Much attention is given to the debate on the nature of the ideal, which Ilyenkov explicitly linked to social consciousness. The opposition of natural scientific and philosophical approaches to the study of consciousness is considered. The article draws attention to the scientific breakthroughs of the time: the problem of consciousness for the first time is discussed in the light of the achievements of computerization in the 1960s and the problem of creating artificial intelligence. Three main approaches to the study of social consciousness are considered: ontological, epistemological and sociological. The problem of social consciousness has been actively discussed in Soviet philosophical literature since the late 1950s (although some studies were conducted even in the prewar period). At this time, there appear works in which social consciousness is interpreted not only as a reflection of social being, i.e. of the socio-economic structure of society, but also as a relatively independent phenomenon that requires multidimensional study and has a reverse effect on people’s material relations. Such an approach opened up the possibility of sociological analysis of consciousness. The key concept of Soviet sociology is public opinion, understood as a peculiar state of public consciousness. Thus, the methodological foundations of empirical sociology, which aims to study public opinion, are laid. Boris Grushin discovers the specificity of public opinion in its neutrality, equal acceptability for all social classes. The scholar regards sociological research as an effective tool for the formation of civil society and increasing its self-consciousness. The article shows the specificity of the concept of public consciousness in Soviet sociology, including empirical research based on mass interviews and study of public opinion.

Модель социологического образования в СССР (конец 1950-х — начало 1980-х годов)

The article provides an analysis of foreign and Soviet scientific publications devoted to the problem of sociological education, the “revival” of Soviet sociology, as well as to the role and place of sociology among the sciences, in society and education. The given study covers the time period of the late 1950s — early 1980s and briefly describes the education of the population of the USSR at that time. Looking through the works on Soviet sociology, the authors show that sociology was introduced not only into the research areas of specific universities and laboratories, but also into many other branches and spheres of activity, as well as into the authorities’ activity. The authors of the article purposefully focus on the role of consolidation and mutual exchange of sociological research from various sociological services.

Risk studies at St. Petersburg State University: From tradition to new challenges

The article examines the thirty-years’ experience in risk studies that has been acquired by scholars at St. Petersburg State University. The authors analyze the distance travelled from the first attempts to integrate risk approach into Soviet sociology to current research carried out at the intersection of conflict studies and risk studies approaches. Using classic research interpretations of risk and risk perception, such as “risk society” (U.Beck), “cultural theory” (M.Douglas, A.Wildavsky), “system theory” (N.Luhmann), the authors identify several features that distinguish the St. Petersburg University approach in risk studies, such as applying risk theory to the whole social system rather than isolated business or political cases. As an example of this approach to examining risk, the article presents the results of an all-Russian survey carried out by project group of St. Petersburg University in order to identify risk-reflections as a factor in conflict strategy choice. The collected data demonstrates that the integration of risk and conflict studies offers significant opportunities for highlighting the divergence of interests between producers and consumers of risks. At the same time, the original research strategy should facilitate the creation of a realistic model for the evaluation of effective political risk management. The authors conclude that the present phase of risk research by scholars at St. Petersburg University is characterized by the consolidation of conflict and risk studies that makes it possible, on the one hand, to investigate any risk as a conflicting phenomenon and, on the other hand, to examine risk perception as a special discursive practice which has a high manipulative potential.

SOCIOLOGICAL EDUCATION OF THE POPULATION OF THE USSR IN LATE 1950 - EARLY 1980

In this article, the authors analyzed relevant publications devoted to the formation of "revival" of domestic sociology, as well as the role of what place sociology occupied in science, society, education, History, Economics, etc. In addition, the time period of Soviet sociology of the late 1950s-early 1980s was covered. Within the framework of this article, a brief description of how the implementation of sociological education of the population of the USSR took place in that period is given. Going through the pages of Soviet sociology, the authors substantiate the fact that the sociology of the historical period was tightly used not only in research areas of specific universities, laboratories, but also in many industries, as well as the power structures of the USSR. Further in the work the merit of eminent Soviet scientists in creation of "Institute of concrete social researches" (which since 1972 became called "Institute of sociological researches" and since 1988 Institute of sociology of Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in a consequence of RAS) is noted. The paper substantiates the position that sociological knowledge encouraged citizens of the multinational people of the USSR to act consciously and proactively in accordance with the objective laws of social development. The next major step, on which the authors of the work purposefully sharpened their keen vision, is the role of consolidation and mutual exchange of sociological research (this was especially "vividly" reflected in the late 1960s and early 1980s) in a number of different sociological services.

Игорь Кон: «То, чем занимался я, этим никто другой не занимался»

В публикуемом интервью с выдающимся российским социологом и философом Игорем Семеновичем Коном речь идет об истории возрождения советской социологии в начале 1960-х годов, о создании и истории Института социологии. Нарратив начинается с истории возникновения взаимоотношений с российско-американским социологом и культурологом Питиримом Сорокиным, и шире — с рассказа о рецепции западных идей в отечественной социологии. В связи с этим отдельное место занимает рассказ о советской цензуре и попытках Кона влиять на изменение правил ее осуществления в области науки. Отдельный сюжет — семинарское движение в социологии, семинары Юрия Левады, встречи социологов в Кяярику. Упоминаются имена многих выдающихся советских социологов, стоявших у истоков возрождения социологии в России.

Russian Sociology of Cinema in the Context of Society Development

In the history of the Russian sociology of cinema (1910–2019), the development of which has been intermittent and fraught with drama, five waves of development are distinguished and discussed, interspersed with two tragic halts. The first wave is dated as a short prerevolutionary period. Russian researchers, under a strong impact from the social critique cinema in Germany and the very birth of the sociology of cinema there, strived to collect factual material regarding the impact of film spectacle on the souls of the young. Their nascent searchings were stopped by the 1917 revolutionary events and the ensuing civil war. The second wave (the mid-1920s to 1933) is the period of emergence and formation of the Soviet sociology of cinema. Researchers attempted to render some assistance to filmmakers in the latter’s tasks of schooling and enculturating the masses. Such activity on their part did not last long. In the administrative-command system of the 1930s, there was no place for the sociologist. Cinema found itself under Stalin’s personal control. The second long halt set in. The third wave (1963–1985) came as a period of rebirth and professionalization for the sociology of cinema under the conditions of Khrushchev’s «thaw» and the «developed socialism». The main stimulus for the progress was the problem of theater attendance and of cinema profitability. The fourth wave (1985–1991) was – according to its conception, anyway – the continuation of the third wave within the framework of «perestroika», with its course toward democratization and «glasnost». The societal position of the sociology of cinema improved significantly. The fifth wave (from 1991 to the present) is the period of restructuring the sociology of cinema, of its development and declining activity in the 2010s, premised on the subjectivization of the actual film policy and the contingent issue of financing the work of sociologists.

WORKING CLASS IN THE CURRENT SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES: RUSSIAN CONTEXT

For many years, the working class has been an object of interest for Russian sociology. In Soviet sociology, a lot of research has been devoted to workers and industrial sociology. The point of attention of sociologists moved towards the study of labor relations and the protest movement in enterprises in the 1990s. Then the workers stopped being in the center of attention of sociology, but now interest in the working class is returning. This article is a form of analytical reflection on the research agenda for the study of workers by Russian sociologists. The analysis is based on publications on the research of Russian workers in the leading Russian sociological journals. Workers are considered as a social and professional group that is in a status crisis as an archaic social class that lost in the course of market reforms and represents an obstacle to modernization. Russian authors point to the return of the significant role of industrial workers against the background of a focus on the technological breakthrough of the Russian economy. An analysis of publications also shows that in recent years, researchers have found it difficult to access enterprises to study workers in their work environment, which affects the understanding of the situation of industrial workers in Russia. Workers have become a popular and convenient object of study as a statistical artifact present in sociological data bases, but sometimes this data speaks little of the real situation of the industrial working class. The article emphasizes the growing interest of Russian sociologists to workers and new approaches to their study, including the biographical method and the included observation.

Igor Kon: «You Can’t Hide Anything From History» From Email Correspondence With I.S. Kon. Part I. 2005-2006

This article is an introduction to the description and analysis of the electronic correspondence of the author with I.S. Kon, held in 2005-2011. Kon belongs to a narrow group of sociologists who stood at the origins of Soviet sociology. For many years, Kon has successfully worked in different areas of sociology, at the same time he is a recognized expert in the history of Russian and Western sociology. All this: 1) makes Kon a unique expert in the field of studying the entire period of development of Russian sociology, and 2) determines the historical, sociological and methodological value of his letters. Let us pay attention to the fact that the study of the correspondence of sociologists is a poorly studied topic, but there is a tendency to increase attention to it. The total number of letters is about 200. The texts of 39 letters for 2005-2006 are given. The history of correspondence and its content is briefly considered.

Возможна ли социология для трудящихся классов сегодня?

Татьяна Степановна Лыткина – кандидат социологических наук, старший научный сотрудник, Институт социально-экономических и энергетических проблем Севера Коми НЦ УрО РАН. Адрес: 167982, Сыктывкар, ул. Коммунистическая, д. 26. Е-mail: tlytkina@yandex.ru
 Светлана Сергеевна Ярошенко – кандидат социологических наук, доцент, кафедра сравнительной социологии, факультет социологии, Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет. Адрес: 191124, Санкт-Петербург, ул. Смольного, д. 1/3. Е-mail: svetayaroshenko@gmail.com
 Цитирование: Лыткина Т.С., Ярошенко С.С. (2019) Возможна ли социология для трудящихся классов сегодня? // Мир России. Т. 28. № 1. С. 101–123. DOI: 10.17323/1811-038X-2019-28-1-101-123
 В статье анализируются возможности приращения социологического знания о росте социального неравенства через изучение трудящихся и прежде всего рабочего класса, вынужденного продавать рабочую силу в условиях снижения статуса. Через обращение к истории социологической мысли рассматривается значимость категории социального класса для становления социологии как науки. Данный тезис также проводится через анализ особенностей развития российской социологии в дореволюционный и советский периоды. Выделяется не только отличительная черта российской социологии – противостояние власти и ученых, – но и доказываются маловероятность эволюции общества без социологии и проблематичность развития социологии без общества и знания о его классообразующих механизмах. Настоящее состояние российской социологии характеризуется как инволюционное, связанное с замыканием социологов на своих интересах и противоречиях. В то время как в условиях глобализации рынка идет поиск компромисса между разными классами и требуется новое обращение к рабочему классу, российские социологи предпочитают творить социологию, пренебрегая интересами рабочих. Доказывается, что исследование текущих процессов в обществе исходя из перспектив рабочего класса способствует сокращению противоречий и может быть полезно как при реконструкции устаревших теорий, так и в разработке новых подходов. Это требует не только объединения усилий социологов в продвижении внутренней критики, но и развития публичной социологии, способствующей диалогу с обществом и лучшему пониманию происходящего.

К 60-летию Советской социологической ассоциации / Российского общества социологов (ССА/ РОС)

К 60-летию Советской социологической ассоциации / Российского общества социологов (ССА/ РОС)

The Soviet Sociological Association in Institutionalizing Sociology in the USSR

The Soviet Sociological Association in Institutionalizing Sociology in the USSR

Working Class in Soviet and Russian Sociological Discourse

The Object of the Study. The correlation of class and stratification approaches in Soviet and post-Soviet sociology.The Subject of the Study. New working class in Russian sociological discourse.The Purpose of the Study. The objectives are to substantiate the necessity of actualizing of the class approach in the study of modern Russian society social structure; identifying the signs of a new working class.The Main Provisions of the Article. In accordance with Marxist ideology, in Soviet sociology a working class was regarded as a protagonist of social change and a center of attraction for the forces of social change. The contemporary integration of workers into the capitalist system, the transition to the economy of the sixth order, the defeat of socialism, the global transition to a postindustrial society require to comprehend the «working question» from a new prospective. The authors actualize the problem of revealing the content and structure of the «new working class», traditional and actual methods of its theoretical conceptualization. The features of class and stratification approaches to the allocation of the working class in the structure of society have been studied. It has been shown that the excessive specification of criteria, non-critical declarative positioning of the middle class into the basis of the Russian society structure, led to a high degree of uncertainty in the model of the social structure of the Russian society of the early XXI century. The author's definition of the concept of a new working class has been given. Defining “the new working class of modern Russia”, we mean a group of employees in all spheres of material production and services whose content and nature of work are routinized and segmented; not participating in management and not having the property rights to the enterprise in which they work. Most of the times, these are workers without higher education. Power and control in the organization do not belong to them, their degree of freedom and authority in organizational structures are limited, they do not influence on the planning and control of labor

“Working Class Music” in the Discourse of Early Soviet Sociology of Art

This research has a survey-analytical nature and uses the theoretical method of comparative historical analysis of texts. Through the selection and analysis of key works and archival documents, the conceptual basis for the sociology of music of the USSR during the 1920s is determined to form an academic project, developed in the frame of the record of state cultural policy. The transformation of the institutionalized academic domain music in a decade is described. The tasks involved in the sociology of music with the aim of state order for the formation of a proletarian music culture are reconstructed. It has been established that music was delegated the function of structuring daily occurrences, motivating labor activity, promoting cultural education, and supporting an aspiration to solidary, collective action based on the emotional acceptance of the ideological postulates of the time. The research also focuses on the transformation of the crucial characteristics of the central ideologists of the “proletarian culture” from the utopian romanticism directed toward the achievement of class solidarity to the distortion of basic humanistic ideals in favor of fixing the developed hierarchies of power.

Famous and Forgotten: Soviet Sociology and the Nature of Intellectual Achievement under Totalitarianism

For decades Soviet and later post-Soviet sociology was dominated by a cohort of scholars born between 1927–1930 (Grushin, Kon, Levada, Ossipov, Yadov, Zaslavskaya). The origins of their prominence and the character of their recognition offers a puzzle as it seemingly defies conventional ideas about where academic renown comes from. Academic prominence is usually associated with either intellectual leadership or skillful manipulation of the academic power structures. Neither of these stories describes the peculiar pattern of recognition of the giants of Soviet sociology whose fame persisted after they retired from administrative responsibilities and in spite of their ideas from the Soviet era being almost forgotten. The hypothesis developed in this paper holds that this peculiar form of fame emerges from the unique position sociology held in Soviet society. The paper introduces a distinction between natural and intentional secrecy and argues that while most of Western sociology specialized in natural secrecy, Soviet sociology had to deal with intentional secrecy resulting from conscious attempts to conceal the dismal realities of state socialism. The pervasiveness of secrecy during the Soviet era resulted from the central legitimizing myth of Soviet society describing it as built following a scientifically devised plan. This legitimation allowed Soviet sociology to emerge and develop with an unparalleled speed, but, at the same time, it explains why sociology was seen as having considerable subversive potential and faced periodic repressions. This political environment accounts for Soviet sociology’s unique intellectual style as well as for the fact that its central figures remained in the disciplinary memory as heroic role models, rather than as authors of exemplary texts.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AS AN OBJECT OF SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY: BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY OF MORALITY AND SOCIOLOGY OF PROFESSIONS

The article presents the results of the analysis of classical and contemporary theories and approaches to the study of professional ethics. In the first part of the article, based on the ideas of H. Spencer, E. Durkheim and T. Parsons, the authors question the general sociological interpretation of the nature of professional ethics mainly in its functionalist perspective. According to Spencer, professions play an important moral role in social development such as improving the quality of life. Durkheim believed that professional ethics should contribute to solidarity and prevent labor and commercial conflicts, which can be facilitated by the restoration of guilds in a renewed form - as institutionalized moral regulators. Parsons conducted a theoretical analysis of medical ethics to emphasize the presence of prestigious professional positions based on altruistic values in capitalist societies. In the second part of the article, the authors prove that professional ethics was studied in Soviet and Russian sociology although in general it is represented rather poorly with the exception of works by A.V. Yadov, Yu.V. Sogomonov, E.A. Grishin and V.I. Bakshtanovsky, who emphasized practical aspects of the ethical actions of professionals. Today, the dispositional theory of personality developed by a group of researchers led by Yadov needs to be reinterpreted to take into account emotional and ethical components of professional work. Nevertheless, Russian authors developed an original theory of professional ethics as a special type of applied ethics, showed its purpose and criticized its social-philosophical models. The article presents an overview of contemporary Russian publications on sociology of professions, which allows to state a low interest in issues of professional ethics although most of the works mention “codes of professional ethics” as a mandatory attribute of professionalism. Despite the developed tradition of research in this field, the western sociology of professions is captured by functionalist and critical interpretations of professional ethics and rarely goes beyond the practical aspects of assessing the role of ethics in the actions of professionals.

Lesser-Known Papers by a Well-Known Researcher of Russian Society: Yury Levada’s Ideas on Economic Sociology Book Review: Levada Y. A. 2016. Vremya peremen: Predmet i pozitsiya issledovatelya [A Time of Changes: The Subject and Researcher’s Attitude], Moscow: New Literary Observer Publishing House. P. 872

2016 marked the 10th anniversary of the death of a well-known researcher of the Russian society, Yury Levada. His book A Time of Changes: The Subject and Researcher’s Attitude was published to commemorate his work. The book consists of both well-known and lesser-known papers, including papers in economic sociology. In “Social Frames of Economic Action” (1980), Levada defines the subject of economic sociology, explains the role of the society and culture in the economy, and demonstrates the historicity of rationality. These ideas are developed in his “Cultural Context of Economic Action” (1984). In this paper, Levada points out that human needs are embedded into culture, whereas economic exchange is loaded by cultural meanings. In “Homo oeconomicus, or The Fate of a Phantom” (1977), the key characteristics of Homo oeconomicus and the prospective use of this model are highlighted. “The Problems of Economic Anthropology by K. Marx” (1983) also includes Levada’s reflections on the assumptions of Homo oeconomicus and the discrepancies between this model and real life. What makes Levada’s approach unique is that, on one hand, his ideas in economic sociology follow the tradition of the Soviet sociology (a complex mix of Marxism and structural functionalism). On the other hand, these ideas are developed to the micro level, close to the stream of the new economic sociology.