Soviet Sociology Research Articles

The sociological movement in the U.S.S.R. (1960?1970) and the institutionalization of Soviet sociology

Before discussing the subject of this article it should be recaUed that the term 'sociology' had not been in use in the U.S.S.R. during the long period since the October revolution, i.e. the twenties to the sixties. In no one Soviet book or article published before the sixties was the term 'sociology' applied to any discipUne or any form of thinking in the U.S.S.R. The term 'sociology' was applied only to the so-caUed 'bourgeois social science' ? to social phi losophy and sociology in the West. Another well-known fact is that unt? 1960 there were no scientific institu tions or specialized laboratories of applied social research in the U.S.S.R., the activities of which could be called sociological. To be more precise, until 1960 there were no such institutions and laboratories at aU. The few attempts by several enthusiasts to undertake studies in demography, ethnology, social psychology in the twenties and the forties could not be considered as evidence for the existence of social sciences in the U.S.S.R. before the sixties. There were practically no such branches of social science as demography, social psychology, social ecology; there were no empirical social studies of structure, social change, occupational structure, social problems; there were no empirical studies of culture and personality. Prior to the sixties these branches of social knowledge did not exist in the U.S.S.R. So the term 'social sciences' simply had no referent.

Caught in the Cross Fire

The SciencesVolume 21, Issue 7 p. 12-16 Caught in the Cross Fire Defending Sakharov, American scientists became pawns of international politics Linda L. Lubrano, Linda L. Lubrano Linda L. Lubrano is a professor at American University's School of International Service, in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Science Policy Working Group on Fundamental Research Systems under the U.S.-USSR Agreement on Science and Technology, author of Soviet Sociology of Science (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 1976), and coeditor of The Social Context of Soviet Science (Westview Press, 1980). A longer version of this article is forthcoming in the journal Social Studies of Science.Search for more papers by this author Linda L. Lubrano, Linda L. Lubrano Linda L. Lubrano is a professor at American University's School of International Service, in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Science Policy Working Group on Fundamental Research Systems under the U.S.-USSR Agreement on Science and Technology, author of Soviet Sociology of Science (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 1976), and coeditor of The Social Context of Soviet Science (Westview Press, 1980). A longer version of this article is forthcoming in the journal Social Studies of Science.Search for more papers by this author First published: September 1981 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2326-1951.1981.tb01984.x AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume21, Issue7September 1981Pages 12-16 RelatedInformation

Editor's Introduction

This issue of Soviet Education on the sociology of youth follows that on the sociology of education in the USSR, which appeared last month; and there is a major point of comparison to be made between these two fields of applied Soviet sociology, which is reflected in the tone of most of the writing in the present issue.

Sociological Services to Enterprises and Problems of Improving the Effectiveness of Sociological Research

The practical implementation of scientific methods of management of social processes has required the creation of special services providing sociological information on various aspects of the life of society. Today, according to data from the Institute of Sociological Research, Academy of Sciences USSR and from the Soviet Sociological Association, there are over 400 entities in this country doing work in sociology, of which 250 operate within the system of institutions of the Academy of Sciences USSR and those of the various republics as well as in higher educational institutions, and dozens function on a voluntary basis in association with Party bodies. The largest sociological service, in scale and facilities, is being established within the Moscow Party organization. Many ministries have sociological centers that provide guidance on research methods within their respective branches of industry. Hundreds of associations, enterprises, and organizations have groups of employees engaging in sociological st...

The Work-Leisure Relationship in Soviet Sociological Discussion

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeAbstractL’article examine trois positions principales quant au rapport du travail et du loisir dans la sociologie soviétique. Le premiére position suit de très près la ligne marxiste traditionnelle et insiste sur le fait que la nature et la qualité du loisir sont déterminés essentiellement par l’essence et la qualité de travail (hypothèse d’intégration).On peut caractériser la seconde hypothèse comme “segmentaire.” Ce qui signifie que le travail et le loisir représentent deux concepts relativement autonomes dans lesquels le concept loisir tend à prendre de l’importance dans la société soviétique.La troisième position “conflictuelle” est exposée par les auteurs d’orienta-tion économique qui soulignent le fait que les besoins des individus pour le loisir et les besoins de la société pour une production plus grande se contredisent. L’argument de cet article est que les positions “segmentaire” et “conflictuelle” reflètent quelques-unes des inquietudes croissantes des sociologues soviétiques, confrontés par les problèmes de la “sur-qualification” parmi la jeunesse et le manque de potentiel de main d’oeuvre dans une économie dont la main d’oeuvre connaît une diminution relative.

Review of Sociology in the USSR by G. V. Osipov and M. N. Rutkevich

Since 1952 the International Sociological Association (ISA) has been publishing Current Sociology, a periodical appearing three times a year. Its individual issues are devoted to critical surveys of problems of the theory and methodology of current sociology in various countries. The Western press rarely carries the work of Soviet scholars, preferring to treat problems of our sociology, as well as other phenomena of Soviet reality, for that matter, through the prism of bourgeois concepts. It is therefore all the more significant that the current issue of Current Sociology [vol. 26, no. 2, 1978] makes available to the foreign reader a survey of the development of Soviet sociology written by prominent Soviet scholars, G. V. Osipov and M. N. Rutkevich. (F. R. Filippov, G. T. Zhuravlev, Iu. V. Gridchin, V. S. Korobeinikov, and V. Z. Rogovin also participated in the writing of the book.)

Between the Ethos of Science and the Ethos of Ideology

Abstract This paper attempts to explain the continuous friction between Marxist sociology and Marxist ideology in terms of the premises of the theory of scientific communism, which accords to proletarian ideology the status of scientific truth. The successive stages of the evolution of Soviet sociology are related to the parallel development of views on the scientific ethos. The notion of the “ethos of ideology” is introduced and applied to the analysis of the ideological turmoil Soviet sociology underwent in the course of its establishment as an academic discipline. “Value tolerance” is advocated as an alternative to the “value-partisan” and “value-neutral” orientations in social science.

Soviet Sociology, 1964-75: A Bibliography. By Mervyn Matthews, in collaboration with T. Anthony Jones. New York and London: Praeger Publishers, 1978. xvi, 269 pp.

Soviet Sociology, 1964-75: A Bibliography. By Mervyn Matthews, in collaboration with T. Anthony Jones. New York and London: Praeger Publishers, 1978. xvi, 269 pp.

More on Soviet Sociology

More on Soviet Sociology

The Sociology of Science in Europe, Soviet Sociology of Science

The Sociology of Science in Europe, Soviet Sociology of Science

Orthodoxy and Dissent

Soviet Sociology of Science by Linda L. Lubrano American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Columbus, Ohio 1976 102pp The Phenomenon of Science — A Cybernetic Approach to Human Evolution by V. F. Turchin Columbia University Press New York 1977 $21.90 348pp

On Soviet Sociology

On Soviet Sociology

The Development of Soviet Sociology, 1956-1976

On June 19, 1958, a group of prominent Soviet philosophers, economists, and historians met in the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences, and established the Soviet Sociological Association (SSA). As Soviet sociologists prepare to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first professional organization, we have an opportunity to review the progress of Soviet sociology as an academic discipline and examine its prospects for future development. The case of Soviet sociology, despite its apparent idiosyncrasies, is a paradigmatic one. It provided a rare opportunity to observe in vivo the evolution of sociology into an academic discipline. It is partly for this reason that it continues to attract so much interest outside the Soviet Union. The first reactions in the West following the emergence of Soviet sociol­ ogy reveal a peculiar mixture of surprise, skepticism, and hope (Labedz 1956, 1963; Brodersen 1957; Roucek 1958; Kassof 1961, 1965; Merton & Riecken 1962; Ahlberg 1964; Feuer 1964). As sociological research contin­ ued to advance in the 1960s, a note of optimism about the future of Soviet sociology could be easily detected (Fischer 1964, 1966, 1967; Weinberg 1964; Allen 1965; Parsons 1965; Kiss 1966; Simirenko 1966, 1969; Vucinich 1968). Among the works of the current decade, probably the most thorough general review of the field available includes a book by Weinberg (1974), an article by Lipset (1973) on Soviet stratification research, and two works by Gouldner (1970) and Simirenko (1973), which present alternative mod­ els of the development of academic sociology in the USSR and the USA. With perhaps two exceptions (ShaHn 1976; Simirenko 1976), recent works deal with the past and largely neglect the organizational and theoreti­ cal developments of Soviet sociology in the last few years. Yet there is good reason to believe that the events of the current decade have been crucial for

An Observation on Soviet Sociology [and Comments and Reply

Previous articleNext article No AccessAn Observation on Soviet Sociology [and Comments and Reply]Jiri Kolaja, Joel Halpern, Paul Hollander, Irving Louis Horowitz, Alex Simirenko, and Elizabeth WeinbergJiri Kolaja Search for more articles by this author , Joel Halpern Search for more articles by this author , Paul Hollander Search for more articles by this author , Irving Louis Horowitz Search for more articles by this author , Alex Simirenko Search for more articles by this author , and Elizabeth Weinberg Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 19, Number 2Jun., 1978 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/202079 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1978 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological ResearchPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jerry G. Pankhurst Factors in the Post-Stalin Emergence of Soviet Sociology, Sociological Inquiry 52, no.33 (Jun 1982): 165–183.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1982.tb01248.x

Soviet Sociology of Science. By Linda L. Lubrano. Columbus, Ohio: American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 1976. vi, 102 pp. Paper.

Soviet Sociology of Science. By Linda L. Lubrano. Columbus, Ohio: American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 1976. vi, 102 pp. Paper.

Book Reviews : Linda Lubrano: Soviet Sociology of Science. American Association for the Ad vancement of Slavic Studies, Ohio 1977. 98 pp

Book Reviews : Linda Lubrano: Soviet Sociology of Science. American Association for the Ad vancement of Slavic Studies, Ohio 1977. 98 pp

Mobility and Stratification in the Soviet Union

Since 1917, when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in the name of the working people, the nature of social inequality in the USSR has been the subject of intense debate. That the Bolsheviks carried out a social revolution of unprecedented dimen­ sions has been recognized on all sides; but whether the means used to achieve it were justified, and whether the new social order embodies the ideals of liberty and equality have inspired seemingly endless polemics. To be sure, the political coloring of the debate has stemmed largely from the Soviet Communists' own sense of mission and avowedly revolutionary goals, perceived by many either as a threat or as a cause demanding their devotion. A dearth of information on many aspects of the problem has also played a role, resulting in a disjunction between ideological claims on one side or the other and the empirical data that might substantiate them. And in part responsible for the lack of information was the fate of Soviet sociology itself: a lively discipline in the 1920s, it had been denounced as a bourgeois pseudo­ science and effectively suppressed in the 1930s. For some time, most research on social stratification was carried out by a handful of Western scholars who relied heavily upon the reports of emigres and the scattered published data (e.g. Inkeles 1950, 1960; Moore 1950, 1954; Feldmesser 1955, 1956, 1966, 1968; Inkeles & Bauer 1959). Only since de-Stalinization in the late 1950s, when Soviet sociology was rehabilitated, has social inequality begun to be investigated once again within the Soviet Union. This article provides a brief overview of some of the recent stratifica­ tion research and then a more detailed review of studies on social mobility. During the past several decades, basically four general interpretations of struc­ tured social inequality have been advanced. According to one view, enunciated by Stalin in 1936 and consistently promulgated by official spokesmen ofthe Communist Party since then, state and cooperative ownership of the means of production is the main feature distinguishing Soviet society from capit�st societies. On this basis, two

Soviet Family Research

Soviet research on marriage and the family has developed very rapidly over the past decade or so, though not so rapidly as other areas of sociology in the USSR. While in a number of ways still a small part of the country's total social science effort, research on marriage and the family has been of great importance in the public consumption and utilization of sociology in the Soviet Union. In terms of the resources devoted to it, family research is a minor branch of Soviet sociology: in comparison to other topics, there has been relatively little Soviet work on the family; few Soviet scholars specialize in the area; and there are almost no research organizations in the USSR exclusively concerned with it. Family research is a minor branch of Soviet sociology in some intellectual respects as well since, from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism, the family as an institution is defined for the most part by society's economic base and greater political and social structure-i. e., research on the family is considered to be of less theoretical importance than research on such matters as stratification and economic and political life. Particularly during periods such as the current one when it is being stressed that historical materialism must serve as the grand theory to which discussion of all social life must be linked, the family assumes a very secondary place in comparison with other institutions. However, when it comes to popular interest in sociology and to the utilization of research findings by decision-makers, Soviet family sociology is of major importance. Public discussion of family issues is freer and more widespread than of other sociological topics, and party and state organizations are generally more ready to accept participation by Soviet sociologists in decisions regarding the family and to react to their suggestions than they are to researchers in other areas. Such a state of affairs in which an area of human intellectual endeavor is kept within limited boundaries by the official ideology while at the same time appealing greatly to the population and influencing the nation's leaders is not uncommon in the USSR. The

The Functions of the Family as Understood by the Modern Rural Resident

The present article is based on part of the data resulting from interdisciplinary sociological studies of rural life conducted in 1966-67 in accordance with a program developed by the Committee on Sociological Problems of the Countryside of the Soviet Sociological Association.

Soviet sociology and its apologist

Soviet sociology and its apologist