Sensible people advise one not to expend one's strength on polemics. And sensible people are right, of course. But look at the history of social thought: there is no peace beneath the olives, and without the flames of social thought, even the pure light of science begins to flicker.

Many solemn words were uttered in connection with the Herzen anniversary. The ceremonial feast is long past, and the fires of the celebration have been extinguished. Yet Herzen is for us such a peak of revolutionary thought that it is not too late to write of him even post festum - "after the holiday.".

Mikhail Lifshitz is a major forgotten figure in the tradition of Marxist philosophy and art history. _The Crisis of Ugliness_, published here in English for the first time, is a compact broadside against modernism in the visual arts that resists the dogmatic complacencies of Stalinist aesthetics.

Of the many questions to which the RST has given rise, I should like to single out two groups.

Some questions connected with the carry over of fundamental group theory to constructive mathematics, and with the relationship between classical and constructive group theories are considered herein. All the considerations are carried out within the scope of constructive mathematics.

Practical ideas have been put forth here, and do not blame me if I repeat some of them. Those speeches that emphasized the primacy of the idea of socialization particularly pleased me. It must always, as a goal, take precedence over any curriculum. There is no need to explain why. We know that instruction is more mechanical in character, while socialization, by its very nature, is more organic. But man is an organic being, and everything that comes from without has (...) to be integrated into or rejected by his character. The experience we derive from the world without, as well as all formal teaching, passes through an organic process in order to become our possession. A cultivated person is one in whom all acquired knowledge and skills have become second nature, or culture, have become part of his flesh and blood, have been organically assimilated and are manifested freely and without constraint. (shrink)

First published in English in 1935, this is a vital and stimulating critical appraisal of contemporary thought in the post-World War One era. Written by a selection of leading Marxist thinkers including Nikolai Bukharin, who would later become one of the most famous victims of Stalin's show trials, this work offers a Marxist critique of contemporary thought relating to philosophy, science and history. The authors all lean towards the view that the general tendency of modern thought is to abandon the (...) historical method and to deny progress, with the conclusion that Marxism was the only historical and progressive outlook in science, philosophy and history in the period following the First World War and the Communist revolution in Russia. A fascinating document of great historical and political interest which offers an invaluable insight into contemporary thought in the Soviet Union of the 1930s. (shrink)

Mikhail Lifshits’ interpretation of the scholarly work of the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico is analysed against the background of other Soviet interpretations. M. Lifshits authored the introductory article for the first complete translation of Vico’s Scienza Nuova in 1940. In the second half of the 1930s, interest in Vico’s ‘historical theory of knowledge’ was important for the struggle against so-called ‘vulgar sociology’ in the field of aesthetics and literary criticism. Besides this, Vico’s theory of the ‘historical cycle’ was close to (...) the interests M. Lifshits and G. Lukács and their circle in Stalin-era Moscow. This interest was connected with discussions about the preservation of the revolutionary impulse under the conditions of state socialism. However, such an interpretation of Vico restricted a wide spectrum of his scholarly work. In particular, Lifshits, as an opponent of social-constructivism tradition, ignored Vico’s well-known doctrine of verum factum. (shrink)

The article focuses on one highly idiosyncratic trait of Lifshits’ reading of Hegel, namely his assertion that the epoch of Restoration during which Hegel produced his main works was analogous to the period of the 1930s in the USSR. In both cases, “constructive” tasks came to the fore as the fermentation of the revolutionary era waned. On this assumption, Lifshits built up his idea of a Restauratio magna, which should serve as the guiding star of cultural politics. In fact, Lifshits (...) came very near to rehabilitating of Edmund Burke’s views about the conservation of cultural heritage, which is highly problematic in light of his initial Marxist convictions. (shrink)

L’article examine les « compositions » de Tchernikhov en liant sa recherche constante de nouvelles formes à la capacité de convertir les « fantaisies » en représentations. Contrairement à Aristote, qui conçoit la mimèsis comme l’équivalent de l’entreprise artistique, Tchernikhov perçoit ses « compositions » comme des actes de dépassement de la mimèsis par la phantasia. Les illustrations visionnaires de ses Fantaisies architecturales expriment son intention de remplacer les mots par des images graphiques. Son approche est fondée sur la croyance (...) que la puissance de l’imagination permet à la langue graphique, qui est par ailleurs internationale, de fonctionner comme un précurseur du progrès. L’objectif de l’article est d’élucider comment Tchernikhov traite la tension entre imagination et réalité et d’examiner dans quelle mesure sa production graphique parvient à surmonter la mimèsis à travers la phantasia. La réponse à ces questions pourrait nous aider à expliquer pourquoi Tchernikhov a souvent été jugé comme inclassable et à évaluer à quel point sa démarche reflète les polarités entre les rationalistes et les constructivistes. L’opposition entre « composition » et « construction » permet de mieux comprendre le positionnement à la fois singulier et fondamental de Tchernikov par rapport au constructivisme. L’article met en évidence le fait que le rôle essentiel de la phantasia pour Tchernikhov découle de la valorisation de la « composition » plutôt que la « construction ». (shrink)

The philosophy of Mamardashvili can be presented through the prism of his experience of living through Soviet history, which became a “beneficial vantage point”, and through his understanding, not just of deeply theoretical, but also existential Russian themes. His particular style—“the living through thought” in the presence of the other reflected a covert protest and spiritual opposition to the zombified masses and to history. In the analysis of his ideas, a special attention has been payed to the mediative—« intermittential space (...) of the self » or the theory of symbols. In this article, an analysis of the symbolic theory of Mamardashvili and Pyatigorsky as well as a comparison of this theory and those developed by Ernst Cassirer, Aleksei Losev and Mikhail Lifshits is provided. (shrink)

This article focuses on documents made by the Soviet military secret service detailing the arrest, interrogation, trial and execution of Sergei Tret’iakov in Moscow in 1937. The original documents were published in Russian in 1997 as part of Return my Freedom, a collection of archival records edited by Vladimir Kolyazin that details the fate of Russian and German cultural figures who fell victim to the Stalinist terror. This record of Tret’iakov’s violent death has received little attention, even in Russia or (...) in Russian studies. The book presents facsimiles of 60 separately numbered and dated sheets containing records of Tret’iakov’s arrest and the search of his home. There are two written confessions; a first short admission of guilt and a second longer account of his supposed crimes that also claims parts of the first to be fictitious. These are followed by a transcript of his interrogation, a very brief account of his trial and the even briefer report of his execution. A historical gap separates these from documents of Tret’iakov’s official rehabilitation in 1954 which his wife, Olga Tret’iakov was instrumental in securing. Return my Freedom also contains the record of her arrest, interrogation and release in 1937. The article presents translated extracts from the official record of Tret’iakov’s interrogation and execution for the first time in English, and it explores these documents in relation to core strategies and critical commitments that shaped Tret’iakov’s influential conception of Factography. (shrink)