First Published in 2004. Confusion reigns in sociological accounts of the curent condition of modernity. The story-lines from the 'end of the subject' to 'a new individualism', from the 'dissolution of society' to the re-emergence of 'civil society', from the 'end of modernity' to an 'other modernoity' to 'neo-modernization'. This book offers a sociology of modernity in terms of a historical account of social transformations over the past two centuries, focusing on Western Europe but also looking at the USA (...) and at Soviet socialism as distinct variants of modernity. A fundamental ambivalence of modernity is captured by the double notion of liberty and discipline in its three major dimensions: the relations between individual liberty and political community, betwen agency and structure, and between locally situated human lives and widely extended social institutions. Two major historical transformations of modernity are distinguished, the first one beginning in the late nineteenth century and leading to a social formation that can be called organized modernity, and the second being the one that dissolves organized modernity. It is this current transformation which revives some key concerns of the 'modern project', ideas of liberty, plurality and individual autonomy. But it imperils others, especially the creation of social identities as ties between human beings that allow meaningful and socially viable development of individual autonomy, and the possibility of politics as communicative interaction and collaborative deliberation about what human beings have in common. (shrink)

The article presents results of an ongoing study of centers of intellectual innovations in post-Soviet Russia. Using the European University at St. Petersburg as the main object of their analysis, the authors demonstrate how new models of academic careers, which became available in the 1980s and 1990s, were eventually institutionalized as new models of knowledge production and educational practices. Supported by American foundations, this private university had to invent a new institutional structure and to position itself within the field (...) of higher education, still mostly dominated by the state. (shrink)

Written at the height of the purges, but unpublished for decades, Megrelidze's text is arguably the most significant, erudite and wide-ranging work of Marxist philosophy written in the USSR at the time. Discussing the emergence and development of human consciousness from the origins of humanity to the rise of capitalism, Megrelidze discusses the major achievements of contemporary cognitive science, sociology, philosophy and linguistics in the light of the works of Marx and Engels that were being published at the time. (...) Far from the rigidities of official 'diamat', the book provides an insight into the important debates in Soviet intellectual life that led to the works of figures such as Vygotsky and the 'Bakhtin Circle'. (shrink)

In this article I have dealt with empirical proofs for the Russian religious renaissance which came after the fall of the Soviet socialistic empire and carried on all through the nineties as a pro-religious consensus and a religious belief. Likewise, I have dealt with proofs suggesting certain limitations of the renaissance in question which manifested mainly in irregular fulfillment of religious duties. U ovom clanku autor se bavi empirijskim dokazima za rusku religioznu renesansu koja je nastupila nakon urusavanja sovjetske (...) socijalisticke imperije i kao proreligiozni konsenzus i religijsko verovanje odrzala se tokom 90-ih godina proslog veka. Takodje, autor se bavi i dokazima koji upucuju na izvesna ogranicenja pomenute renesanse, ponajvise izrazena kroz problematicnu redovnost ispunjavanja verskih duznosti. (shrink)

The question of the role of science in the development of our society, and the role of the social sciences in particular, loomed large in the decisions of the 23rd Congress of the CPSU. This was a consequence of the tasks posed by the present stage of the building of communism. The proceedings and decisions of the Congress emphasized the rapid advance of science, its increasing influence upon all aspects of the material and intellectual life of society, and the need (...) to assure high rates of scientific and technological progress on the basis of the growth of all branches of knowledge and the extensive introduction of the achievements of science into industry. In the Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Congress, considerable attention was given to the social sciences, upon which the party is now placing even greater responsibility. "The elaboration of important problems in economics and politics, philosophy and sociology, history and law, and in other social sciences, in close association with the practical work of the building of communism," said L. I. Brezhnev, "is a most important task for Soviet scholars." Further, he emphasized: "The development of the social sciences and the introduction of their recommendations in practice play no less important a role than the employment of the achievements of the natural sciences in the sphere of material production and the development of the intellectual life of the people" . These statements call for thorough consideration. (shrink)

The connection between static and dynamic forces in society became, once again, a topic for debate at the sociological congress held in Amsterdam in 1955. The reason for this renewed interest is not far to seek. Dynamic phenomena of great intensity force themselves on the observer of the contemporary scene. Within the Soviet sphere of influence, the structure of society is undergoing radical changes. At the same time, the Orient and all those areas said, not without reason, to be (...) “developing,” are in the throes of modernization. And finally, even in countries ruled by liberalism and marked by stable institutions, the inner structure of such fundamental social concepts as “individual,” “family,” “stratification,” “organization” and “government” is rapidly being transformed. On the other hand, there are many countries in which society appears to be gravitating towards a static condition, characterized by Veblen more than fifty years ago, as a “new feudalism.” When all areas beyond the present-day borders of capitalism will have been industrialized, capitalism will no longer be able to rely on new resources elsewhere, and its economic expansion, which was once thought to be demanded by the very nature of the system, will have come to an end. Capitalism will then have to revert to simply reproducing itself. This prospect is reflected in our present-day culture. Thus, Olivier Messiaen, a composer of the group known as “La Jeune France,” said only recently, that the historical development of music had reached a ceiling beyond which no further development could be imagined; whether he was right or not, is not the point. What should be of most interest in a discussion of the conflict between static and dynamic forces, is the question which of these will prove to be the stronger; whether the trend of development prevailing since the Middle Ages will continue, or whether it will terminate in a state of paralysis of the kind that Himmler prophesied when he said that the Third Reich would last for ten or twenty thousand years, until the “end of modern times.” But before we can speculate about the outcome of the conflict between the static and dynamic, we must reflect on the ideas connected with them; otherwise it would be like trying to settle the course of world history by idly tossing a coin. (shrink)

With the failure of the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Bogdanov has come under increasing scrutiny as the anti-authoritarian, left-wing opponent of Lenin among the Bolsheviks and the main inspiration behind the Proletk'ult movement, the movement which attempted to create a new, proletarian culture (Sochor, 1988). Bogdanov's efforts to create a new, universal science of organization, a precursor to systems theory and cybernetics, has also attracted considerable attention (Gorelik, 1980; Bello, 1985; Biggart et.al. 1998). And he has been recognized as an (...) early environmentalist and as a feminist (Graham, 1984; Gare, 1994; Gare, 1996, pp.249-52). But few people have paid much attention to Bogdanov as an historian, sociologist and philosopher of science. Yet Bogdanov developed highly original ideas on science, offering unique resolutions to the oppositions between instrumentalism and realism and between internalist and externalist accounts of scientific development, and following from these, proposed a radical transformation of science as the foundation for an equally radical transformation of society. (shrink)

The problem advanced societies have tried to answer since the last part of the twentieth century can be ascribed to a fundamental question: how to go beyond the constitutive (and unsustainable) limit of nation-state capitalism, constrained by an excessively circumscribed and univocal idea of social organization, without losing the ability to govern? Or, expressed in other terms, how can you dismantle the center (the state) without losing the power to control? The answer to this (difficult) question has been sought for (...) along two main axes. The first has concerned the seizing of new opportunities distributed over a space larger than the national space. As historians have shown (Arrighi 1996), if global projection is a constant of capitalism only the disastrous politico-military vicissitudes of the first half of the twentieth century created the conditions according to which the nation-state capitalism model could be born, in the form that dominated the fifty years following the Second World War. But first the exhaustion of colonialism, then the urgency of the energy question, the signs of a possible demise of Anglo-Saxon hegemony and, subsequently, the collapse of the Soviet empire, have changed the rules of the game. Within a rapidly transforming international framework, the recovery of a global outlook promised the exploitation of important opportunities with the opening of new markets, the valorization of investment possibilities, the displacement and utilization of low-wage labor, financial speculation, the acquisition and control of energy resources and raw materials. It is a promise that Anglo-Saxon elites have contemplated since the early 1980s, the moment in which?to counter the increasingly worrying signs of decline of their hegemony?they abandoned the Keynesian doctrine to embrace the neoliberal doctrine. The second axis along which a new growth cycle has been developed has to do with the increased manipulation of meanings available individually and collectively. Such a process is formed from the combination of two rationales, the subjectivist imperative, which inscribes into social life some of the philosophical developments of the twentieth century, and the formation of De-territorialized Aesthetic Space, which makes technically possible, a degree of cultural mobility hitherto unthinkable. Both these factors facilitate the insertion of the immaterial dimension into the cycle of capitalist valorization, making it more readily available for exploitation by economic forces on a global scale. (shrink)

Produced in 1961 using film shot by official war photographers provided by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, this 26 part series covers every major ...

The aim of this article is to assess Arnason’s civilizational theory and methodology and their application to non-Western civilizations from a historical-comparative sociological perspective. Although civilizational analysis and historical sociology as historical-comparative orientations in sociology are closely connected, civilizational analysis concentrates particularly on the macro-history of civilizations, whereas historical-comparative sociology (particularly in its American variety) is orientated rather to a meso- and micro-analytical foundation of societal developments and therefore is more time- and context-sensitive. From such a perspective, (...) the article reconstructs, first, Arnason’s theoretical and methodological approach to civilizational analysis and discusses his contribution to the civilizational origins and dynamics of the West as a measuring rod for non-European societies. Second, it then assesses Arnason’s two major exemplary civilizational studies: the Soviet model in Russia, Eastern Europe and the non-European world as well as the Japanese civilization in the broader East Asian civilizational context. The article concludes with a critical summary of Arnason’s highly innovative approach from the vantage point of a recently developing global orientation in historical and comparative sociology. (shrink)

Based on qualitative analysis of the Soviet press and official state documents, this article argues that the Communist Party was, counter intuitively, an agent of capitalist dispositions in the Soviet Union during 1970s-1980s. Understanding the spirit of capitalism not simply as an ascetic ethos but in broader terms of the cult of individualism, I demonstrate that the Soviet party-state promoted ideas and values of individuality, self-expression, and pleasure seeking in the areas of work and consumption. By broadening (...) our conception of the spirit of capitalism, tracing the formation of capitalist dispositions as well as institutions, and showing that the culture of capitalism can come from within the old regime, I further the agenda of neoclassical sociology of studying varieties of origins, paths, and destinations of modern capitalisms. (shrink)

Some central issues of fin-de-siècle Hungarian philosophy and intellectual tradition can be retrieved from the writings of József Eötvös and his mid-nineteenth century contemporaries. An ambiguous attitude towards metaphysics, emphasis on sociological issues as well as a regional perspective are apparent in his texts prior to the emergence of the great fin-de-siècle generation of Hungarian intellectuals. They survived the Habsburg Empire thanks to the post-Monarchical literary tradition and Péter Esterházy’s works; they provided an adequate vocabulary for the Central European experience (...) following the Soviet Era. (shrink)

Mikhail Nikolaevich bridges 19th- and 20th-century Russian culture as well as Leninism and Stalinism, and later became an instrument in Khrushchev's effort at de-Stalinization. Pokrovskii was born in Moscow in 1868. He described the years before 1905 as his time of "democratic illusions and economic materialism." His interest in legal Marxism began in the 1890's but it was only with the Revolution of 1905 that he stepped into the Marxist camp. Pokrovskii was a leader in the creation of the "historical (...) front"—an organization of scholars authorized to work out a Marxist theory of the past. He formalized the bond between scholarship and politics through his belief that historians should assist party authorities in effecting a cultural revolution; thus he supported Stalin's collectivization of agriculture and leg a campaign to silence non-Marxist scholars, some of whom he had defended earlier. Yet his accommodation with Stalin was uneasy, and after Pokrovskii's death in 1932 his allegedly "abstract sociological schemes" were condemned and his career was dubbed _pokrovshcina_—era of the wicked deeds of Pokrovskii. (shrink)

In the context of philosophical discussions of the 1920s, the authors examine the texts of E. Engel with a view to identifying the relationship between the philosophical views of the author and his methodological principles. The paper traces both the repulsion and interpenetration of the pre-revolutionary positivist attitudes of E. A. Engel with the new Marxist methodology, within the framework of which his works of the Soviet period were written. The key points along which the participants in the controversy (...) and the doctrines they represent were demarcated are assessed. The conclusion is made about the historical futility of Engel’s specific constructions, but the preservation of the general perspective of studying eclectic doc­trines as an inevitable product of transitional eras. (shrink)

How do people survive under extreme conditions? Will selfish, non-cooperating free-rider types – the solo players – have the best chances of surviving? Or would cooperating, hard-working types – the team players – have higher chances? All morale put aside, it is interesting to know whether non-cooperation or cooperation pays off in a game characterized by scarcity and hard competition for survival. A study of people in such a Hobbesian state of nature can also teach us important lessons about social (...) dynamics in contemporary, prosperous societies. An interesting case of ‘The survival game’ can be found in Solzhenitsyn’s (1963 [1962]) self-biographical book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, depicting life in a Soviet Gulag prison camp in Siberia January 1951. We use Solzhenitsyn’s work as evidence of the interplay between five player types among prisoners: Cooperative blind-riders (BRs), hard-riders (HRs) and tough-riders (TRs), i.e. the so-called ‘toilers’; non-cooperative easy-riders (ERs), looked upon by the toilers as ‘bastards’, ‘screws’ and ‘errand boys’; and finally Low-riders (LRs), comprising ‘goners’ and ‘jackals’. The main research question addresses the successfulness of the survival strategies of the five player types. Apart from a Multiple Player Approach (MPA) that may be seen as a further development of second-generation theory of collective action (Ostrom & Ahn, 2009), we apply Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical theory on our case. Hence, we argue that impression management at two different ‘stages’ – the Brigade stage and the Camp stage – is crucial for survival for hard-riding as well as for easy-riding players, in particular strategic masking. Seeking to unite Goffman and game-theoretic MPA, our overall purpose is to make a theoretical contribution to “game-related sociology” (Swedberg, 2001). (shrink)

This paper studies the attempts (and failure) of Russian revolutionaries to mobilize the peasantry in the decade leading to the Soviet revolution of 1917. Peasants, who had been emancipated from serfdom only four decades earlier, in 1861, were still largely propertyless and poor. This would, at first glance, make them a ripe target for revolutionary activity. But peasants were largely refractory. We explain this lack of revolutionary spirit through two models. First, despite their lack of education and political awareness, (...) the peasants were rational in their refusal to participate in revolutionary activity; they engaged in a cost–benefit calculus which pushed them away from revolt and political organization. Second, based on the Wildavsky–Thompson cultural types, Russian peasants were largely fatalist: they believed they had no influence on the world, so it was not worth attempting to change it. This paper sheds light on some aspects of the Russian revolution, but also encourages further research in history and economic sociology on the interaction between culture and incentives. (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)

"This study attempts to evaluate some main trends in Soviet Marxism in terms of an 'immanent critique,' that is to say it starts from the theoretical premises of Soviet Marxism, develops their ideological and sociological consequences, and reexamines the premises in the light of these consequences." In two sections the author treats "Political Tenets" and the too seldom presented Soviet Ethics, which is most striking for its externalization of values and paucity of content. Written neither for the (...) political theorist nor the ethicist, the work while popular and often superficial presents an interesting and frequently illuminating study. --R. D. G. (shrink)

Ernest Gellner’s many writings on the Soviet socialist project sought to come to terms with one of the key sociological and ideological arcs of the 20th century: the rise and fall of a utopian experiment, one that for some served as a kind of proof of principle, whose modern intellectual origins were more than 170 years old at the time of its demise. Gellner loved Russia and spent much time there. And he engaged with its 20th century very deeply, (...) although I think from a very distinctive position outside of the Soviet experience. His analyses of the socialist bloc included attention to Soviet Marxism as a developmental ideology, as a secular religion that sacralized the everyday, leaving no room for a certain kind of civil society; and he offered the outlines of an account of its failure – from its revolutionary heroism through the cynicism of its stagnation to the possibilities and constraints of so-called post-socialist space. Along the way, Gellner’s insistent critiques of Soviet Marxism – of both its theoretical and actually-existing varieties – were powerful, sometimes polemical, and latterly self-critical. So what can we now make of Gellner’s rich analyses of the utopia that failed? This paper offers relative departures from pieces of Gellner’s intellectual trail, in the hope that at least part of the significance of the 20th century lies within the lessons that we draw from the utopia that failed. (shrink)

The article reveals the features of the formation and functioning of aesthetic research in such two areas of Marxism as Soviet and Chinese. The study identified three key stages in the development of aesthetics in Soviet Marxism – the pre-war (the 1920s and 1930s), late Stalinism and the Khrushchev thaw, and the late period (1970-1980s). It should be noted that in the context of Soviet Marxism, the key tasks were that aesthetics becomes influential and in-demand science, included (...) in the program of "technical progress" and "education of the builder of communism", important ideological, aesthetic, and applied field of philosophy. Therefore, in addition to the fact that purely ideological works were developed within the framework of aesthetic discourse, aesthetics itself in Soviet Marxism was able to develop thanks to contacts with semiotics, psychology, anthropology, cultural history, and sociology. Relying on a selective stream of translations of Western philosophies of art, Soviet aesthetics is beginning to resonate with global trends, which is facilitated by the unspoken consensus of the idea of aesthetics as a part of philosophical and humanitarian knowledge that has its own autonomy. Proved that in China culture and the cultural revolution are inextricably linked with the Marxist projects of critiquing capitalist modernity and building alternative modernity. Aesthetics and culture also were at the center of attention in Chinese Marxist circles. In this respect, the diverse practices and designs of Chinese Marxism are similar to those of Western Marxism or an equally distinct variety of Euro-American Marxist intellectual enterprises. Aesthetic Marxism in China had a dual mission – to criticize the internal contradictions of revolutionary hegemony and to offer a constructive vision of culture in a post-revolutionary society. This is the value of Chinese aesthetic Marxism, the implications of which go beyond China proper in the world of global cultural criticism. Moreover, being non-Western, Chinese aesthetic Marxism deliberately questioned the inherent Eurocentrism of Marxism. If this Eurocentrism is to be challenged and problematized, the questions posed by Chinese aesthetic Marxists cannot be ignored. (shrink)

"Professor B. Petrov" is actually the nom de plume of Boris Petrovich Vysheslavtsev, a professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Law at Moscow University from 1917 to 1922, well known in Russian émigré circles as the author of a number of technically competent and stylistically brilliant studies in philosophy and psychology. His last published work, The Crisis of Industrial Civilization: Marxism, Neo-Socialism, Neo-Liberalism, is a significant contribution to social philosophy. Vysheslavtsev is distinguished by a scholar's intimacy with the philosophic (...) doctrines of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and Lenin, together with an imaginative and disciplined command of at least the major contemporary developments in sociology, psychology, economics, and jurisprudence. (shrink)

This is a collection of twelve original essays on Soviet social sciences, with an emphasis on changes since Stalin's death. The lot of the Russian social scientist and the Russian philosopher has never been very easy--any discussion affecting authority was always difficult under conditions of religious and political oppression as well as. To this tradition the Soviet era has added an integrated view of the world which the scholar must use as his mental set. Philosophical reasoning has particularly (...) suffered under these conditions. E. Kamenka's essay on "Soviet Philosophy 1917-1967" gives a detailed examination of the politicization of philosophy by Lenin and under Stalin. The author claims that since 1956 there has been an improvement in professional integrity, especially in fields such as the philosophy of science, logic, and history of philosophy. Unfortunately the author's treatment of this period is brief and sketchy. The absence of a native tradition is one of the reasons for the weakness of philosophy in the Soviet Union, and there seems to be a better future for the disciplines which can draw upon ideas of native predecessors, such as experimental psychology and psychotherapy. The book also includes an essay on the socialization function of education; a readable account of the "revolution" in Soviet economics; and attempts at a study of politics where rationality cannot be carried too far. The authors of the essays on sociology and anthropology believe that, although these disciplines have been an administrative arm for fact gathering and planning, they are achieving a status of their own. All the authors of the essays see important improvements, if sometimes qualified, in the development of the social sciences in the Soviet Union.--O. Z. (shrink)

If the classic history of events is written in the spirit of winners, the approaches of collective mental reveal that wars are disasters and collective traumas for all of the involved communities. In the following pages we will present the decantation in long term memory of a relevant fact – the deportation of German ethnics from Romania to forced labor in the Soviet Union. On the base of a secret directive, sent by Stalin, approximately 75 000 Romanian citizens of (...) German ethnicity were forced to work three-four years, some even more, at the reconstruction of the “Soviet country”. The source of the decision, its place and extent, and also the way to atone for the “collective guilt” was hidden from the deportees. At the end of the punishment, they were forbidden to speak about the deportation in the public and private space. When they returned home, all of their material evidence of the years spent in the Soviet Union was confiscated and destroyed. In a project financed by the European Union, 50 interviews with survivors of deportation and their descendants were published. The resulting accounts allowed this psycho-sociological analysis of the memory of deportation, centered on ethical and religious aspects of the behaviors and attitudes of victims and their descendants. (shrink)

Scholars have argued that transnational networks of right-wing economists and activists caused the worldwide embrace of neoliberalism. Using the case of an Italian think tank, CESES, associated with these networks, the author shows that the origins of neoliberalism were not in hegemony but in liminality. At CESES, the Italian and American right sought to convert Italians to free market values by showing them how Soviet socialism worked. However, CESES was created in liminal spaces that opened up within and between (...) Soviet socialism and Western capitalism after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Scholars from East and West at CESES developed new knowledge about actually existing socialism, which, due to the shifting context of the Cold War, seemed to provoke left-wing sympathies among the scholars and the students involved. CESES in fact required left-wing scholars, who had necessary skills and a fascination with a common project of democratic or market socialism, to create this new knowledge. The new knowledge that developed out of an East–West dialogue not only helped right-wing transnational networks to reorient their hegemonic projects, but also helped those on the left to understand actually existing socialism and what socialism might become. This knowledge could not be obtained without this dialogue and had to travel through liminal spaces. (shrink)

The discourse of political theology developed by Schmitt makes it possible to identify a secular religion in Marxism. Marxism is aimed at achieving an “earthly paradise”. In the Soviet project, based on the “dictatorship of the worldview” (Berdyaev), its own political theology is being formed, including apophatic and cataphatic elements. The apophatic content is connected with the totalization of the denial of the ideals, laws, and order of the old world. Hobbes sees in the state a Leviathan — a (...) powerful mortal god, whom God is able to catch and tame at any moment. Taking the side of the Behemoth in the fight against Leviathan, the revolutionary forces are focused on the negative ontological connection that arises during the collapse of the state between Leviathan and God, whose place in the revolutionary consciousness is occupied by the laws of history. The apophatic theology of the Soviet project is built in the logic of increased attention to revolutionary upheavals, punishing Leviathan for unworthy behavior. As a result, the Soviet revolutionary project is deconstructing and destructive in nature. Revolutionary forces, personifying righteous anger, radicalize the fight against the discovered “social evil”, entering an area of the escalation of violence. A necessary condition for building a “new world” is the consistent destruction of the old one “to the foundations”. However, at the moment of gaining power, the revolutionary forces abandon the apophatic and enter the cataphatic path. The main dogma for social construction is the position of communism as the inevitable future of human history. Blind faith in the inevitability of communism is ill-suited to see what God, or the laws of history, allows Leviathan to do. The struggle against the dehumanizing essence of capitalism gradually contributes to the construction of an equally dehumanizing society (Berdyaev) — an ideological, bureaucratic, planned-distributive total state. Rampant communal forces (Zinoviev) create new hierarchies and a new social division. Ideology takes frozen “hypernormal” forms that do not correspond to reality. In the end, the mismatch of social and ideological projects during the “performative shift” (Yurchak) entails the collapse of the USSR, illustrating the new revelation of the divine pacification of Leviathan. (shrink)

The paper examines the structure and dynamics of the political imaginary of the two countries of post-Soviet Central Asia - Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. As the authors show, Russia has a special place in this structure. For a long time, many ordinary citizens of these states did not perceive Russia as a foreign state on an equal footing with others. This perception was due to a number of factors, the most important of which was Soviet institutional and psychological inertia. (...) At the institutional level, Soviet inertia was expressed primarily in the transparency of the borders between Russia and the Central Asian countries. On a psychological level, it manifested itself in nostalgia for the Soviet past. It was the overlapping of soviet nostalgia with the understanding of the importance of migration to Russia for the material well-being of households that gave rise to a high level of loyalty to Moscow. Recently, however, the Russian Federation has started to gradually become a foreign state among others in the eyes of ordinary residents of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In the minds of people, Russia still has a specific status, but this specificity is increasingly seen in a global context; in this context, other actors along with Moscow matter (Beijing and Washington, as well as Istanbul and Tehran). The process of turning Russia into an ordinary “abroad” was going on before, but it accelerated sharply after February 24, 2022. The authors identify signs of distancing from Russia both at the level of the ruling elites and at the level of civil society. Among these signs are, in particular, the desire of governments to demonstrate a multi-vector foreign policy, a change in the public rhetoric of top officials, as well as manifestations of anti-Russian sentiment in the public sphere of Kyrgyzstan. (shrink)

The authors attempt to speculatively reconstruct the concept of the “So­viet computer game”. They propose to consider gaming practices associ­ated with computers as a derivative of the accepted ideological guidelines that accompany the Soviet project of machine modernization. Within this framework, the concept of the Soviet computer game appears as an unre­alized historical alternative to the normative game design that has devel­oped in countries with market economies. Despite the industry — or the electronic entertainment market — not having (...) had the time to be properly established in the USSR, there were a number of discursive attitudes re­garding the game as such, and the gaming function of computing devices in particular. Even early Soviet pedagogical theories assumed that “playing like a Soviet” involves performing activities structurally similar to labor, where the player becomes part of production. Later, cybernetic discourse, through game theory, indicated the possibility of formalizing any prag­matic activity as a game model; with the advancement of programming, the pragmatics of digital gaming as a way of educating and solving utili­tarian tasks was developed. Based on the memoir archive of Soviet cyber­netics, and publications in the late-Soviet press, the authors demonstrate that the Soviet computer game was not seen an entertainment product, but a representative model for solving problems in an algorithmic form. Thus, the article is not about specific games that could be called Soviet, but about the logic that guided and set the tone for the interpretation of certain computer-game phenomena in the USSR. (shrink)

The question of the nature of postcommunist religious change is highly discursive. First and foremost, where exactly is the focus of change? Serious research suggests that they are the least obvious where there is a mass attraction for sacred and individual conversion to religion. Indeed, after the overthrow of the Berlin Wall, the proportion of citizens of the countries of the former "socialist camp" who declare their own religiosity has increased, at times quite substantially. However, an increase in the number (...) of declaring their own religiosity is due to factors that are, in fact, outside religion. In addition, we must take into account the unreliability of Soviet sociological research, which deprives us of a serious comparative basis and the ability to confidently measure the extent of change. But at least two things can be said here confidently: firstly, the former USSR, and especially its "national outskirts", have never been countries of "mass atheism," and secondly, in those communist countries where the study of the religiosity of the population was carried out systematically and were deprived of ideological pressure, significant changes in the level of religious declarations did not occur. (shrink)

This paper discusses the methodological challenges of Soviet sociology of religion in the period between 1960 and 1989, when it was charged with the contradictory task of investigating the actual standing of religion in Soviet society and, at the same time, with proposing methods through which the official “scientific atheism,” deeply rooted in Marxism, could be imposed upon the very populations that were the subject of its inquiries. The authors propose an insight into the actual practices of (...) the researchers, based on little-known archival materials from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History. The materials adduced by the authors show the various ways in which Soviet believers were surveyed and in which questionnaires were constructed, illustrating the modes of argumentation used in atheist propaganda conducted alongside such surveys, and giving a rare glimpse into the methodological discussions that were taking place at conferences organized by the Institute of Scientific Atheism. The authors track also the sociological conceptions and typologies adopted by Soviet sociology. (shrink)

The article deals with theoretical, practical, partly - historical aspects of scientific research of modern Ukrainian and foreign sociologists and social workers. The aim of the research is to analyze and summarize the following three key aspects: a) historical destructive moments in the development of Ukrainian/Soviet sociology; b) the orientation of the vector of postmodernist research of foreign scholars who had no censorship restrictions on their works; c) the main problematics of current Ukrainian sociological research. The latter, despite (...) their deep materialistic tradition, find opportunities for new non-empirical approaches. In the article with the help of analysis of methodical sources, generalization of their content and presentation and interpretation of individual statistical data the authors substantiate: socio-economic, managerial and pedagogical reasons can systematically present the problematics of the current research of social workers. However, the postmodern aspect, still not "reworked" by the Ukrainian society, has not yet left its final mark on the social research. The international significance of the article lies in the interest of countries of transitional democracies and economies, previously under totalitarian influence, to acquire full emancipation and neo-liberalization concerning social problems and humane ways of solving them. (shrink)

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed (...) by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a point) so that they can manipulate it for profit. Their survival in the marketplace often depends on their competitive success in doing so. The fact that their interventions into nature, driven by class interest, often succeed, is evidence of the reliability and truth of their natural scientific theories. -/- With social science, capitalists have a partial interest in understanding the world, so that they may maintain their class power, ideological hegemony, and a reasonably stable and self-reproducing economy. Some bourgeois social science, Marx thinks, is therefore vindicated the same way that natural science is, because of, not despite, its success in promoting the class interests that cause it. But the capitalist class, Marx thinks, also has an interest in obfuscating the truth about the social world. It would undermine the stability of capitalism, for example, for the bourgeoisie to adopt what Marx thinks to be the correct social theory, Marxism, and proclaim to the world that capitalism is exploitative and unstable. Capitalism creates a a need for ideological social theories that, driven by class interest, represent capitalism as just, natural, inevitable, and unalterable. If Marxism is correct, while these theories may further capitalist interests, they will not withstand the test of time as capitalist exploitation and instability engenders countersystemic political action. -/- How, then can we know, according to Marx, that Marxism is correct, as applied to itself? In part it is whether it succeeds in further the class interests that cause it. If workers adopt bourgeois theories and Marxism is right, they will find themselves frustrated in pursuit of goals that they have, such as improving their well-being, and if Marxism is wrong, then those theories will help them further their own goals. Similarly with Marxism: if it is right, then workers who adopt it should in the long run have more success in furthering their own goals, and if not, then not. But it is question begging to say that our confidence in the reliability of Marxism is enhanced by its successful promotion of goals that capitalists do not have but (according to Marxism) workers do. To avoid this problem it is necessary to compare the relative success of each sort of theory in promoting the interests and needs that the respective classes have independently of the theory, as well as by the usual criteria of scientific theory choice. -/- Thus the Soviet variant of Marxism was fairly decisively refuted by its failure to generate the support of its own designated constituency necessary to grow and survive. Whether the same is true of other varieties of Marxism or of capitalist social theory, it is, as Zhou En Lai said when asked whether the French Revolution had succeeded, too soon to tell, at least in any definitive way. However, and this is the point of the paper, an objective test of Marxism is possible even though Marxism says that all theory is informed by class interest. The question is whether the interests are in discovering or obfuscating the truth. The point is not limited to Marx, but applies to any self-referential social scientific theory that includes itself in its scope. -/- Keywords: ideology, self-referential theory, self-reference, reliabilism, objectivity, Marx, Marxism, sociology of science, class interest, classes, capitalism, bourgeoisie, workers, working class, social theory of knowledge, confirmation of scientific theory. (shrink)

The Communist Manifesto’s salient point was set out in Critics of the Gotha Program as “From Each According to Their Abilities, to Each According to Their Needs”. The demise of communism in the former Soviet Union has caused its critics to claim that ‘revolutionary’ political theory has no basis for legal or philosophical development. The contention of those who oppose radical socialism achieved by the levelling of the classes proclaim that this is an unattainable goal. They argue that a (...) ‘withering of the state’ is not possible for the implementation of Marx’s theory because of the centralisation that is inevitable in socialism which leads to an aggregate of relationships that redistributes power at the apex of the hierarchy. However, this appraisal has to be viewed with reference to the adoption by Marxists of socio legal theory as an analytical tool that has spawned arguments based on legal realism. This article examines the construction of these arguments within the sociology of law and looks at the inception of critical race theory which projects historical injustices towards a racial minority and seeks to transform society by exposing law as an instrument of oppression. (shrink)

This paper presents a survey of the philosophy of science in Estonia. Topics covered include the historical background (science at the 17th century Academia Gustaviana, in the 19th century, during the Soviet period) and an overview of the current situation and main areas of research (the problem of demarcation, a critique of the traditional understandings of science, φ-science, classical and non-classical science, the philosophy of chemistry, the problem of induction, the sociology of scientific knowledge, semiotics as a methodology).

Slovenian epistemology is characterised by an idiosyncratic canon, based on three fundamental authors: Gaston Bachelard, Alexandre Koyré, and Thomas Kuhn. What binds this canon together is the attitude that the history of science should be viewed as a history of radical breaks or revolutions in scientific thought. The drawback of such an anthology of authors is not only that it is outdated, but that, from the position of this canon, it is difficult to discern the problems stemming from the approach (...) to history of science it endorses. In order to highlight the blind spots of Slovenian epistemology, I examine a different interpretative trajectory of the notion of scientific revolution in the United Kingdom and the United States. The methodological program, which focuses on revolutionary breakthroughs in scientific ideas, is thus re-evaluated by considering its strategic role in the institutionalisation of the history of science as a discipline. The event that marked the translation of French epistemology into English history of science were the lectures of the delegates from the Soviet Union at the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology in 1931. In post-war Anglo-American history of science, the concept of scientific revolution was adopted as a means of excluding Marxist studies of science – which had spread under the influence of the Soviet delegation – from the realm of acceptable discourse. I demonstrate how the Cold War historiography of science introduced a divide between the “internal” and “external” factors of scientific development, and their supposed synthesis in the work of Thomas Kuhn. Finally, I review the critiques that the sociology of scientific knowledge levelled at the story of the Scientific Revolution and point out the importance of these controversies for current epistemological research. (shrink)

The article gives an overview of works on philosophy published in the 19 th and 20 th centuries in Belarus, widely influenced by the reception of philosophical views and trends of leading Western European thinkers. The main philosophical ideas of German philosophers (I. Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, K. Marx, F. Nietzsche and others) found creative reflections among the intellectuals of the Northwestern Krai (Region) of the Russian Empire, which included Belarus in the 19 th century. The authors analyze the role of (...) foreign ideas in the first third of the 20 th century on the example of one of the first textbooks on dialectical materialism published by S.Ya. Wolfson in the 1920s (has undergone seven editions). On the basis of the analysis of dissertations (over 800 dissertation of the 1950s–1980s), the authors demonstrate the significance of Western socio-philosophical ideas for the development of philosophical culture in Belarus. Considering the content and features of the processes of transfer of foreign philosophical ideas for two centuries, it can be concluded that is the dominance of the conceptions of German philosophy, especially in the 19 th century. Interest in German philosophy also prevailed in pre-war Soviet philosophy, while the focus was on Marxism and materialistic philosophy in general. Another trend is the significant role of works on the history of philosophy, including personalities and approaches. All this demonstrates that national Belarusian thought developed in the context of European philosophical culture. (shrink)

XIX. Yüzyılın sonları ve XX. yüzyılın başlarında Azerbaycan'da entelijansiya arasında milli bilinç ortaya çıkmış olsa da Sovyet dönemiyle birlikte bu süreç kesintiye uğramış ve toplumsal tabana yayılamamıştır. Sonuç olarak, var olan “Müslüman Kimliği”, Azeri toplumu için temel bir kimlik bağı olarak varlığını sürdürmeye devam etmiştir. Entelijansiyanın tasfiyesi ile birlikte, kullandıkları sloganlar ve milliyetçi semboller de ortadan kalkmış, Türk milliyetçiliği Azerbaycan'da bir ideoloji olarak varlığını koruyamamıştır. Sonuç itibariyle, politik-ideolojik milliyetçilik ve onun sloganları, milli bilinci canlı tutma imkanından yoksun bırakılmıştır. Bu makalede, (...) Sovyet Azerbaycan'ında milli bilinci besleyen temel faktörün İslâm ve Müslüman kimliği olduğu savunulmaktadır. Komünist rejim İslam’ın entelektüel ve ideolojik boyutlarını en aza indirmeyi başarmasına rağmen, kültürel norm ve yaşam tarzı haline gelen unsurlarını aşındırma konusunda başarısız kalmaktaydı. Sovyet Azerbacan’ında Müslüman olmak Azeri toplumunun bir üyesi olmak ve söz konusu toplumun yaşam tarzına bağlılık olarak algılanmaktaydı. Nitekim, Azerbaycan'da “Müslüman” tanımının göndermede bulunduğu yaşam tarzı Azeri toplumunu çevredeki -Ruslar, Ermeniler ve Gürcüler- toplumlardan ayıran temel faktör olmuştur. Bu anlamda, ortak yaşam tarzına ve kültürel normlara atıfta bulunan İslam, Sovyet döneminde Azeri toplumunun özdeşlik duygusunu pekiştirerek milli bilinci canlı tutmuştur.ÖzetBu çalışma Sovyet döneminde Azerbaycan’da İslam kimliğinin ve İslamî yaşam tarzının milli bilincin sürüdürülmesindeki rolü üzerine yoğunlaşmaktadır. Çalışmanın temel iddiası milli bilincin varlığını sürdürmesinde Müslüman kimliğinin ve İslami yaşam tarzının etkili olduğudur. Bu iddianın doğruluğunun kanıtlanması için belli tarihsel dönemde gerçekleşen, siyasi, toplumsal, demografik ve kültürel konularla ilgili analizler yapılmaktadır. Bu bağlamda XIX. yüzyılın ikinci çeyreğinden itibaren Rusya’nın işgali, milletleşme süreci ve arkasından yaşanan sovyetleştirme süreci Müslüman kimliği ve İslamî yaşam tarzi bağlamında ele alınmaktadır. Söz konusu dönem istatistiki kaynaklar, istihbarat raporları, propaganda kitapları, ve dönem üzerine yapılan akademik araştırmalar ışığında ele alınmış ve üzerine yorumlar yapılmıştır. XIX. Yüzyıla kadar siyasi ve kültürel açıdan İran’ın etkisi altında bulunan şimdiki Azerbaycan bölgesi Rusya İmparatorluğu tarafından işgal edilince bölge halkı ilk kez Hıristiyan yöneticilerin yönetimi altına girmiş oldu. Bölgedeki dayanaklarını güçlendirmek için Çar yönetiminin bölgeye yoğun bir şekilde Ermeni ve Rus nüfusu göç ettirmesi sonrasında ise Azerbaycan’daki Müslüman halk kendini ilk kez Hıristiyan topluluklarla çevrelenmiş olarak buldu. Hep kendisi gibi Müslüman olan toplumun bir parçası olan Azerbaycan toplumu Ruslardan, Ermenilerden ve Gürcülerden oluşan Hıristiyan toplulukların ortasında kendi kimliğini yeniden tanımlamak durumunda kaldı. Çar yönetiminin Azerbaycan’a göç ettirilen Ermeni ve Ruslar’a hem yasal olarak hem de uygulamalarda bir dizi ayrıcalıklar tanıması Azerbaycan Türklerinin kendilerini toplumsal, kültürel, ekonomik ve siyasi açıdan Hıristiyan baskısı altında hiss etmelerine neden olmuştur. Söz konusu baskı ve kayırmanın 1905 ve 1918 yıllarında Azerbaycan Türkleri ile Ermeniler arasında patlak veren çatışmalarda daha yoğun bir şekilde hiss edildiği görülmektedir. Yaşadığı tecrübeler Azerbaycan Türklerini dışlanma nedeni olan kimliklerini, yani Müslüman kimliğini, çevresinde bulunan gayri-muslim topluluklara karşı sahiplenmelerini sağlamıştır. XX. Yüzyılın başında toplumsal gelişimi sağlamak üzere halkın milli bilincini geliştirmeye yönelik faaliyetlerde bulunan, aynı zamanda Müslüman kimliğini de sahiplenen entelejensiya ve burjuvazi kesimi oluşmuştu. Bu süreç 1918 senesinde Azerbaycan’da, türkleşmeyi, çağdaşlaşmayı ve İslamlaşmayı simgeleyen mavi, kırmızı ve yeşil renkleri biraraya getiren bayrağı bulunan Cumhuriyetin kurulması ile sonuçlandı. Fakat cumhuriyet varlığını sadece 23 ay sürdürebildi ve 1920 yılında gerçekleşen sovyet işgali ile birlikte Azerbaycan’da milliyetçi ideoloji, onun idelogları ve sembolleri tamamen tasfiye edilerek yoğun bir şekilde sovyetleştirme politikaları uygulanmaya başladı. Sovyet döneminde milliyetçilik ideolojik düzlemde ortadan kalkmış olsa bile, halkın homojenleşmesini sağlayan, ulus devlete mahsus bir dizi donanımlar sağlandı. Sovyet versiyonunda olsa bile, milli bir devlet aygıtı, milli sınırlar, milli tarih, milli eğitim sistemi oluşturuldu. Neticede aynı dili, aynı tarih bilincini, aynı sınırları paylaşan fakat milli bir ideolojiden yoksun olan bir millet meydana geldi. İdeolojik milliyetçiliğin tehlikeli bir girişim (perilous venture) olduğu Sovyet Azerbaycanı’nda kültüre ve yaşam tarzına dayanan kültürel bir milliyetçilik gelişti. Kültürel milliyetçilik halkın dilini, tarihini ama özellikle de yaşam tarzını savunan bir tutum olarak Sovyet Azerbaycan’ında gelişme gösterdi. Bütün bunlar, yani kültürel özellikler ve yaşam tarzı Azerbaycan toplumunu kendini çevre toplumlarından –Ruslardan, Ermenilerden ve Gürcülerden– ayırdığı başlıca niteliklerdi. Bu bağlamda Sovyet Azerbaycan’ında milliyetçi ve vatansever olmak Azerbaycan toplumunun kültürüne ve yaşam tarzına sahip çıkmak anlamına gelmekteydi. Dolayısıyla kültürel milliyetçilik çevredeki halklarla etnik sınırları sürdürme ve milli bilinci canlı tutma açısından önemli bir role sahipti. Burada araştırma konumuz açısından üzerinde durulması gereken nokta Azerbaycan toplumunda yaşam tarzının ve kültürün önemli bir kısmının İslam ve İslamî gelenek görenekle yakından ilişkili olduğudur. Sovyetleştirme politikaları İslam’ın entelektüel ve ideolojik boyutunu ortadan kaldırma konusunda büyük ölçüde başarılı olduysa da İslam’ın kültürel normları ve yaşam tarzı haline gelen öğeleri kendi varlığını güçlü bir şekilde sürdürmekteydi. Sovyet rejiminin başarısız olduğu nokta, yönettikleri Müslüman toplumlara alternatif bir kültür ve yaşam tarsi sunamamaları idi. Sovyet döneminde İslam’ın cami, başörtüsü vb. somut sembolleri yok edilse de kişiler arası ilişkilerde, sosyal yapıda ve aile ilişkilerinde tezahür eden öğeleri varlığını sürdürmeye devam etmekteydi. Bütün bunlar Azerbaycan toplumunun kendini çevresindeki etnik kimliklerden Ruslardan, Ermenilerden ve Gürcülerden ayırt ettiği, dolayısıyla da milli kimliğinin sınırlarını muhafaza ettiği önemli kültür öğeleri idi. Kebinolarak bilinen dinî nikah, sünnet, cenaze ve yas merasimleri gibi yaşam döngüsü ritüelleri Azeri olmanın çok önemli göstergeleri olarak algılanmıştır. Sovyet ateist ideologlarının yaptıkları birçok araştırmalarda ve istihbarat raporlarında komunist partisi yöneticileri de dahıl olmak üzere halkın söz konusu yaşam döngüsü ritüellerini milli gelenek görenek olduğu gerekçesiyle sürdürdükleri belirtilmekteydi. Ateistler bile, bahsedilen yaşam döngüsü ritüellerine uymadıkları taktirde milli geleneklere karşı gelmekle suçlanacakları ve toplumdan dışlanacakları endişesiyle ritüelleri yerine getirmekteydiler. Kebinsadece Müslüman çiftler arasında kıyıldığından ve dini nikahsız yapılan evlilikler toplumda hoş karşılanmadığından Ruslar, Ermeniler ve Gürcülerle evlilik yapma oranları oldukça düşük kalmaktaydı. Erkek çocuğa sünnet yaptırmak o çocuğu Azeri toplumunun bir üyesi yapmak olarak algılandığından çocuğa sünnet yaptırmak onu diğer toplumların üyelerinden ayıran bir özelliğe kavuşturmak anlamına gelmekteydi. Ölen bir kişinin İslamî üsullere göre gömülmesi o cenazenin bir Rusa, Ermeniye veya Gürcüye değil, bir Azeriye ait olduğunun göstergesi olmaktaydı. Dolayısıyla İslamî kültürden kaynaklanan yaşam döngüsü ritüelleri aynı zamanda çevredeki etnik gruplarla sınırları belirlemekte, dolayısıyla milli ve etnik bilinci canlı tutmaktaydı. Böylece İslamî kültür ve yaşam tarzi Sovyet rejiminin milli ve etnik kimliklerin ötesinde yeni bir insan ve toplum tipi oluşturmayı amaçlayan Homo Sovieticus projesinin de en önemli panzehirlerinden biri olmuştur. (shrink)