The Liberalizing Effect of Soviet Philosophy
A Phd.-Projectdescription in Progress,
by Sigurd Lydersen
1.0 Introduction
The surprising pictures broadcasted worldwide from the Ukrainian capital Kiev in december 2004, showing on the most two millions in the street in support of the oppositional president-candidate Viktor Jushchenko, now successfully inaugarated, once again underlined the limits of our understanding of Soviet and post-Soviet history. The victory of the democratic opposition in a country by many western commentators until recently doomed to remain one of the most undemocratic and corrupt, appeared as a surprising echo and a continuation of the surprizing liberalization-process in the Soviet Union in the late eighties. The bitter and inhumane struggle of the Kuchma-regime for its own survival, involving all kinds of attempts to scandalize opponents through the absolute controle of the state administration and national media, has become evident. The now confirmed dioxin-poisoning of Jushchenko and other brutal powerabuses justify comparisons of the Kuchma-regime with the aggressive fascism of the thirties.
The outspoken political investment by the Russian president Vladimir Putin in the discredited Kuchma-regime casts a large shadow over the largest of the former Soviet republics. A new pattern is taking shape, which seriously challenges standard western conceptions of the demise of the Soviet Union and the democratization of former Soviet society. Serious doubts are being raised regarding the value of formal commitments to democracy and human rights by Putin or other postsoviet authoritarian regimes, appearing more like a camouflage for the remnants of a selfaware Soviet totalitarian regime to ease international relations. The questions raised by the surprising turn of events in the Soviet Union in the late eighties, which really never got satisfactorily answered, are to be revisited, with a new one added: Did the Soviet Union really fall?
2.0 Thesis/approach
Is there a connection between the democratizationprocess in the Soviet Union in the late eighties and the development in Soviet philosophy in the postwar period? In this project such a connection is not only presupposed, but is regarded important for a thorough understanding of Soviet late history. A central problem to be investigated is in what way Soviet philosophers of science in this period challenged ideological control from within. The main intention of the project is to investigate more closely the interaction between the philosophical community and the Soviet political regime, as part of a continued movement towards liberalization and democracy in the former Soviet Union.
3.0 Background and Research-problems
3.1 Differentiating Soviet Philosophy from Ideology
Soviet philosohy has in a large extent been ignored by western scholars as a subject of particular interest. The philosophical programme outlined in Lenins pamphlet Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909), labelled dialectical materialism, has been considered as nothing but a tool of Soviet totalitarism. Such prejudices hide the fact that dialectical materialism throughout the 20th century has been in a permanent dialogue with major trends in postwar western philosophy, related to the acknowledging of the epistemological limits of logical positivism carried out by critical rationalists like Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and others. The strive in Soviet philosophy for a unity of relativism and rationality represents a sound, yet to western scholars still largely neglected argument in the socalled science war between humanitarians and natural scientists (Lydersen 1999).
Dialectical materialism, it can be argued, run as a scarlet thread through the whole Soviet philosophical enterprise. Intepreteted by critical Soviet philosophers as vague guidelines and a rationalist impulse, the dialectical materialist philosophical programme was to be developed in a surprisingly wide range of Soviet schools of thought, more or less independently from the political regime. An important characteristic of the Soviet philosophical tradition, however, is its close relationship with the natural sciences, as explained below.
3.2 Making Use of Opportunities: Postwar Soviet Philosophy
Soviet philosophers in the postwar years faced the challenge of reconstruction, both philosophically and institutionally. During the war central institutions of prewar Soviet philosophy disappeared, like the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and Literature (MIFLI) and the philosophical journal Pod znamenem marksizma (Under the banner of marxism). The German fascist attack not only made necessary more imminent priorities than philosophical discussions, but also, importantly, indirectly question-marked the validity of the Soviet simplified ideology from the pedagogical effort of the cultural revolution. The grand old man of Soviet philosophy, N.F. Ovchinnikov, being a student of philosophy during the war, told me in Moscow in 1999 how the sudden recognition of danger challenged a deep-felt sense of stability and involnurability of the Soviet communist project, stemming from the ideological propaganda. In this way, it seems, the second world war implied a loosening up of internal ideological control, and opened up opportunities for critically minded Soviet philosophers.
In making use of these new opportunities Soviet philosophy found an ally in the Natural sciences. Claiming to represent a valid scientific theory, marxism-leninism is committed to ascertain natural science a certain integrity and respect. Besides, the practical consequences of a successfully working natural science were evident to the regime, specially in wartime, and with the arms race of the cold war in the quest for the atomic bomb, necessitating a relatively freely working community of advanced theorists in the field of nuclear physics. Already towards the end of the war measures were made by Soviet philosophers to institutionalize a more independent Soviet philosophical community. The formation of the influential Sector of Philosophy of Natural Sciences in the Institute of Philosophy of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (AN SSR) in the first postwar years was a crucial step, initiated by the physicist S.I. Vavilov, president of the AN SSSR 1945-1951 (N.F. Ovcinnikov 1999, p. 115). The Sector became a safehaven for Soviet philosophers eager to approach the philosophical implications of modern natural science, according to the sketchy rationalist philosophical programme outlined by Lenin. The Sector still remains an advanced research centre belonging to the Institute of philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The foundation of a Soviet specialized journal of philosophy, Voprosy Filosofii (Problems of Philosophy) in 1947 (B.M. Kedrov 1988) was yet another decisive step forward. Being established on the initiative of leading Soviet philosophers, the journal immediately filled a role as the central organ and meeting-place for Soviet philosophers of all kinds. The journal still exists as the leading organ of philosophy in todays Russia.
The first volumes of VF showed these pioneer initiatives to be closely interconnected: The article "On the nature of knowledge in physics" in the second volume of VF belonged to the young and outstanding philosopher of science M.A. Markov, a researcher at the Sector of Philosophy of Natural Science. With a foreword by S.I. Vavilov, the article investigated philosophical issues related to modern nuclear physics (Markov, 1947). The objective and critical approach of the article represented a clear challenge to the class-oriented and simplified stereotypes of official Soviet ideology. The political campaign following the publication against the young journal, forced the liberally minded editor, the influential philosopher, B.M. Kedrov, later on to leave office.
The book The Principle of Correspondence In Modern Physics and Its Philosophical Meaning from 1948, by the philosopher and head of the Sector I.V. Kuznecov, helped consolidate the new methodological trend in Soviet philosophy. Kuznecov made the inner relationship of the classic and modern paradigms of physics, and the challenge of defining reality, a subject of investigation. Markovs article and Kuznecovs book were early revealations of the liberalizing and deideologizing potential of a critically interpreted dialectical materialism in interaction with and in respect of modern natural science (Ovchinnikov 16, 1996).
With the end of the terror related to the reign of Stalin these first successful steps of the consolidation of an independent and substantial philosophical community in the Soviet Union became the foundation for a surprisingly rich philosophical development both in accordance with the authoritarian regime and on a more civic level. The Moscow Methodological Circle (MMK) is the most well-known of the latter, a devoted kitchen-seminar organized by the famous methodologist G.P. Schedrovitskij from the early 50ties, lasting until the late 70ties. MMK inspired similar seminars in Minsk and in Akademgorodok, the research centre of the Academy of Sciences near Novosibirsk in Siberia. Spontaneus permanent seminars like these represented bold attempts by young Soviet philosophers to emancipate themselves from the limits of Soviet ideology, and served as a critical impulse to the whole Soviet philosophical enterprise (Lydersen 1999, p. 34-40).
Its important to be aware that this Soviet philosophical enterprise is conceived by many of the philosophers taking part in it as a valuable contribution to world philosophy, which remains to be discovered by western colleaguas (Stepin, 1999). In regard of the challenges of the ideological battle with the "Capitalist world", Soviet philosophers, given an academic position, had full access to contemporary western literature from the restricted parts of the scientific libraries. Furthermore they could easily stay oriented through the publications of the Institute of Societal Information (INION), specialized in providing Soviet specialists of convenient summaries of western specialized publications. From this position Soviet philosophers could tell that their investigations were not only in accordance with central trends in western philosophy of science, but also in certain respects ahead. They could also register that a Hungarian philosopher of science in exile, the former rank and file marxist Imre Lakatos, in the 60ties made a career as a professor at the London School of Economics, following Karl Popper, with a concept of critical rationalism similar to concepts being elaborated by Soviet colleagues. Paradoxically, the Hungarian refugee Lakatos` articles in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1964-63 were published in Soviet Union in 1968, the year of the Soviet invasion of Czchekoslovakia, as a book with the title Dokazatelstvo i oproverzhenie (Conjecture and refutation) (Lakatos 1968). Lakatos` English book with the same title appeared in only six years later, in 1974.
3.3 The Complex Relationship with the Regime
The Soviet philosopher does not fit with the standard western cold-war idea of a Soviet dissident committed to western ideals of civic liberties and filled with nothing but disgust for the Soviet regime. The liberalizing effort was first and foremost carried out through the realizing of the full potential of the marxist-leninist philosophical heritage as a critical rational approach to modern science. Within these frames, being regarded a part of the scientific enterprise, also the teachings of the founding fathers of marxism-leninism, and thereby the central dogmas of Soviet ideology, became a legitimate subject of critical analysis. The Soviet philosopher David B. Zilberman, in exile in the US from the early seventies, has outlined the programme of the new postwar generation of Soviet philosophers: "They clearly realized that all definitions and formulations, whatever their degree of penetration and heuristic value for a given historical epoch, are historically limited and momentary. What remains as an issue of lasting significance is the logic, or categorial machinery of thinking, which underlies these particular definitions and produces them, and which is able to produce new ones." (Zilberman 1978, p. 266).
In fact this liberalizing effort of Soviet philosophy was largely being carried out in understanding with the regime. After Stalin, especially under the rule of N. Kruschev from 1954 till 1964, the philosophical enterprise became not only legitimate, but was openly encouraged. V.S. Stepin, todays Director of the Institute of philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a central philosopher of science, told me in Moscow how he as a young student in the mid 50ties decided to pursue his philosophical interest professionally not as an act of rebellion, but in accordance with the official priorities. The first "All-Soviet conference on the philosophical problems of Natural Science" in Moscow in 1958 became the starting point of an official campaign of philosophy of science in Soviet science, of unrivalled proportions. To meet the "Leninist call for unity of philosophy and natural sciences" a special committee reporting directly to the presidium of the Academy of Sciences was given the task of coordinating permanent philosophical seminars at all Soviet research-institutes. This activity certainly took place in close cooperation with the political authorities, with seminar-leaders reporting to the local branches of the communist party. The researchers were given the choice of studying official ideology or to take part in the seminars, both regarded by the Communist party as ideological education. Most researchers certainly prefered the latter, the philosopher V.V. Kazjutinskij, serving as a consultant of the coordinating Committee from 1964 till 1984, told me in Moscow.
The effect of this Soviet project of raising the philosophical awareness of the scientists is of particular interest to this research-project. In a survey on the development from 1980 the number of permanent philosophical seminars was said to be around 6000, including about 200 000 Soviet researchers (Sachkov, Chekurin 1980). During a six months stay in Ukraine the autumn 2004 I learned to know that the tradition of organizing regular philosophical seminars is being kept alive as a popular measure at the University of Lvov and other postsoviet Ukrainian institutions of research and higher education.
Who then constitutes the ideologically righteous counterpart in Soviet society confronting the critical philosophical community? They are not to be identified with the Soviet political leadership as such, but appear as a much more asymmetric tendency in all areas and levels of Soviet society, also within the philosophical community iself. Historically, the aspect of a conflict between the prewar- and postwar generations seems to be of a certain importance. The old generation, remembering the civil war and with a higher sense of insecurity, was generally more committed to the principle of partijnost` (partiality), which appeared as a main ideological obstacle for the new generation. Besides, the existence of a simplified and hostile version of marxism-leninism represented opportunities and was a permanent temptation to career-makers who sought power based on ideological righteousness, often with a low level of education. The opportunistic Soviet bureacracy having a personal interest in preserving the ideological regime has been described, qutie despisely, by the Soviet dissident-writer Mikhail Voslensky as the nomenclatura (Voslensky, 1984). While pointing out certain social mechanisms of late Soviet society, Voslenskys analysis is hampered by an opposite negative bias towards the Soviet project. A study of the democratizing effect of Soviet philosophy as an expression of and in cooperation with certain parts of the Soviet ruling elite, will hopefully represent a less biased and more empirically consistent approach to the process leading to the demise of the Soviet totalitarian regime. Furthermore: The persistence of ideological righteusness in an environment of rising selfawereness and critical attitude makes postwar Soviet society an interesting case for the sociopsycological study of ongoing social processes elsewhere.
4.0 Material and Method
4.1. Secondary Sources
The reformprocess rapidly leading to the fall of the Soviet Union came as a surprise on most specialists in Soviet affairs, and thereby revealed the limits of the general perceptions of Soviet society. One influential analyst, Archie Brown, concludes: "Before Gorbachev could attempt to introduce changes within the Soviet Union, he had to rise to the top within an essentially unreformed system. To many people, both in Russia and beyond, it seemed all too clear that no one of reformist disposition, or who was open to new ideas, could emerge from a background in the Communist Party apparatus with such an outlook or personality still intact." (Brown, 1996, p. 24)
Browns book, The Gorbachev-factor, is one of several western attempts to explain the demise of the Soviet Union. Other books to be mentioned is Jerry F. Houghs Democratization and revolution in the USSR 1985-1991 (1997) and Robert Strayers Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? (1998).
Brown, obviously, fails to conceive Gorbachevs critical, but sympathetic approach to Marxism-leninism, as a typical approach of the Soviet philosophical community, raising the issue of the democratizing effect of the Soviet philosophy. In dealing with Soviet academic freedom, Strayer in the same way ignores the subtleties of Soviet philosophy, sucessfully enforcing critical thought from within. Both Brown and Strayer, being leading experts in the field, thereby, in my view, display the limits of standard western conceptions regarding Soviet late history.
As Soviet philosophy has been largely neglected as a field of interest, its role in the Soviet democratization-process certainly appears to be a practically unexplored field. The book Science, Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union by the american scholar Loren Graham, first published in 1988, remains the standard western study in the Soviet history of science. As a historian of science, though, Grahams interest in Soviet philosophy is limited to its relationship to the scientific development. Regarding the interaction of Soviet postwar philosophy with the sciences surprisingly positive, Graham indirectly points towards the presuppositions of this study.
Aleksandr Vucinichs Empire of Knowledge is an informative introduction to the history of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from the revolution until the socalled stagnation started in 1970 (Vucinich, 1984). Since the late 90ties the field of history of Soviet science has been dominated by a new generation of Russian scholars like Nikolai Krementsov and Aleksei Kojevnikov, introducing a more complex analysis of the scientific life of the totalitarian state, as a set of "role games". This anthropological approach applied by Russian scholars investigating their own recent history is revealing, and serves as a theoretical inspiration also to this project.
Other studies in Soviet philosophy tend to by biased by an either marxist-leninist ideological approach, like Helena Shehaans Marxism and the philosophy of science, or of the opposite, an ardent anti-Soviet approach, like the Sovietologist-school introduced by the Catolic reverend and logician Joseph Bochenski in the sixties. As products of the cold war both these approaches faded with the demise of the Soviet Union. Bochenskis Sovietological journal Studies in Soviet Thought, however, obviously represented a rare opportunity for Soviet philosophers in exile, eager to inform western colleagues on the hidden state of affairs in Soviet philosophy. From his new position as a young professor in Boston, USA, in the late seventies, the above mentioned Soviet philosopher in exile David B. Zilberman made use of the journal to publish his original analysis of the postwar Soviet development, explaining the crucial role of Soviet philosophers (Zilberman, 1978). Unfortunately Zilberman died shortly before the publication in a car-accident, leaving an unfinished and unpublished manuscript on the history of the Moscow Methodological Circle, which is of great interest to this study (Michnik-Zilberman, 1988, p. 22).
4.2 Primary Sources
As an empirical study in a largely unexplored field the primary sources are central. Since the liberalization-process started in the mid 80ties a retrospective tendency has assured several written testimonies and memories both from leading Soviet philosophers an politicians, many of which goes straight to the core of this stydy. Besides, the practice of interviewing representatives of Soviet philosophy, which showed successful in the work with my dissertation, will be continued. The theme of this doctoral project requires a broadening of the scope of informants, including representatives of the former political elite and former Soviet bureaucracy.
Archive-studies will be necessary to verify information and for the closer investigation of the interaction of the regime and the philosophical community. The archives of the Central committee and of the AN SSSR are of great interest. Besides, the archive of MMK in Moscow is revealing for the study of the practice and inner dicussions of the pioneers of the philosophical liberalizing effort.
5.0 Additional information
My dissertation, successfully defended in 1999 for the degree of hovedfag (master) in Russian culture-studies, serves as the formal training and background for the realization of this project (Lydersen, 1999). Focusing on the perception of western postpositivists in the Soviet Union in the post war period, the dissertation revealed Soviet philosophy as a field of interest for the understanding of postwar Soviet development. My knowledge of Russian language, which I read, speak and write freely, is an advantage in carrying out the field-work in the former Soviet Union.
From my two one and a half months stays in Moscow in relation with the work on the dissertation I`ve established contact with former Soviet philosophers at the central research institutions. From a half year stay as a freelance journalist covering the election in Ukraine the summer and autumn of 2004 I`ve got sound contacts in the second largest of the former Soviet republics. Furthermore I`m in contact with Loren Graham at MIT in Boston. This contacts are of importance for the planned fact-finding missions to the former Soviet Union and Boston.
6.0 Progress – a rough sketch
Autumn 2005: Preparations. Studies in theories of democratization
Spring 2006: Fact-finding in the former Soviet Union. Writing
Autumn 2006: Fact-finding in the former Soviet Union. Writing.
Spring 2007: Fact-finding in Boston, USA. Analysing. Writing final doctoral dissertation.
Autumn 2008: Finishing writing dissertation.
Literature:
Brown, Archie; The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford University Press, 1996
Egge, Åsmund; Fra Aleksander II til Boris Jeltsin, Universitetsforlaget, 1993
Graham, Loren; Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union, Columbia University Press, 1987
Hough, Stephen; Democratization and revolution in the USSR 1985-1991, The Brookings Institution, 1997
Kedrov, Bonifatij M.; "Kak sozdavalsja nash zhurnal?", Voprosy Filosofii 4, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1989, also published in V.A. Lektorskij (ed.) Filosofija ne konchaetsja. Iz istorii otechestvennoj filosofii XX vek 1920-50-e gody, Rosspen, 1998
Kojevnikov, Alexei; "President of Stalin`s Academy. The Mask and Responsibility of Sergei Vavilov", Isis, 87, The History of Science Society, 1996
Krementsov, Nikolai; Stalinist Science, Princeton University Press, 1997
Kuznecov; Ivan V.; Princip sootvetsvija v sovremennom fizike i ego filosofskoe znachenie, Ogiz, 1948Lakatos, Imre; Dokazatelstvo i oproverzhenie, transl. I.N. Venkovskij, Moscow, 1967Lenin, Vladimir I.; Materializm i empriokriticizm, Zveno, 1909
Lydersen, Sigurd; Mottagelsen av vestlig positivismekritikk i Sovjetunionen. Om marxismen-leninismens oppløsning innenfra, University of Oslo, 1999
Markov, M.A.; "O prirode fizicheskogo znania", Voprosy Filosofii 2, Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1947
Michnik-Zilberman, E. "Introduction", in David B.Zilberman; The Birth of Meaning in Hindu Thought, ed. Robert S. Cohen, Dordrecht, 1988
Mitrokhin, Leonid N.; "Dokladnaja zapiska" – 74, in V.A. Lektorskij (ed.) Filosofija ne konchaetsja. Iz istorii otechestvennoj filosofii XX vek 1960-80-e gody, Rosspen, 1998 Ovchinnikov, N.F.; Principy teoretizacii znania, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996 Ovchinnikov, Nikolai F.; "Vspominaja proshedshee", Voprosy Filosofii 7, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1999
Sachkov, Jurij V, Chekurin V.P.; "Filosofskie (metodologicheskie) seminary v nauchnykh uchrezhdeniakh", Vestnik AN SSSR 4, Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1980
Sheehan, Helena; Marxism and the Philosophy of Science. A Critical History. The first Hundred Years, Humanities Press, 1993
Stepin, V.S.; "Otsyv na dissertaciju Sigurda Ljudersena..", statement by the director of the The Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science, 1999.
Strayer, Robert; Why did the Soviet Union Collapse?: Understanding historical change, Armonk, M.E. Sharpe, 1998
Voslensky, Michael; Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class, transl. by Eric Mosbacher, Doubleday, 1984Vucinich, Aleksander; Empire of Knowledge. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1917-1970), University of California Press, 1984
Zilberman, D.B. "The Postsociologcial Society", Studies in Soviet Thought 18, Reidel, 1978
by Sigurd Lydersen
1.0 Introduction
The surprising pictures broadcasted worldwide from the Ukrainian capital Kiev in december 2004, showing on the most two millions in the street in support of the oppositional president-candidate Viktor Jushchenko, now successfully inaugarated, once again underlined the limits of our understanding of Soviet and post-Soviet history. The victory of the democratic opposition in a country by many western commentators until recently doomed to remain one of the most undemocratic and corrupt, appeared as a surprising echo and a continuation of the surprizing liberalization-process in the Soviet Union in the late eighties. The bitter and inhumane struggle of the Kuchma-regime for its own survival, involving all kinds of attempts to scandalize opponents through the absolute controle of the state administration and national media, has become evident. The now confirmed dioxin-poisoning of Jushchenko and other brutal powerabuses justify comparisons of the Kuchma-regime with the aggressive fascism of the thirties.
The outspoken political investment by the Russian president Vladimir Putin in the discredited Kuchma-regime casts a large shadow over the largest of the former Soviet republics. A new pattern is taking shape, which seriously challenges standard western conceptions of the demise of the Soviet Union and the democratization of former Soviet society. Serious doubts are being raised regarding the value of formal commitments to democracy and human rights by Putin or other postsoviet authoritarian regimes, appearing more like a camouflage for the remnants of a selfaware Soviet totalitarian regime to ease international relations. The questions raised by the surprising turn of events in the Soviet Union in the late eighties, which really never got satisfactorily answered, are to be revisited, with a new one added: Did the Soviet Union really fall?
2.0 Thesis/approach
Is there a connection between the democratizationprocess in the Soviet Union in the late eighties and the development in Soviet philosophy in the postwar period? In this project such a connection is not only presupposed, but is regarded important for a thorough understanding of Soviet late history. A central problem to be investigated is in what way Soviet philosophers of science in this period challenged ideological control from within. The main intention of the project is to investigate more closely the interaction between the philosophical community and the Soviet political regime, as part of a continued movement towards liberalization and democracy in the former Soviet Union.
3.0 Background and Research-problems
3.1 Differentiating Soviet Philosophy from Ideology
Soviet philosohy has in a large extent been ignored by western scholars as a subject of particular interest. The philosophical programme outlined in Lenins pamphlet Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909), labelled dialectical materialism, has been considered as nothing but a tool of Soviet totalitarism. Such prejudices hide the fact that dialectical materialism throughout the 20th century has been in a permanent dialogue with major trends in postwar western philosophy, related to the acknowledging of the epistemological limits of logical positivism carried out by critical rationalists like Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and others. The strive in Soviet philosophy for a unity of relativism and rationality represents a sound, yet to western scholars still largely neglected argument in the socalled science war between humanitarians and natural scientists (Lydersen 1999).
Dialectical materialism, it can be argued, run as a scarlet thread through the whole Soviet philosophical enterprise. Intepreteted by critical Soviet philosophers as vague guidelines and a rationalist impulse, the dialectical materialist philosophical programme was to be developed in a surprisingly wide range of Soviet schools of thought, more or less independently from the political regime. An important characteristic of the Soviet philosophical tradition, however, is its close relationship with the natural sciences, as explained below.
3.2 Making Use of Opportunities: Postwar Soviet Philosophy
Soviet philosophers in the postwar years faced the challenge of reconstruction, both philosophically and institutionally. During the war central institutions of prewar Soviet philosophy disappeared, like the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and Literature (MIFLI) and the philosophical journal Pod znamenem marksizma (Under the banner of marxism). The German fascist attack not only made necessary more imminent priorities than philosophical discussions, but also, importantly, indirectly question-marked the validity of the Soviet simplified ideology from the pedagogical effort of the cultural revolution. The grand old man of Soviet philosophy, N.F. Ovchinnikov, being a student of philosophy during the war, told me in Moscow in 1999 how the sudden recognition of danger challenged a deep-felt sense of stability and involnurability of the Soviet communist project, stemming from the ideological propaganda. In this way, it seems, the second world war implied a loosening up of internal ideological control, and opened up opportunities for critically minded Soviet philosophers.
In making use of these new opportunities Soviet philosophy found an ally in the Natural sciences. Claiming to represent a valid scientific theory, marxism-leninism is committed to ascertain natural science a certain integrity and respect. Besides, the practical consequences of a successfully working natural science were evident to the regime, specially in wartime, and with the arms race of the cold war in the quest for the atomic bomb, necessitating a relatively freely working community of advanced theorists in the field of nuclear physics. Already towards the end of the war measures were made by Soviet philosophers to institutionalize a more independent Soviet philosophical community. The formation of the influential Sector of Philosophy of Natural Sciences in the Institute of Philosophy of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (AN SSR) in the first postwar years was a crucial step, initiated by the physicist S.I. Vavilov, president of the AN SSSR 1945-1951 (N.F. Ovcinnikov 1999, p. 115). The Sector became a safehaven for Soviet philosophers eager to approach the philosophical implications of modern natural science, according to the sketchy rationalist philosophical programme outlined by Lenin. The Sector still remains an advanced research centre belonging to the Institute of philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The foundation of a Soviet specialized journal of philosophy, Voprosy Filosofii (Problems of Philosophy) in 1947 (B.M. Kedrov 1988) was yet another decisive step forward. Being established on the initiative of leading Soviet philosophers, the journal immediately filled a role as the central organ and meeting-place for Soviet philosophers of all kinds. The journal still exists as the leading organ of philosophy in todays Russia.
The first volumes of VF showed these pioneer initiatives to be closely interconnected: The article "On the nature of knowledge in physics" in the second volume of VF belonged to the young and outstanding philosopher of science M.A. Markov, a researcher at the Sector of Philosophy of Natural Science. With a foreword by S.I. Vavilov, the article investigated philosophical issues related to modern nuclear physics (Markov, 1947). The objective and critical approach of the article represented a clear challenge to the class-oriented and simplified stereotypes of official Soviet ideology. The political campaign following the publication against the young journal, forced the liberally minded editor, the influential philosopher, B.M. Kedrov, later on to leave office.
The book The Principle of Correspondence In Modern Physics and Its Philosophical Meaning from 1948, by the philosopher and head of the Sector I.V. Kuznecov, helped consolidate the new methodological trend in Soviet philosophy. Kuznecov made the inner relationship of the classic and modern paradigms of physics, and the challenge of defining reality, a subject of investigation. Markovs article and Kuznecovs book were early revealations of the liberalizing and deideologizing potential of a critically interpreted dialectical materialism in interaction with and in respect of modern natural science (Ovchinnikov 16, 1996).
With the end of the terror related to the reign of Stalin these first successful steps of the consolidation of an independent and substantial philosophical community in the Soviet Union became the foundation for a surprisingly rich philosophical development both in accordance with the authoritarian regime and on a more civic level. The Moscow Methodological Circle (MMK) is the most well-known of the latter, a devoted kitchen-seminar organized by the famous methodologist G.P. Schedrovitskij from the early 50ties, lasting until the late 70ties. MMK inspired similar seminars in Minsk and in Akademgorodok, the research centre of the Academy of Sciences near Novosibirsk in Siberia. Spontaneus permanent seminars like these represented bold attempts by young Soviet philosophers to emancipate themselves from the limits of Soviet ideology, and served as a critical impulse to the whole Soviet philosophical enterprise (Lydersen 1999, p. 34-40).
Its important to be aware that this Soviet philosophical enterprise is conceived by many of the philosophers taking part in it as a valuable contribution to world philosophy, which remains to be discovered by western colleaguas (Stepin, 1999). In regard of the challenges of the ideological battle with the "Capitalist world", Soviet philosophers, given an academic position, had full access to contemporary western literature from the restricted parts of the scientific libraries. Furthermore they could easily stay oriented through the publications of the Institute of Societal Information (INION), specialized in providing Soviet specialists of convenient summaries of western specialized publications. From this position Soviet philosophers could tell that their investigations were not only in accordance with central trends in western philosophy of science, but also in certain respects ahead. They could also register that a Hungarian philosopher of science in exile, the former rank and file marxist Imre Lakatos, in the 60ties made a career as a professor at the London School of Economics, following Karl Popper, with a concept of critical rationalism similar to concepts being elaborated by Soviet colleagues. Paradoxically, the Hungarian refugee Lakatos` articles in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1964-63 were published in Soviet Union in 1968, the year of the Soviet invasion of Czchekoslovakia, as a book with the title Dokazatelstvo i oproverzhenie (Conjecture and refutation) (Lakatos 1968). Lakatos` English book with the same title appeared in only six years later, in 1974.
3.3 The Complex Relationship with the Regime
The Soviet philosopher does not fit with the standard western cold-war idea of a Soviet dissident committed to western ideals of civic liberties and filled with nothing but disgust for the Soviet regime. The liberalizing effort was first and foremost carried out through the realizing of the full potential of the marxist-leninist philosophical heritage as a critical rational approach to modern science. Within these frames, being regarded a part of the scientific enterprise, also the teachings of the founding fathers of marxism-leninism, and thereby the central dogmas of Soviet ideology, became a legitimate subject of critical analysis. The Soviet philosopher David B. Zilberman, in exile in the US from the early seventies, has outlined the programme of the new postwar generation of Soviet philosophers: "They clearly realized that all definitions and formulations, whatever their degree of penetration and heuristic value for a given historical epoch, are historically limited and momentary. What remains as an issue of lasting significance is the logic, or categorial machinery of thinking, which underlies these particular definitions and produces them, and which is able to produce new ones." (Zilberman 1978, p. 266).
In fact this liberalizing effort of Soviet philosophy was largely being carried out in understanding with the regime. After Stalin, especially under the rule of N. Kruschev from 1954 till 1964, the philosophical enterprise became not only legitimate, but was openly encouraged. V.S. Stepin, todays Director of the Institute of philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a central philosopher of science, told me in Moscow how he as a young student in the mid 50ties decided to pursue his philosophical interest professionally not as an act of rebellion, but in accordance with the official priorities. The first "All-Soviet conference on the philosophical problems of Natural Science" in Moscow in 1958 became the starting point of an official campaign of philosophy of science in Soviet science, of unrivalled proportions. To meet the "Leninist call for unity of philosophy and natural sciences" a special committee reporting directly to the presidium of the Academy of Sciences was given the task of coordinating permanent philosophical seminars at all Soviet research-institutes. This activity certainly took place in close cooperation with the political authorities, with seminar-leaders reporting to the local branches of the communist party. The researchers were given the choice of studying official ideology or to take part in the seminars, both regarded by the Communist party as ideological education. Most researchers certainly prefered the latter, the philosopher V.V. Kazjutinskij, serving as a consultant of the coordinating Committee from 1964 till 1984, told me in Moscow.
The effect of this Soviet project of raising the philosophical awareness of the scientists is of particular interest to this research-project. In a survey on the development from 1980 the number of permanent philosophical seminars was said to be around 6000, including about 200 000 Soviet researchers (Sachkov, Chekurin 1980). During a six months stay in Ukraine the autumn 2004 I learned to know that the tradition of organizing regular philosophical seminars is being kept alive as a popular measure at the University of Lvov and other postsoviet Ukrainian institutions of research and higher education.
Who then constitutes the ideologically righteous counterpart in Soviet society confronting the critical philosophical community? They are not to be identified with the Soviet political leadership as such, but appear as a much more asymmetric tendency in all areas and levels of Soviet society, also within the philosophical community iself. Historically, the aspect of a conflict between the prewar- and postwar generations seems to be of a certain importance. The old generation, remembering the civil war and with a higher sense of insecurity, was generally more committed to the principle of partijnost` (partiality), which appeared as a main ideological obstacle for the new generation. Besides, the existence of a simplified and hostile version of marxism-leninism represented opportunities and was a permanent temptation to career-makers who sought power based on ideological righteousness, often with a low level of education. The opportunistic Soviet bureacracy having a personal interest in preserving the ideological regime has been described, qutie despisely, by the Soviet dissident-writer Mikhail Voslensky as the nomenclatura (Voslensky, 1984). While pointing out certain social mechanisms of late Soviet society, Voslenskys analysis is hampered by an opposite negative bias towards the Soviet project. A study of the democratizing effect of Soviet philosophy as an expression of and in cooperation with certain parts of the Soviet ruling elite, will hopefully represent a less biased and more empirically consistent approach to the process leading to the demise of the Soviet totalitarian regime. Furthermore: The persistence of ideological righteusness in an environment of rising selfawereness and critical attitude makes postwar Soviet society an interesting case for the sociopsycological study of ongoing social processes elsewhere.
4.0 Material and Method
4.1. Secondary Sources
The reformprocess rapidly leading to the fall of the Soviet Union came as a surprise on most specialists in Soviet affairs, and thereby revealed the limits of the general perceptions of Soviet society. One influential analyst, Archie Brown, concludes: "Before Gorbachev could attempt to introduce changes within the Soviet Union, he had to rise to the top within an essentially unreformed system. To many people, both in Russia and beyond, it seemed all too clear that no one of reformist disposition, or who was open to new ideas, could emerge from a background in the Communist Party apparatus with such an outlook or personality still intact." (Brown, 1996, p. 24)
Browns book, The Gorbachev-factor, is one of several western attempts to explain the demise of the Soviet Union. Other books to be mentioned is Jerry F. Houghs Democratization and revolution in the USSR 1985-1991 (1997) and Robert Strayers Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? (1998).
Brown, obviously, fails to conceive Gorbachevs critical, but sympathetic approach to Marxism-leninism, as a typical approach of the Soviet philosophical community, raising the issue of the democratizing effect of the Soviet philosophy. In dealing with Soviet academic freedom, Strayer in the same way ignores the subtleties of Soviet philosophy, sucessfully enforcing critical thought from within. Both Brown and Strayer, being leading experts in the field, thereby, in my view, display the limits of standard western conceptions regarding Soviet late history.
As Soviet philosophy has been largely neglected as a field of interest, its role in the Soviet democratization-process certainly appears to be a practically unexplored field. The book Science, Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union by the american scholar Loren Graham, first published in 1988, remains the standard western study in the Soviet history of science. As a historian of science, though, Grahams interest in Soviet philosophy is limited to its relationship to the scientific development. Regarding the interaction of Soviet postwar philosophy with the sciences surprisingly positive, Graham indirectly points towards the presuppositions of this study.
Aleksandr Vucinichs Empire of Knowledge is an informative introduction to the history of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from the revolution until the socalled stagnation started in 1970 (Vucinich, 1984). Since the late 90ties the field of history of Soviet science has been dominated by a new generation of Russian scholars like Nikolai Krementsov and Aleksei Kojevnikov, introducing a more complex analysis of the scientific life of the totalitarian state, as a set of "role games". This anthropological approach applied by Russian scholars investigating their own recent history is revealing, and serves as a theoretical inspiration also to this project.
Other studies in Soviet philosophy tend to by biased by an either marxist-leninist ideological approach, like Helena Shehaans Marxism and the philosophy of science, or of the opposite, an ardent anti-Soviet approach, like the Sovietologist-school introduced by the Catolic reverend and logician Joseph Bochenski in the sixties. As products of the cold war both these approaches faded with the demise of the Soviet Union. Bochenskis Sovietological journal Studies in Soviet Thought, however, obviously represented a rare opportunity for Soviet philosophers in exile, eager to inform western colleagues on the hidden state of affairs in Soviet philosophy. From his new position as a young professor in Boston, USA, in the late seventies, the above mentioned Soviet philosopher in exile David B. Zilberman made use of the journal to publish his original analysis of the postwar Soviet development, explaining the crucial role of Soviet philosophers (Zilberman, 1978). Unfortunately Zilberman died shortly before the publication in a car-accident, leaving an unfinished and unpublished manuscript on the history of the Moscow Methodological Circle, which is of great interest to this study (Michnik-Zilberman, 1988, p. 22).
4.2 Primary Sources
As an empirical study in a largely unexplored field the primary sources are central. Since the liberalization-process started in the mid 80ties a retrospective tendency has assured several written testimonies and memories both from leading Soviet philosophers an politicians, many of which goes straight to the core of this stydy. Besides, the practice of interviewing representatives of Soviet philosophy, which showed successful in the work with my dissertation, will be continued. The theme of this doctoral project requires a broadening of the scope of informants, including representatives of the former political elite and former Soviet bureaucracy.
Archive-studies will be necessary to verify information and for the closer investigation of the interaction of the regime and the philosophical community. The archives of the Central committee and of the AN SSSR are of great interest. Besides, the archive of MMK in Moscow is revealing for the study of the practice and inner dicussions of the pioneers of the philosophical liberalizing effort.
5.0 Additional information
My dissertation, successfully defended in 1999 for the degree of hovedfag (master) in Russian culture-studies, serves as the formal training and background for the realization of this project (Lydersen, 1999). Focusing on the perception of western postpositivists in the Soviet Union in the post war period, the dissertation revealed Soviet philosophy as a field of interest for the understanding of postwar Soviet development. My knowledge of Russian language, which I read, speak and write freely, is an advantage in carrying out the field-work in the former Soviet Union.
From my two one and a half months stays in Moscow in relation with the work on the dissertation I`ve established contact with former Soviet philosophers at the central research institutions. From a half year stay as a freelance journalist covering the election in Ukraine the summer and autumn of 2004 I`ve got sound contacts in the second largest of the former Soviet republics. Furthermore I`m in contact with Loren Graham at MIT in Boston. This contacts are of importance for the planned fact-finding missions to the former Soviet Union and Boston.
6.0 Progress – a rough sketch
Autumn 2005: Preparations. Studies in theories of democratization
Spring 2006: Fact-finding in the former Soviet Union. Writing
Autumn 2006: Fact-finding in the former Soviet Union. Writing.
Spring 2007: Fact-finding in Boston, USA. Analysing. Writing final doctoral dissertation.
Autumn 2008: Finishing writing dissertation.
Literature:
Brown, Archie; The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford University Press, 1996
Egge, Åsmund; Fra Aleksander II til Boris Jeltsin, Universitetsforlaget, 1993
Graham, Loren; Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union, Columbia University Press, 1987
Hough, Stephen; Democratization and revolution in the USSR 1985-1991, The Brookings Institution, 1997
Kedrov, Bonifatij M.; "Kak sozdavalsja nash zhurnal?", Voprosy Filosofii 4, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1989, also published in V.A. Lektorskij (ed.) Filosofija ne konchaetsja. Iz istorii otechestvennoj filosofii XX vek 1920-50-e gody, Rosspen, 1998
Kojevnikov, Alexei; "President of Stalin`s Academy. The Mask and Responsibility of Sergei Vavilov", Isis, 87, The History of Science Society, 1996
Krementsov, Nikolai; Stalinist Science, Princeton University Press, 1997
Kuznecov; Ivan V.; Princip sootvetsvija v sovremennom fizike i ego filosofskoe znachenie, Ogiz, 1948Lakatos, Imre; Dokazatelstvo i oproverzhenie, transl. I.N. Venkovskij, Moscow, 1967Lenin, Vladimir I.; Materializm i empriokriticizm, Zveno, 1909
Lydersen, Sigurd; Mottagelsen av vestlig positivismekritikk i Sovjetunionen. Om marxismen-leninismens oppløsning innenfra, University of Oslo, 1999
Markov, M.A.; "O prirode fizicheskogo znania", Voprosy Filosofii 2, Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1947
Michnik-Zilberman, E. "Introduction", in David B.Zilberman; The Birth of Meaning in Hindu Thought, ed. Robert S. Cohen, Dordrecht, 1988
Mitrokhin, Leonid N.; "Dokladnaja zapiska" – 74, in V.A. Lektorskij (ed.) Filosofija ne konchaetsja. Iz istorii otechestvennoj filosofii XX vek 1960-80-e gody, Rosspen, 1998 Ovchinnikov, N.F.; Principy teoretizacii znania, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996 Ovchinnikov, Nikolai F.; "Vspominaja proshedshee", Voprosy Filosofii 7, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1999
Sachkov, Jurij V, Chekurin V.P.; "Filosofskie (metodologicheskie) seminary v nauchnykh uchrezhdeniakh", Vestnik AN SSSR 4, Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1980
Sheehan, Helena; Marxism and the Philosophy of Science. A Critical History. The first Hundred Years, Humanities Press, 1993
Stepin, V.S.; "Otsyv na dissertaciju Sigurda Ljudersena..", statement by the director of the The Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science, 1999.
Strayer, Robert; Why did the Soviet Union Collapse?: Understanding historical change, Armonk, M.E. Sharpe, 1998
Voslensky, Michael; Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class, transl. by Eric Mosbacher, Doubleday, 1984Vucinich, Aleksander; Empire of Knowledge. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1917-1970), University of California Press, 1984
Zilberman, D.B. "The Postsociologcial Society", Studies in Soviet Thought 18, Reidel, 1978
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