scholarly journals DIALECTICAL AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM IN THE STRUCTURE OF MARXISM-LENINISM PHILOSOPHICAL TEACHING AND POLITICO-IDEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-141
Author(s):  
Vyacheslav Vilkov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Soviet Marxism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The 1960S

The article presents the results of the study of the specifics of the use by V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin of the concepts of «dialectical» and «historical» materialism; Stalin's understanding and interpretation of the essence and functions of these two main types of axiomatics of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, which were proposed in his work «Dialectical and Historical Materialism», that was included in «History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course» (its first edition was published in 1938) and up to the 11th collection of his works, lectures, articles, speeches, etc. under the title «Concerning Questions of Leninism» (first published in 1939), are analysed in detail. The proposed analysis reveals the Stalinist and post-Stalinist understanding of the essence, structure and functions of dialectical and historical materialism; its theoretical and methodological foundations and status in the structure of Marxist-Leninist philosophy; highlights the Stalinist approach to understanding the relationship of Marxist philosophy with the ideological doctrine of the Communist Party of the USSR and the Communist worldview. The article defines the significant changes in Soviet Marxism from the end of 1953 until the end of the 1980s. It refers to the conceptual interpretation of dialectical and historical materialism, recognised in Soviet times as the basis and two main components of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. In addition, the leading tendencies that were formed among Soviet scientists of the 1960s and 1980s, as new approaches to understanding the nature of the interrelationships of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, primarily "diamat" and "istmat", with the Communist Party ideology and those branches of social studies (mainly «scientific communism»), which formed a single system of philosophical and socio- political knowledge, a complex of sciences and academic disciplines commonly known as «Marxism- Leninism», are highlighted in the article. The main tendencies of the post-Stalinist era in the interpretation of the ideological, theoretical and methodological role of dialectical and historical materialism, their status in the structure of Soviet philosophy and social-political science, as well as the specifics of correcting their ideological and worldview intent during the second half of the twentieth century are characterised. Within the framework of this analysis, the paradigmatic narratives, declared by Ukrainian researchers of the post-Soviet era to assess the role of V.I. Lenin and, especially, I.V. Stalin («Dialectical and Historical Materialism») in the emergence of fundamental problems and negative processes during the development of philosophical and socio-political thought in the USSR for the entire post-Stalin period of history, are identified and summarised. The main research methods are systemic, comparative, discursive, content analysis, prescripts of scientism and the principle of historicism. The study may be particularly relevant for a scientifically balanced, ideologically unbiased, adequate comprehension of the history and logic of the development of philosophical and socio-political thought in the Soviet Union and Ukraine since independence.

Cuban Military and Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge I. Domínguez
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Deviant Behavior ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
The 1960S

Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), founded in 1959, have been among the world’s most successful military. In the early 1960s, they defended the new revolutionary regime against all adversaries during years when Cuba was invaded at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, faced nuclear Armageddon in 1962, and experienced a civil war that included U.S. support for regime opponents. From 1963 to 1991, the FAR served the worldwide objectives of a small power that sought to behave as if it were a major world power. Cuba deployed combat troops overseas for wars in support of Algeria (1963), Syria (1973), Angola (1975–1991), and Ethiopia (1977–1989). Military advisers and some combat troops served in smaller missions in about two dozen countries the world over. Altogether, nearly 400,000 Cuban troops served overseas. Throughout those years, the FAR also worked significantly to support Cuba’s economy, especially in the 1960s and again since the early 1990s following the Soviet Union’s collapse. Uninterruptedly, officers and troops have been directly engaged in economic planning, management, physical labor, and production. In the mid-1960s, the FAR ran compulsory labor camps that sought to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals and to remedy the alleged socially deviant behavior of these and others, as well. During the Cold War years, the FAR deepened Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet Union, deterred a U.S. invasion by signaling its cost for U.S. troops, and since the early 1990s developed confidence-building practices collaborating with U.S. military counterparts to prevent an accidental military clash. Following false starts and experimentation, the FAR settled on a model of joint civilian-military governance that has proved durable: the civic soldier. The FAR and the Communist Party of Cuba are closely interpenetrated at all levels and together endeavored to transform Cuban society, economy, and politics while defending state and regime. Under this hybrid approach, military officers govern large swaths of military and civilian life and are held up as paragons for soldiers and civilians, bearers of revolutionary traditions and ideology. Thoroughly politicized military are well educated as professionals in political, economic, managerial, engineering, and military affairs; in the FAR, officers with party rank and training, not outsider political commissars, run the party-in-the-FAR. Their civilian and military roles were fused, especially during the 1960s, yet they endured into the 21st century. Fused roles make it difficult to think of civilian control over the military or military control over civilians. Consequently, political conflict between “military” and “civilians” has been rare and, when it has arisen (often over the need for, and the extent of, military specialization for combat readiness), it has not pitted civilian against military leaders but rather cleaved the leadership of the FAR, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), and the government. Intertwined leaderships facilitate cadre exchanges between military and nonmilitary sectors. The FAR enter their seventh decade smaller, undersupplied absent the Soviet Union, less capable of waging war effectively, and more at risk of instances of corruption through the activities of some of their market enterprises. Yet the FAR remain both an effective institution in a polity that they have helped to stabilize and proud of their accomplishments the world over.

Government Rulemaking as a Brake on Perestroika

1990 ◽  
Vol 15 (03) ◽  
pp. 419-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Huskey
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Economic Reform ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Political System ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government

The Soviet political system is made up of three major institutions: the Communist Party, the parliament, and the government. Whereas the first two have changed dramatically under perestroika, the government has continued to function in more traditional ways. Most worrying to reformists, the government–the Soviet Union's “executive branch”–has used its broad rulemaking authority to impede the transformation of Soviet politics and society. This essay examines the role of governmental rules in the Soviet political and legal system. It concludes, following the lead of Soviet reformists, that without a fundamental restructuring of government making authority, legal, political, and economic reform in the Soviet Union cannot be institutionalized.

СHILDREN'S LIBRARIES: THE CASE OF TOMSK, 1960–1970

2021 ◽  
pp. 272-282
Author(s):  
Alexsandra I. Ermolova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Tomsk Region ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The City

The paper discusses the activities of children's libraries in Tomsk in the 1960s and 70s. The main goal of this study is consider the history of children's libraries in the city and reveal the role of libraries in educational, cultural, political and ideological components of the everyday lives of young Tomsk residents. There are several reasons for addressing this problem. In the USSR, children were always not only in the care of the state, but also part of the political discourse about the happy childhood and the man of the future who was expected to live under communism. In this context, children's libraries were given a special status as places that successfully combined educational, cultural, political and ideological activities for children. The Tomsk Region has always been considered the intellectual center of Siberia. Therefore, it seems obvious that there has always been a special focus on the development of libraries in Tomsk. For example, the number of public libraries in the Tomsk Region increased from 135 in 1945 to 495 in 1964. This study addresses the history of children's libraries in the city. The thematic focus of their collections, and According to the regional archive, in the 1960– 70s, there were four active children's libraries in the city. The main ones were City Children's Library No. 1 located at 167 Lenin Avenue, and Marshak Children's Library No. 2 located at 17a Nikitina Street, The two other were smaller in size: Library No. 3 (81 Michurina) and City Children's Library No. 6 (9 Kolkhoznaya). The statistical reports of libraries demonstrate the increasing interest of young Tomsk residents in library activities: the number of readers, as well as number of visits grew from year to year. The libraries had quite diverse collections, which included not only books, but also periodicals. Some interesting observations can be made about the distribution of genres: socio-political publications are the second most popular genre, after fiction. Libraries were not only a place where children could receive and read books, but also hosted a variety of cultural, educational and leisure events, such as matinees, debates, exhibitions, and poetry evenings. There were Young Readers Clubs which arranged book discussions and meetings with interesting people. All this evidence suggests that children's libraries were an essential part of the city's social and cultural life. They acted as a kind of educational centers where young Tomsk residents could find answers to their questions. They were also places of leisure where children could spend their free time. Moreover, libraries inculcated some ideologically correct attitudes. Meetings, disputes, and quizzes held in libraries always addressed topics related to Lenin, communism, and activities of the Commuunist Party of the Soviet Union.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

2020 ◽  
pp. 331-369
Author(s):  
Michael Goldfield
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Complex Behavior ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Wing Movement ◽  
Left Group ◽  
The Soviet Union

Chapter 8 examines the role of the Communist Party, by far the largest Left group, during the 1930s and 1940s. It looks at the Party’s complex behavior, its many pluses and minuses, and its ties to the Soviet Union. In particular, it examines the role of CP activists as trade union militants and as the unabashed and unrelenting champions of civil rights, a role that distinguished them from the members of all other interracial organizations during this period. Yet it also looks at the Party’s role in demoralizing and destroying the left-wing movement in the 1930s and 1940s, even undermining many of the organizations and movements it had helped create, including those dedicated to civil rights.

scholarly journals Chinese Reaction and Interpretation of 1991 Events in the Soviet Union

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-111
Author(s):  
I. Y. Zuenko
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Negative Experience ◽  
Chinese Leadership ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Large Bulk ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Soviet Experience

The article is timed to coincide with two anniversaries: centenary of the Communist Party of China, and thirty years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. According to the author’s idea, these two anniversaries correlate: analysis of the reasons and consequences of the USSR dissolution became one of the factors of current policy of Chinese communists. The article brings light to this coherence. A wide range of Chinese sources and literature regarding 1991 events in the USSR was used for the article. Another feature is the attention to historical context of the late 1980s – early 1990s, analysis of which helps to understand domination of conservative view to the USSR dissolution. The article shows how the Chinese state and party interest in the Soviet experience led to creation of a large bulk of works regarding historical, sociological and culturological aspects of the USSR dissolution. The analysis of the most impactful of these works shows a wide range of views regarding certain aspects (fi rst of all, the role of reforms in the fi nal dissolution of the state) and consensus regarding other aspects (negative role of Mikhail Gorbachev, labelling the dissolution of the USSR and the Communist Party as a ‘catastrophe’). Further analysis of the Soviet experience led to such measures by the Chinese leadership like strengthening of partocracy regime, conducting of media-covered anti-smuggling campaigns, establishing of harsh administrative and security control in areas with ethnic minorities, active counterpropaganda and struggling with foreign information infl uence. Appellation to the negative experience of the USSR and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is using by the Chinese leadership in its propaganda as an argument for unacceptability of any political reforms regarding weakening of the party role.

scholarly journals Cuban Political Development

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge I. Domínguez
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Private Behavior ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Council Of State

Before dawn on 1 January 1959, President Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba. Insurgents led by Fidel Castro (one among several insurgent groups) soon established control over the national territory. Fidel Castro served as Cuba’s prime minister and then also as president of the Council of State from 1959 until 2006. His brother Raúl Castro succeeded him; in 2018, he stepped down from his government roles while remaining first secretary of the Communist Party. The ruling teams have changed only very gradually—six of the seventeen-member Political Bureau chosen at the Sixth Communist Party Congress, held in 2016, had eight members born in 1945 or earlier, the first time this older group ceded the Political Bureau majority, and nine born between 1958 and 1967. The years since 1959 encompass four periods. The first, the revolutionary decade of the 1960s, endeavored to transform many aspects of public life and private behavior, in a context of a failing economy, under Fidel Castro’s highly personalized rule. The second, during the 1970s and 1980s, featured the development of the Communist Party and state institutions akin to those prevalent in other communist countries, more orthodox central planning of the economy, with strong backing and funding from the Soviet Union, as well as the deployment of hundreds of thousands of Cuban troops and civilians overseas. The third, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, during the 1990s until 2006, exhibited a painful adjustment to greatly diminished economic circumstances and a mixed strategy to enact policy changes, some reminiscent of the 1960s and others pointing toward a market-oriented opening. The fourth, since 2006 under Raúl Castro’s leadership as Communist Party first secretary, adding since 2018 Miguel Díaz-Canel as president of the republic, has been marked by a gradual, albeit still limited, shift toward market-oriented policies and limited elements of political liberalization along with a tilt toward collective leadership and planned political succession. Across the four time periods, noteworthy changes have occurred in the economy, polity, and society, as well as in Cuba’s international circumstances.

The KGB, Perestroika, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Knight
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Direct Part ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
Direct Control ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
State Security ◽  
The Soviet Union

This article examines the role of the Committee on State Security (KGB) during the turbulent six-and-a-half years under Mikhail Gorbachev, from March 1985 to December 1991. Contrary to popular impressions, the KGB was never an independent actor in the Soviet system; it acted at the behest of the Communist Party. When Vladimir Kryuchkov replaced Viktor Chebrikov as head of the KGB in 1986, the move signaled what was intended to be a new role for the KGB. But as the reforms launched by Gorbachev became more radical, and as political instability in the Soviet Union became widespread, many in the KGB grew anxious about the possible fragmentation of the country. These concerns were instrumental in the decision by Kryuchkov and other high-ranking KGB officials to organize a hardline coup in August 1991. Even then, however, the KGB was not truly independent of the party. On the contrary, KGB officials were expecting—and then desperately hoping—that Gorbachev would agree to order an all-out crackdown. Because Gorbachev was unwilling to take a direct part in mass repression, Kryuchkov lacked the authority he was seeking to act. As a result, the attempted coup failed, and the KGB was forced onto the defensive. Shortly before the Soviet state was dissolved, the KGB was broken up into a number of agencies that soon came under Russia's direct control.

Marxist philosophy, Russian and Soviet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bakhurst
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Marxist Philosophy ◽  
Soviet Marxism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Mind

The history of Russian Marxism involves a dramatic interplay of philosophy and politics. Though Marx’s ideas were taken up selectively by Russian populists in the 1870s, the first thoroughgoing Russian Marxist was G.V. Plekhanov, whose vision of philosophy became the orthodoxy among Russian communists. Inspired by Engels, Plekhanov argued that Marxist philosophy is a form of ‘dialectical materialism’ (Plekhanov’s coinage). Following Hegel, Marxism focuses on phenomena in their interaction and development, which it explains by appeal to dialectical principles (for instance, the law of the transformation of quantity into quality). Unlike Hegel’s idealism, however, Marxism explains all phenomena in material terms (for Marxists, the ’material’ includes economic forces and relations). Dialectical materialism was argued to be the basis of Marx’s vision of history according to which historical development is the outcome of changes in the force of production. In 1903, Plekhanov’s orthodoxy was challenged by a significant revisionist school: Russian empiriocriticism. Inspired by Mach’s positivism, A.A. Bogdanov and others argued that reality is socially organized experience, a view they took to suit Marx’s insistence that objects be understood in their relation to human activity. Empiriocriticism was associated with the Bolsheviks until 1909, when Lenin moved to condemn Bogdanov’s position as a species of idealism repugnant to both Marxism and common sense. Lenin endorsed dialectical materialism, which thereafter was deemed the philosophical worldview of the Bolsheviks. After the Revolution of 1917, Soviet philosophers were soon divided in a bitter controversy between ‘mechanists’ and ‘dialecticians’. The former argued that philosophy must be subordinate to science. In contrast, the Hegelian ‘dialecticians’, led by A.M. Deborin, insisted that philosophy is needed to explain the very possibility of scientific knowledge. The debate was soon deadlocked, and in 1929 the dialecticians used their institutional might to condemn mechanism as a heresy. The following year, the dialecticians were themselves routed by a group of young activists sponsored by Communist Party. Denouncing Deborin and his followers as ‘Menshevizing idealists’, they proclaimed that Marxist philosophy had now entered its ‘Leninist stage’ and invoked Lenin’s idea of the partiinost’ (‘partyness’) of philosophy to license the criticism of theories on entirely political grounds. Philosophy became a weapon in the class war. In 1938, Marxist-Leninist philosophy was simplistically codified in the fourth chapter of the Istoriia kommunisticheskoi partii sovetskogo soiuza (Bol’sheviki). Kraatkii kurs (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks). Short Course). The chapter, apparently written by Stalin himself, was declared the height of wisdom, and Soviet philosophers dared not transcend its limited horizons. The ‘new philosophical leadership’ devoted itself to glorifying the Party and its General Secretary. The ideological climate grew even worse in the post-war years when A.A. Zhdanov’s campaign against ‘cosmopolitanism’ created a wave of Russian chauvinism in which scholars sympathetic to Western thought were persecuted. The Party also meddled in scientific, sponsoring T.D. Lysenko’s bogus genetics, while encouraging criticism of quantum mechanics, relativity theory and cybernetics as inconsistent with dialectical materialism. The Khrushchev ‘thaw’ brought a renaissance in Soviet Marxism, when a new generation of young philosophers began a critical re-reading of Marx’s texts. Marx’s so-called ‘method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete’ was developed, by E.V. Il’enkov and others, into an anti-empiricist epistemology. There were also important studies of consciousness and ’the ideal’ by Il’enkov and M.K. Mamardashvili, the former propounding a vision of the social origins of the mind that recalls the cultural-historical psychology developed by L.S. Vygotskii in the 1930s. However, the thaw was short-lived. The philosophical establishment, still populated by the Stalinist old guard, continued to exercise a stifling influence. Although the late 1960s and 1970s saw heartfelt debates in many areas, particularly about the biological basis of the mind and the nature of value (moral philosophy had been hitherto neglected), the energy of the early 1960s was lacking. Marxism-Leninism still dictated the terms of debate and knowledge of Western philosophers remained relatively limited. In the mid-1980s, Gorbachev’s reforms initiated significant changes. Marxism-Leninism was no longer a required subject in all institutions of higher education; indeed, the term was soon dropped altogether. Discussions of democracy and the rule of law were conducted in the journals, and writings by Western and Russian émigré philosophers were published. Influential philosophers such as I.T. Frolov, then editor of Pravda, called for a renewal of humanistic Marxism. The reforms, however, came too late. The numerous discussions of the fate of Marxism at this time reveal an intellectual culture in crisis. While many maintained that Marx’s theories were not responsible for the failings of the USSR, others declared the bankruptcy of Marxist ideas and called for an end to the Russian Marxist tradition. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it seems their wish has been fulfilled.

scholarly journals The 1982 Reorganization of Agricultural Administration in the Soviet Union: The Role of the Communist Party in Agenda Setting

1992 ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Barbara Ann Chotiner
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Scene

Soviet politics under Mikhail S. Gorbachev became the arena for wide-ranging institutional and policy change across a broad spectrum of issue areas. These alterations were supported and opposed by sometimes unpredictable coalitions; victories were engineered using novel as well as familiar techniques. As a consequence, there has often been a tendency to treat the political scene in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from March 1985 through August 1991 as almost sui generis. In many respects, the period of Gorbachev's General Secretaryship of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) has been treated as the antithesis of the political regime during the so-called "era of stagnation" under Leonid I. Brezhnev.

North Korea’s Marxism-Leninism: Fraternal Criticisms and the Development of North Korean Ideology in the 1960s

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-147
Author(s):  
Thomas Stock
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Soviet Marxism ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
East German ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
First Time ◽  
Intellectual Environment

Abstract During the 1960s, as the Sino-Soviet conflict raged on, North Korea, for the first time in its history, officially began to reject the USSR’s ideological leadership and instead tread its own path under the slogan of self-reliance. As a result, those forces aligned with the Soviet Union, especially East Germany, heavily criticized North Korea’s new ideological path. Drawing on the East German archives, this study seeks to understand the nature of fraternal criticisms and their implications for the development of North Korean ideology in the 1960s. Scholars typically stress North Korean ideology’s departure from Marxism-Leninism, sometimes suggesting a departure as early as the 1950s. The present study, based on a thorough reading of archival documents and North Korean materials, challenges such portrayals, arguing that North Korea remained in the Marxist-Leninist tradition even while contesting Soviet orthodoxy. Developments in North Korean ideology were far more gradual than is usually assumed, building on what came before. These developments were by no means revolutionary or removed from the global intellectual environment. The Soviets and East Germans could understand North Korean heterodoxy and engage with it in Marxist-Leninist terms, just as North Korea did with Soviet Marxism-Leninism—there was no fundamental ideological split.

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