Activity Theory

2010 ◽  
pp. 65-77
Author(s):  
Lars Taxén
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Activity Theory ◽  
Domain Theory ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Direct Descendant ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Activity Domain

In this chapter I will give an account of some ideas in the Russian Theory of Activity or Activity Theory (AT) that have influenced the Activity Domain Theory (ADT): activity, mediation, and meaning. The activity domain in ADT is a direct descendant from “activity” in AT, while “mediation” and “meaning” are necessary prerequisites for the activity modalities construct in ADT. The AT was an attempt to apply the ideas of Marx and Engels to psychology in the early decades of the new socialist state, the Soviet Union. The front figure in this pioneering movement was the Russian psychologist and semiotician L. S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) together with his collaborators A. N. Leont’ev (1903-1979) and A. R. Luria (1902-1977). Other prominent researchers in this spirit were V. N. Vološinov (1895-1936) and M. M. Bakhtin (1895-1975). With the advent of the Stalinist era the momentum of the AT was more or less crushed. However, small but marginalized groups kept the ideas of AT alive. One of the most prominent philosophers was the previously mentioned E. Ilyenkov (1924-1979). During the last couple of decades, AT has gained a renewed momentum among Western researchers and been further developed by the works of M. Cole, J. Wertsch and Y. Engeström and others.

scholarly journals Minority Women Deputies in the Soviet Parliament, 1989–1991: Intersectionality in the Imperial Situation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Sablin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Far East ◽  
Minority Women ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Government Body ◽  
First Time ◽  
Policy Proposals

This article discussed the participation of minority women deputies in the parliamentary debates of the Perestroika, namely in the Congress of People’s Deputies (CPD), which was formally the supreme government body of the Soviet Union in 1989–1991. The speeches and statements of minority women deputies highlighted their perspectives on the multifaceted crisis of the Soviet Union. Some of the women represented especially marginalized groups, like the indigenous peoples of the Far East and mountain herders of Kirghizia, and for the first time gained the opportunity to express their grievances in a public debate. The article focused on the grievances, which minority women deputies articulated, and the solutions, which they proposed for mitigating or overcoming them. The study was informed by the concepts of intersectionality and the imperial situation. Although nationality (ethnicity) was an important self-categorization for many of those minority women who spoke at the five congresses, the meanings, ascribed to ethnonational categories, and the policy proposals, deriving from them, were very different. Even when grievances were “nationalized,” the proposed solutions could also be anti-nationalist. Besides, the same grievances could be refracted not only through nationality but also through gender, regional, local, occupational, and other categories. Some of the issues, like those related to occupation and environment, were part of the broader public discussions. Even though their grievances had often been formulated in terms of nationality and also originated in the centralized mismanagement, most of the minority women deputies viewed the Soviet Union as the main source of possible solutions.

scholarly journals Programming the USSR: Leonid V. Kantorovich in context

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-278
Author(s):  
IVAN BOLDYREV ◽  
TILL DÜPPE
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Academic Politics ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

AbstractIn the wake of Stalin's death, many Soviet scientists saw the opportunity to promote their methods as tools for the engineering of economic prosperity in the socialist state. The mathematician Leonid Kantorovich (1912–1986) was a key activist in academic politics that led to the increasing acceptance of what emerged as a new scientific persona in the Soviet Union. Rather than thinking of his work in terms of success or failure, we propose to see his career as exemplifying a distinct form of scholarship, as a partisan technocrat, characteristic of the Soviet system of knowledge production. Confronting the class of orthodox economists, many factors were at work, including Kantorovich's cautious character and his allies in the Academy of Sciences. Drawing on archival and oral sources, we demonstrate how Kantorovich, throughout his career, negotiated the relations between mathematics and economics, reinterpreted political and ideological frames, and reshaped the balance of power in the Soviet academic landscape.

Ethnic Discrimination and the Discourse of “Indigenization”: The Regional Regime, “Indigenous Majority” and Ethnic Minorities in Krasnodar Krai in Russia

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Popov ◽  
Igor Kuznetsov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Krasnodar Krai ◽  
Democratic Reform ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Soviet Union

To many in both the East and the West it seemed axiomatic that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was due to “nationality reasons,” which were viewed as a natural process in the last empire's decline. Then, during the democratic reform of a totalitarian state, ethnic minority rights were first spoken of, and the growth of national self-awareness appeared to be an integral part of society's liberalization. Time has since shown that liberal changes in the economy and in the political and social spheres are not always accompanied by the establishment of social justice; indeed, it has frequently been minorities who are among the most unfortunate and marginalized groups in society. Defending the rights of minorities and combating ethnic and racial discrimination remains one of the most relevant issues in practically all post-socialist countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe.

Jews in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union, 1921–1941

2013 ◽  
pp. 274-307
Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
Final Goal ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Single World

This chapter describes the situation of the Jews in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union in the years between 1921 and 1941. Here, their victory in the civil war enabled the Bolsheviks to apply the ideological principles they had developed for dealing with the ‘Jewish question’. National issues were seen by all the Bolsheviks as instrumental. They were to be judged on how they advanced the interest of the world revolution and the Soviet state. Where national groups were supported, this was a tactical alliance, like the alliance with the peasantry. The ultimate goal was the creation of a new socialist man who would be above petty nationalist divisions, and a single world socialist state. All those responsible for Jewish policy within the Bolshevik party sought this final goal; the only difference between them was their view on how long Jewish separateness could be tolerated. The aim was assimilation—a new version of the view that the Jews were to be given everything as individuals and nothing as a community.

1936

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rees
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
International Policies ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
History Of

The year 1936 was a momentous one in the history of communism. This was a time of acute uncertainty and fear, during which the Soviet Union and international communist movement faced unprecedented challenges. This article examines the attempts to build a socialist state in Russia, and to follow new international policies of collective security and the building of popular front alliances. Particular attention is given to the principal developments of the year—the internal crisis in the Soviet Union, the Chinese and Spanish civil wars, the Popular Front in France, the origins of the Great Terror—but also to the more everyday experiences of communists around the world.

The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism

Slavic Review ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 414-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Slezkine
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
Nationality Policy ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
Successful Attempt ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Nationality Policy

Soviet nationality policy was devised and carried out by nationalists. Lenin's acceptance of the reality of nations and "national rights" was one of the most uncompromising positions he ever took, his theory of good ("oppressed-nation") nationalism formed the conceptual foundation of the Soviet Union and his NEP-time policy of compensatory "nation-building" (natsional'noe stroitel'stvo) was a spectacularly successful attempt at a state-sponsored conflation of language, "culture," territory and quota-fed bureaucracy.

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