Lost and Found: Bourgeois Dependency Theory and the Forgotten Roots of Neodevelopmentalism

Neodevelopmentalism emerged in Brazil and Argentina in the aftermath of the demoralization of the Washington Consensus. Although its intellectual proponents place it within the long tradition of Latin American developmentalism, an important theoretical origin of neodevelopmentalism—dependency theory—has so far been ignored. The term appeared for the first time in 1978 as an expletive in the heated controversy between Ruy Mauro Marini and Fernando Henrique Cardoso and José Serra in the Revista Mexicana de Sociología. Breaking with the supposition that underdevelopment could be overcome only through social revolution, Cardoso and Serra embraced a perspective of long-term social transformation based on class alliances with fractions of the national bourgeoisie and international capital. This perspective was gradually weakened and finally abandoned in favor of full-fledged neoliberalism when Cardoso became president of Brazil in 1994, only to be resuscitated by so-called pink-tide administrations after 2002. O neodesenvolvimentismo surgiu no Brasil e na Argentina após a desmoralização do Consenso de Washington. Embora seus proponentes intelectuais o coloquem dentro da longa tradição do desenvolvimentismo latino-americano, uma importante origem teórica do neodesenvolvimentismo - a teoria da dependência - até agora foi ignorado. O termo apareceu pela primeira vez em 1978 como um palavrão na polêmica acalorada entre Ruy Mauro Marini e Fernando Henrique Cardoso e José Serra na Revista Mexicana de Sociología. Rompendo com a suposição de que o subdesenvolvimento só poderia ser superado por meio da revolução social, Cardoso e Serra abraçaram uma perspectiva de transformação social de longo prazo baseada em alianças de classe com frações da burguesia nacional e do capital internacional. Essa perspectiva foi gradualmente enfraquecida e finalmente abandonada em favor do neoliberalismo completo quando Cardoso se tornou presidente do Brasil em 1994, apenas para ser ressuscitada por administrações da chamada maré rosa após 2002.

Main activities of Nariman Narimanov

The article examines the aggravation of the struggle between political and ideological trends in Azerbaijan at the beginning of the twentieth century, the separation of the liberal national bourgeoisie, representing the ideology of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic from the radical Marxist-Bolsheviks in relation to private property and the state system, and the subsequent processes associated with the development of events. At the same time, the article highlights the social and literary worldview of N.Narimanov, analyzes his political and ideological, revolutionary activities, and draws a general picture of the period of real power of N.Narimanov. Key words: The beginning of the twentieth century, political and ideological trends, the Bolsheviks, the social and literary worldview of N. Narimanov, political and ideological, revolutionary activities

In search of civil society: From peasant populism to postpeasant illiberalism in provincial Hungary

The need to rebuild civil society was a prominent theme in dissident writings in East-Central Europe in late socialism, but the revival of this concept deserves close scrutiny and local contextualization. This article identifies two currents in Hungarian debates, one focused on addressing problems of backwardness by opening up paths of material embourgeoisement and the other on abstract liberal notions of associational freedom. It then outlines successive transformations of economic and social life in a small Hungarian town where no industry existed prior to socialism and the dominant political forces were populist in the sense of ‘peasantism’. The agrarian and industrial transformations of the socialist decades were undone in the 1990s. In the 2010s, under governments led by Viktor Orbán, it is argued that norms of civility have been threatened by postpeasant illiberalism. If civil society was the gauntlet laid down to social theorists by East-Central Europe in 1989, the challenge posed by this region nowadays is the theorization of incivility and a new brand of populism. It is suggested that these political processes are driven by the collapse of socialist embourgeoisement and the emergence of a new national bourgeoisie under peripheral capitalism, and that some of the moral responsibility for these developments lies with the unwavering intellectual enthusiasts of abstract liberalism.

THE RELEVANCE OF THE TERM «NATIONAL BOURGEOISIE» FORRESEARCHINGTHE RULING ELITE IN UKRAINE

The article demonstrates the relevance of the concept of «national bourgeoisie» in the context of researching the ruling elite in Ukraine. The main limitations of the current concepts of the Ukrainian ruling elite are an ahistorical approach, and treating it (elite) as an anomaly, pathology. Particular attention is paid to the criticism of the concepts «neopatrimonial democracy», «oligarchy», «corruption», which constitute the core contents of the current concepts of the ruling elite in Ukraine. The concept of «national bourgeoisie» and the exposition of its evolution in Marxist theory serves as the basis for the criticism. It was determined that neopatrimonialism, and with it oligarchy and corruption, are concepts denoting the power of one faction unfavorable for theother faction of the bourgeoisie. These terms do not refer to any existing norm, alternative, do not imply the opposite, its otherness (democracy, the rule of law, but they are polemical, rhetorical figures in the class struggle. The theoretical content of these concepts acquires scientific meaning only when using the Marxian concept of the bourgeoisie (or the national bourgeoisie in the Marxist tradition), which presupposesthe rule of law insofar as it meets the economic interests of the bourgeoisie, and the state is a concentrated expression of these interests, as well as a foothold in the struggle of different factions of the bourgeoisie among themselves and against the oppressed classes (hence, bourgeois democracy). Power is not conceived outside of capital since capitalists are indirectly or directly related to each other and influence the authorities' decisions. Under the conditions of postcolonialism, or neocolonialism, the national bourgeoisie has resorted to more direct forms of protecting their interests through state, restricting foreign capital in the economy and political power. However, this does not mean the absolute independence of the national bourgeoisie from the transnational bourgeoisie, both in the political and in economic sense. The study proves the necessity of using the concept of «national bourgeoisie» for researching the ruling elite in Ukraine under capitalism in general, and the intra– and interclass struggle in particular.

The history of the creation of the Azerbaijan State Museum (Azgosmusey)

The history of museums in Azerbaijan is only a hundred years old, but the path traveled over the years has been very difficult. The development of museums was directly affected by the political course of the Soviet country. Museums were supposed to reflect the politics and ideology of the country, and everything that did not correspond to this was gathering dust in storage or even worse destroyed. The names of the owners of the collections were not mentioned in any public publication. Their names preserved only the basic documents of museums, acts and books of receipts, which were available to a very narrow circle of people. Often, collections mercilessly broken into small groups and transferred to various museums in the country. Namely, the property of many representatives of the national bourgeoisie enriched our museums. Nevertheless, in the first years of Soviet power, the museums created in Azerbaijan managed to assemble a rich collection, despite the obvious distortions in the reflection of historical truth. It was these works that formed the basis of the collections of modern National Museums, and, of course, the Azgosmuzey laid their foundation. It was the first museum to systematically and consistently assemble a collection. Azgosmuzey organized expeditions and conducted archaeological excavations. Excavations on the territory of Azerbaijan have always been carried out officially and unofficially, unfortunately, many discovered artifacts were exported outside of our country, but after the establishment of Soviet power, the situation in this area changed somewhat, and it should be noted for the better. On the initiative of the museum’s management, various exhibits were transferred to our museums from Moscow, and then from Leningrad, enriching the repositories of Western European and Russian art. Many materials cited in the article are not known to a wide circle of researchers.