Soviet and Post-Soviet Marxism: Braving the Challenges of the Technological Revolution

The article is devoted to the study of the Soviet and post-Soviet Marxists’ views on the problem of technical and economic transformations. The stages in the development of Soviet thought in this matter are systematized, and the potential of applying the authors’ key ideas in the context of the challenges brought in by modern technological shifts is shown. With regard to the period after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the emphasis is on the developments of researchers belonging to the post-Soviet school of critical Marxism, as well as colleagues acting in an active dialogue with this focus area. What is emphasized is the high potential of the Marxist tendency in further studies of the contradictions of the economic system caused by technological transformations.

Overcoming and Penalizing Precarity: Narratives of Drug Personalities Arrested in the Philippine War on Drugs

The article problematizes state penality as a mechanism of repression of precarious workers through a war on drugs in the Philippines. The narratives of 27 arrested ‘drug personalities’ in Metro Manila tell of how methamphetamine energizes bodies and motivates minds for productive work. Bidding to be classified as willing and able workers and family men, the study’s participants orient to a moral stratification that pits the ‘moral versus immoral’ and the ‘hardworking versus lazy’. Qualifying their drug use as strategic and calculated, they uphold the neoliberal values of individual choice and accountability. Their support for the anti-drug campaign stems from their recognition of a drug problem and the socioemotional toll of the dysfunctions of living in the slums. While trade liberalization facilitates methamphetamine inflow, a war on drugs fuels an authoritarian populism. As the state reaffirms symbolic mission to protect its citizens, it blames precarity to a problem population.

Berserk!: Anger and the Charismatic Populism of Donald Trump

This paper explores the role anger plays in charismatic movements. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of emotions to the etiology of charisma, they tend to focus on mutual affection among leaders and followers, paying less attention to how anger—and particularly its subspecies, ressentiment—patterns charismatic power. Drawing on literature from political science, populism research, and the cultural sociology of charisma, we argue that ressentiment, which is associated with self-disvalue and an invidious need to blame outsiders, is key to theorizing the emotional energy that charisma delivers to revolutionary upheaval. The Weberian source for the intervention is his lesser known concept of ‘berserk-charisma’. Reorienting the focus of charisma research to account for its aggressive, ‘outward’ dimension has the benefit of drawing us closer to the vision Weber had for its social-historical relevance. We demonstrate our insights using the case of charismatic/populist support for Trump.

Education in Post-Soviet Russia: Marketisation, Financialisation and Bureacratisation – The Case of Universities

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, market relations and institutions have begun vigorously penetrating not only the fields of production and services, but also the social sphere. In this text, the author reveals the contradictions implicit in the transformations that over 30 years have occurred in post-Soviet Russia in the field of education and that have seen the total marketisation of this area. As an example, the article examines Russian universities. The process of marketisation of university education has taken the direct forms of the establishment of private universities and the introduction of paid tuition in state universities, and also of changes to the administrative structures of universities, to the content of instruction programmes, and to assessment of the quality of the education received by students as well as of the outcomes of the activity both of university teachers and of the institutions as a whole.

Indigenous Knowledge and the Social Construction of Patriarchy: The Case of the Bukusu of Kenya

This article is an ethnographic study on the Bukusu number system and the connections between Indigenous knowledge and patriarchy. It examines the ways patriarchy is embedded in everyday knowledge through a number system that has deep gender hierarchy symbolisms. The findings show strong connection between everyday knowledge and social norms that define the status of men and women. While this article is centered on Bukusu society in Kenya, it is premised on the understanding that patriarchy is a pervasive social problem that goes beyond Indigenous societies as evident in the feminist critiques of contemporary societies. Just as Durkheim traced the genesis of society to the simplest forms of rules associated with totemic beliefs, this article also points to the roots of patriarchy in Indigenous society so as to draw attention to the variety of ways in which patriarchy is manifested. By incorporating feminist critiques of patriarchy, it shows conceptual connections between the blatant manifestation of patriarchy in Indigenous societies and the latent, albeit oppressive, manifestations of patriarchy in modern societies. Overall, the article provides deep conceptual insights into the intersection of knowledge systems and patriarchy.

Post-Soviet Russia as a Product of Half-Disintegration of the USSR: Facts and Interpretation

The article shows the interconnection in the development of social and economic institutes of the USSR and post-soviet Russia and that on the post-Soviet space and in the Russian Federation a system of the semi-peripheral oligarchic bureaucratic capitalism has occurred, of which an economic stagnation is typical. The author proposes a review of the statistical data of three post-soviet evolution stages (1992–1998, 1999–2007, from 2008 until now), the causes of the economic decline of the 1990s, with accentuating the degradation of the technological basis and growing social contradictions, negative economic, and demographic consequences. The causes of negative evolution of Russia’s economy and society are shown. The answer is given to the questions: (1) what social forces were behind the reforms in the USSR and what social forces took over the power after the USSR vanished and (2) why Russia became a dependent, semi-peripheral part of the global economic system.

QAnon—Religious Roots, Religious Responses

Conspiracy theories are not new to religion, nor an exclusively modern phenomenon. But they take on more destructive and wide-ranging impact with modern communication technologies. Looking at the root psychosocial mechanisms of conspiracy theories, we argue that they frame ideas, history, and culture through the cognitive mindscape of special, ‘hidden knowledge’. They also serve as a unifying theory of conflict and narration of history. The COVID epidemic has strained the economic and political system. Although it may be a matter of perception for Q-followers, a sense of precarity is enhanced by QAnon, thus unleashing and mustering an awakening for such extremist paranoid discourse of ressentiment. This parallels the cognitive mindscape of ‘the Great Replacement’. Prior to election 2020, QAnon’s base had been growing in Evangelical communities. Its presence continues to be felt.