Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;The study critically examines the meaning of the statement 'Marxism-Leninism is Soviet ideology' with a view to clarifying our understanding of Marxism-Leninism. This involves an interpretative investigation of both the words 'Marxism-Leninism' and 'ideology' from the Soviet and Soviet studies perspectives, and from broader philosophical and linguistic perspectives. The resulting analysis is unique in Soviet studies insofar as it engages in a meta-critique of terms which are conventionally taken for granted by Sovietologists, and insofar as it introduces a new methodological approach to the study of Marxism-Leninism. ;Its central arguments and principal conclusions are as follows: First, it is argued that ideology is a term with multiple referents but an inescapably epistemological connotation which render it incapable of conceptualization. Consequently any attempt to employ the term in the analysis of alien discourse inevitably produces both epistemological imperialism and epistemological and referential confusion which reduces that discourse itself to silence. It is therefore concluded that the term must be abandoned for the purposes of analysis. ;Secondly, it is argued that Marxism-Leninism is an empty signifier which is subject to definition on a contemporary basis by the CPSU itself. A discursive analysis of CPSU discourse demonstrates that Marxism-Leninism is in fact the central element in a mechanism of control which bears all the features of a classic double bind. It is therefore concluded that while Marxism-Leninism is referentially open to re-definition it is connotatively attached to the practices of the CPSU. It is both fixed and not fixed in meaning. This phenomenon explains many of the paradoxes in CPSU discourse that Sovietologists have been unable to explain. ;The study concludes by suggesting that this type of interpretative discursive approach is much more fruitful than the epistemology critique which has been conventionally employed