In January 1917 on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1905 massacre that sparked the first Russian revolution, Lenin gave a speech at a meeting of young workers in the Zurich People's House. In that speech he claimed that the 1905 events were a prologue to a wider European revolution that, he believed, would inevitably happen given the horrors and suffering caused by World War I.1 Lenin's words were to a degree prophetic because, only a month (...) and a half later, a revolution of sorts did happen spontaneously and without apparent leadership, but again in Russia. A year and one more revolution later, Russia's industry was in the hands of workers' councils, and the Bolsheviks were running the... (shrink)

Liberalism is a critically important topic in the contemporary world as liberal values and institutions are in retreat in countries where they seemed relatively secure. Lucidly written and accessible, this book offers an important yet neglected Russian aspect to the history of political liberalism. Vanessa Rampton examines Russian engagement with liberal ideas during Russia's long nineteenth century, focusing on the high point of Russian liberalism from 1900 to 1914. It was then that a self-consciously liberal movement took (...) shape, followed by the founding of the country's first liberal (Constitutional-Democratic or Kadet) party in 1905. For a brief, revelatory period, some Russians - an eclectic group of academics, politicians and public figures - drew on liberal ideas of Western origin to articulate a distinctively Russian liberal philosophy, shape their country's political landscape, and were themselves partly responsible for the tragic experience of 1905. (shrink)

This article examines the unique role of Russian intellectual and émigré Lev Platonovich Karsavin (1882–1952) in understanding “Russian communism” as a phenomenon deeply religious in nature. Trained as a historian, specializing in the history of European religiosity, medieval sects, and heresies, the young Karsavin studied the manifold ways in which religious and politics were interwoven. His experience with concrete historical–cultural research helped Karsavin, who became an active figure in Russian Orthodoxy during the First World War, to (...) analyze the origins of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevism. Finding himself in exile in 1922, Karsavin continued actively developing the theme of the “religious” nature of Russian Bolshevism, believing that this was the only path to overcoming it in the future from an Orthodox Christian standpoint. (shrink)

The paper discusses Dostoevsky’s insight into the oxymoronic metaphysics of the Russian revolution. The keys to it are contained in two of Dostoevsky’s works. The first is Demons with Kirillov’s idea of self-deification in death intended to fill the gap left by the proclaimed absence of God. The second is Notes from the House of the Dead, where Dostoevsky depicts the Russian peasants as people for whom even such notions as freedom, happiness and honor are expressed (...) in monetary terms. The Russian revolution was created by people of Kirillov’s persuasion; yet this ideal was offered to people whose teleology was firmly rooted in the earthly life. The interpenetration of these worldviews resulted in the initial victory of the revolution, but the dominance of the peasant Weltanschauung with its earthly teleology ultimately led to the collapse of the communist project a few decades later. (shrink)

Seven decades separate us from the time when the workers raised the scarlet banner of revolution on the barricades of the Krasnaia Presnia district. The December armed insurrection in Moscow was the high point of development of the first Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution, which occurred in 1905-1907. Seventy years are enough to permit a comprehensive evaluation of the historic significance of the events of 1905, which exercised a lasting influence on the whole subsequent development of the world (...) movement for liberation. (shrink)

This article considers the evolution of the Russian University system during the First World War. Most of the imperial period, until the end of 1916, thanks to the liberal policy of the Minister of People’s Education, Pavel Nikolayevič Ignat’ev, a reformist course was implemented. Particularly important and promising was the expansion of universities’ network and opening of new universities in Rostov-on-Don, Perm, as well as the expansion of Saratov and Tomsk universities. In 1917 Ministers of Education of the (...) Provisional Government also followed the Ignat’ev’s liberal course received support with the bottom-up initiatives. Paradoxically, for the university system the result of crisis which lasted through the war period and the beginning of the revolution marked the democratization of management and the expansion of the students’ enrollment and the number of universities. (shrink)

Intellectual experiences of Russian philosophers of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries devoted to Russia demonstrate the intensive work of national self – knowledge. The concentration of thinkers on a certain range of topics, such as freedom and revolution, the state and society, culture and politics, religion and ideology, indicates a high density and polemical intensity of discussion. The thematic focus of Russian thought on national and cultural issues creates an end-to-end narrative with (...) an open structure, where texts are dialogically intertwined with each other. These statements often indicate a value and ideological conflict between various actors in the social history of Russia. This historiosophical narrative can be interpreted as a meta-text of Russian social and religious-philosophical thought, which in many senses is the practice of self-description of the national intelligentsia. It testifies to her spiritual and ideological quest, the struggle for a social ideal – about the moral choice of thinking Russian people, which encourages criticism of the historical experience of Russia. The main problem of this pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary discourse is the question of the moral and political responsibility of the educated class for the historical choice of Russia and its fate. The most important from a historical and philosophical point of view texts are the works of Russian Silver Age thinkers. Their arguments about Russia include both a reaction to the events of the three Russian revolutions and the Great War, which traumatized the consciousness of the intelligentsia, and a painful post-traumatic reception of their own intellectual tradition and the moral deformation of ideals that took place in it. Those ideals based on the idea of freedom and philosophical honesty in achieving the truth. (shrink)

Crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, written before and during the Bolshevik Revolution by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism. Cosmism emerged in Russia before the October Revolution and developed through the 1920s and 1930s; like Marxism and the European avant-garde, two other movements that shared this intellectual moment, Russian Cosmism rejected the contemplative for the transformative, aiming to create not merely new art or philosophy but a new world. Cosmism (...) went the furthest in its visions of transformation, calling for the end of death, the resuscitation of the dead, and free movement in cosmic space. This volume collects crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism. Cosmism was developed by the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov in the late nineteenth century; he believed that humans had an ethical obligation not only to care for the sick but to cure death using science and technology; outer space was the territory of both immortal life and infinite resources. After the revolution, a new generation pursued Fedorov's vision. Cosmist ideas inspired visual artists, poets, filmmakers, theater directors, novelists (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky read Fedorov's writings), architects, and composers, and influenced Soviet politics and technology. In the 1930s, Stalin quashed Cosmism, jailing or executing many members of the movement. Today, when the philosophical imagination has again become entangled with scientific and technological imagination, the works of the Russian Cosmists seem newly relevant. Contributors Alexander Bogdanov, Alexander Chizhevsky, Nikolai Fedorov, Boris Groys, Valerian Muravyev, Alexander Svyatogor, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Anton Vidokle, Brian Kuan Wood A copublication with e-flux, New York. (shrink)

This 1991 book is a critical study of the philosophical culture of the USSR, and the first substantial treatment of a Soviet philosopher's work by a Western author. The book identifies a tradition within Soviet Marxism that has produced significant theories of the nature of the self and human activity, of the origins of value and meaning, and of the relation of thought and language. The tradition is presented through the work of Evald Ilyenkov, the man who did most (...) to rejuvenate Soviet philosophy after its suppression under Stalin. Professor Bakhurst sets Ilyenkov's contribution against the background of the bitter debates that divided Soviet philosophers in the 1920s, of Vygotsky's 'socio-historical psychology', of the controversies over Lenin's legacy, and of the philosophy of Stalinism. He traces Ilyenkov's tense relationship with the Soviet philosophical establishment and his passionate polemics with Soviet opponents. This book offers a unique insight into the world of Soviet philosophy, the place of politics within it, and its prospects in the age of glasnost and perestroika. (shrink)

The events of the Russian Revolution, which took place one hundred years ago in October 1917, are reflected in Ayn Rand's first novel We the Living. This article shows Rand's relationship to the Russian Diaspora—though her name is not usually associated with Russian émigré authors. This article compares Rand's work with the novels of another Russian émigré writer—Mark Aldanov (Escape, Suicide)—which shows a common comprehension of the October Revolution in the works of both (...) writers, with similar art images, interpretations of the reasons for the revolution, and an understanding of its harmful consequences for Russia. (shrink)

"This volume contains two brief works by Isaiah Berlin, an acclaimed philosopher and thinker of the 20th century. "The first" is a short fictional piece he wrote when he was twelve reflecting his belief that the idea of a perfect society cannot justify the cruelties he saw in the Russian Revolution. "The last" is an essay he wrote the year before he died synthesizing his thoughts on topics such as freedom, determinism, and pluralism. Also included are several (...) tributes to Berlin's friendship, conversation, and thought."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Darwin in Russian Thought represents the first comprehensive and systematic study of Charles Darwin's influence on Russian thought from the early 1860s to the October Revolution. While concentrating on the role of Darwin's theory in the development of Russian science and philosophy, Vucinich also explores the dominant ideological and sociological interpretations of evolutionary thought, providing a deft analysis of the views held by the leaders of Russian nihilism, populism, anarchism, and marxism. Darwin's thinking profoundly (...) influenced intellectual discourse in Russia: it effected the emergence of "theoretical theology," a modern effort to provide theological responses to the revolutionary changes in the natural sciences, contributed to the evolution of a modern scientific community, and spurred the rapidly growing concern with the epistemological and ethical foundations of science in general. Scholarly battles were waged among the critics of Darwin--Karl von Baer, Nikolai Iakovlevich Danilevskii and Sergei Ivanovich Korzhinskii, and others--and the defenders of the faith. Vucinich is able to delineate the distinctive national characteristics of Russian Darwinism: the strong influence of Lamarckian thought, the delayed recognition of the contributions of genetics, the near-universal rejection of Social Darwinism, the early anticipation of the triumph of "evolutionary synthesis," and the heavy concentration on the social and moral aspects of evolutionary thought. Vividly argued and rich in detail, Darwin in Russian Thought provides a unique glimpse into the Russian psyche. Darwin in Russian Thought represents the first comprehensive and systematic study of Charles Darwin's influence on Russian thought from the early 1860s to the October Revolution. While concentrating on the role of Darwin's theory in the development of Russian science and philosophy, Vucinich also explores the dominant ideological and sociological interpretations of evolutionary thought, providing a deft analysis of the views held by the leaders of Russian nihilism, populism, anarchism, and marxism. Darwin's thinking profoundly influenced intellectual discourse in Russia: it effected the emergence of "theoretical theology," a modern effort to provide theological responses to the revolutionary changes in the natural sciences, contributed to the evolution of a modern scientific community, and spurred the rapidly growing concern with the epistemological and ethical foundations of science in general. Scholarly battles were waged among the critics of Darwin--Karl von Baer, Nikolai Iakovlevich Danilevskii and Sergei Ivanovich Korzhinskii, and others--and the defenders of the faith. Vucinich is able to delineate the distinctive national characteristics of Russian Darwinism: the strong influence of Lamarckian thought, the delayed recognition of the contributions of genetics, the near-universal rejection of Social Darwinism, the early anticipation of the triumph of "evolutionary synthesis," and the heavy concentration on the social and moral aspects of evolutionary thought. Vividly argued and rich in detail, Darwin in Russian Thought provides a unique glimpse into the Russian psyche. (shrink)

This lengthy and fascinating anthology surveys Russian philosophy from the middle of the Eighteenth Century to the present, accompanying selections from twenty-seven Russian philosophers with informative biographical and critical material. Many of the selections appear for the first time in translation. After a short introduction on the subject of Russian philosophy, Vol. I takes the reader from the thought of Grigory Skovoroda into the Nineteenth Century movements of the "slavophiles" and "westernizers." Of special interest here are (...) the selections by Skovoroda, Kireyevsky, Belinsky, and Bakunin. Vol. II deals with the nihilist and populist movements of the latter half of the Nineteenth Century and the reaction of religious slavophile critics to these movements. Among those represented are Chernyshevsky, Mikhailovsky, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Leontyev. Vol. III traces the course of Russian philosophizing, both in and outside Russia, during the Twentieth Century. Selections from Fyodorov and Solovyov represent pre-revolutionary religious philosophy. Writings from Shestov and Berdyaev are among the works of "philosophers in exile" who reacted to the revolution. The final section of the volume surveys Marxist philosophy in Russia. Several essays by Georgy Plekhanov show the Marxist movement in Russia in its early years. Selections from Lenin's Materialism and Empirico-Criticism are included, along with Akselrod's review of the book. The final selection is a translation of A. G. Spirkin's article "Dialekicheski Materializm" from the Filosofskaya Entsiklopedia, 1960.—A. W. W. (shrink)

Ukraine’s “Revolution of Dignity,” spanning both the 2013–2014 protests in Kyiv’s city center and the mass mobilization of grass-roots resistance against Russian aggression in 2014–2015 and thereafter, manifest new interpretations of ideas and philosophical concepts. In the first part of the article we unravel the meaning of the Ukrainian word hidnist – a moniker of the revolution whose significance remains underestimated. In the second part we situate Ukraine’s revolution within a broader context of “modernity” and (...) suggest its individualist foundation may be replaced by a form of “personalism” – an ethic that echoes that of Ukraine’s revolutionaries. In the third part of the article, we delve into the substance of the revolution’s agenda: its protagonists’ promise to build a non-hierarchical community of “fairness”. In the fourth and final section, the main argument of the article is summarized, namely: that the shift from individualism to personalism in social interaction and the transition from hierarchy to heterarchy in power relations, particularly with respect to institutionalizing “fairness,” embodied in the various structures and organizations formed during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, may have been reflective of more comprehensive trends in ideational change affecting European civilization. (shrink)

Path dependency is a most valuable tool for understanding Russian history since 1480, which coincides with the ending of the “Mongol yoke,” Moscow’s annexation of northwest Russia, formerly controlled by Novgorod, and the introduction of a new method for financing the cavalry—the core of a new service class. The cavalry had to hold off formidable adversaries for Muscovy to retain its independence. Russia in 1480 was a poor country lacking subsurface mineral resources and with a very poor climate and (...) soil for the support of agriculture. These basic problems inspired autocratic power and by 1515 an ideology was in place justifying it. Religion, literature, and law were employed to support the autocracy. A variant of a caste society was created to support the army. This made up the substance of the first service-class revolution in which all resources were mobilized to support a garrison state. After 1667 the external threats to Muscovy diminished, but the service class kept its privileges, especially the land fund and the peasant-serfs. Russia faced major foreign threats again in 1700 and in the 1920s and 1930s. Those threats precipitated the second and third service-class revolutions. The second and third service-class revolutions broadly paralleled the first. Reinvigorated service classes were created with state institutions to support them. As society became more complex, so did the service classes and their privileges. Ideologies were converted into devices to support the infallible autocratic ruler and his elites. Almost the entire population was bound to state service, either directly, working to support the service state, or paying taxes. The church and clergy were harnessed first by Peter’s Holy Synod and then Stalin’s Department 5 of the Secret Police after he revived the church during World War II. Writers and artists were also put into uniform, until they finally rebelled—but the arts retained their civic functions, first supporting the regime, and then criticizing it. Finally, law retained its traditional programmatic functions in regimes themselves beholden to no law. As the foreign threats diminished, the service classes lost their function, but the elite servicemen kept their privileges as the service states disintegrated and the service classes lost their collective élan. Both the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Empire collapsed almost without a whimper. (shrink)

This paper locates its genesis in a small town called Vitebsk in Belorussia which experienced a flowering of creativity and artistic energy that led to significant modernist experimentation in the years 1917–1921. Marc Chagall, returning from the October Revolution took up the position of art commissioner and developed an academy of art that became the laboratory for Russian modernism. Chagall’s Academy, Bakhtin’s Circle, and Malevich’s experiments, artistic group UNOVIS—all in fierce dialogue with one another—made the town of Vitebsk (...) into an artistic crucible in the early twentieth century. We argue that this creative collective transformed creative energies of Russian drama, music, theatre, art, and philosophy in a distinctive contribution to modernism, structuralism and formalism that contributed richly to the social understanding of creativity itself that is so evident across Mikhail Bakhtin’s subsequent body of work, and elsewhere across the world. This paper argues that a consideration of such interplay has much potential for twenty-first century educational philosophy. (shrink)

In the article, some problems of organization attempts of ‘spring campaign‘ to the USSR, which have been conducted by members of ‘first wave‘ monarchist emigration, are studied. A special place is given to the efforts in this trend of monarchist-legitimist members who relied on growth of monarchist sentiments in emigration and inside of USSR. On the example of activities and plans of ‘Union of Russian Royal People‘ named in honor the Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna in Bulgaria under the (...) leadership of colonel G. I. Dementjev, attempts of search financial resources in USA, involvement into antibolshevik activities emigrant-officers in European countries are attentively examined. Undisputed interest is about project of parachute landing into USSR by aircraft designer I. I. Sikorsky that submitted to legitimist emigrant’s leaders in 1927. There is a brief review of I. I. Sikorsky biography, of his way as a constructor in Russia before the Revolution in 1917 and of period of his emigration in USA when he invented the helicopter in 1939. In conclusion the analysis of failures by organization of military resistance against of Soviet Russia as result of absence of financial resources and the decline of interest by ordinary emigrants to activities of their leaders is given. (shrink)

The first part of this evolutionary study of the persistence of the autocratic/oligarchic variety of personal rule in Russia provides a historical overview, followed by two theories explaining why it persisted, interrupted by brief “times of troubles,” for over 500 years. Edward Keenan, on the one hand, hypothesizes successful long-term adaptation to a demanding environment. Richard Hellie, on the other hand, develops a theory of service-class revolutions and a cyclical pattern based on the methods of Russian elites for (...) overcoming relative backwardness. Neither theory takes a neo-Darwinian approach.The second part examines neo-Darwinian evolutionary approaches. In the cosmic perspective of Big History, the human species in its relatively brief existence has had an accelerating impact on other species and the earth’s environment. Biologists modeling complex systems come to a similar conclusion. Agent-driven history, as modeled by demographer Noël Bonneuil, raises questions about the adequacy of the historian’s traditional single-trajectory narrative approach to “the time of human history” and also critiques the biases built into the mathematical models of many evolutionary thinkers. An evolutionary approach to human history does not restrict itself to organic replication, but takes into account populations of evolving human skills and also group projects that act as evolutionary forces as well as units of selection, and outlive generations of organic populations.The third part applies this approach to the Russian tradition of state power by showing how group projects operate as evolutionary forces in a variety of modern power systems. The “parable of the tribes” avers that the aggressive agent in any given power system—ideological, economic, social, military, or political—dictates the dynamics of the system. The “braided stream” approach shows, however sketchily here, how agent-driven modern power systems interact, coevolve, and produce hybrid forms. The Russian tradition is highlighted in this evolutionary context. (shrink)

This article analyzes the change in the semantic field of the concept of revolution in the context of the perception of History. It is argued that the initial meanings of this concept first appeared in the early modern period at the intersection of the philosophy of history and the philosophy of politics to describe the radical new sociopolitical order and were closely associated with the concepts of social progress and emancipation. In many ways, the tragic experience of the (...) twentieth century resulted in a significant correction in the interpretation of History, which led to a sharp criticism of the deterministic and progressive concepts of the historical process, and caused a transformation in the semantic field of the concept of revolution. This ushered in a conceptual rupture between the concept of revolution and the concepts of progress and emancipation. Revolution as event also came into question, which precipitated a shift from traditional society to Modernity. (shrink)

The Russian Revolution of 1917 went down in history as yet another classic example of the general logic of the unfolding of the revolutionary process, starting with the proclamation of liberty and equality and ending with one-party dictatorship and terror. The present article argues that the common cause of all revolutions is the absence of a legal and legitimate means of obtaining power by the political opposition. This forces the opposition to resort to force, even armed methods of (...) capturing power, which in turn generates a new cycle of violence, sometimes exceeding the previous one. The only alternative to this development of events is the democratic procedure of free elections, which allows those fighting for power to shift from an illegal to a legal opposition, and thereby transform themselves from professional revolutionaries into professional politicians. (shrink)

December 6, 1963, marked 150 years since the birth of Nikolai Platonovich Ogarev . Ogarev was one of the first in the group of Russia's best sons who, in the dark years of reaction under the serf system, became forerunners of the revolution. Ogarev was distinguished for his diverse gifts and many-sided activity. He was a revolutionist — the organizer of the secret Land and Freedom [Zemlia i Volia] society — and also became known as a lyric poet. (...) He was one of the founders of the free Russian press, an original philosopher with a materialist outlook, a penetrating student of Russia's economic life, a passionate propagandist of polytechnical education, a proponent of freedom for oppressed peoples, and a spokesman for new esthetic ideals. Prerevolutionary historiographers neglected to take account of Ogarev's work, and, at best, recognized him as a "fellow-traveler" of Herzen. Only in the Soviet period did Nikolai Platonovich Ogarev obtain the recognition he deserved. (shrink)

This volume aims to commemorate, criticize, scrutinize and assess the undoubted significance of the Russian Revolution both retrospectively and prospectively in three parts. Part I consists of a palimpsest of the different representations that the Russian Revolution underwent through its turbulent history, going back to its actors, agents, theorists and propagandists to consider whether it is at all possible to revisit the Russian Revolution as an event. With this problematic as a backbone, the chapters (...) of this section scrutinize the ambivalences of revolution in four distinctive phenomena that pertain to the revolution’s historicity. Part II concentrates on how the revolution was retold in the aftermath of its accomplishment not only by its sympathizers but also its opponents. These chapters not only bring to light the ways in which the revolution triggered critical theorists to pave new paths of radical thinking that were conceived as methods to overcome the revolution’s failures and impasses, but also how the Revolution was subverted in order to inspire reactionary politics and legitimize conservative theoretical undertakings. Even commemorating the Russian Revolution, then, still poses a threat to every well-established political order. In Part III, this volume interprets how the Russian Revolution can spur a rethinking of the idea of revolution. Acknowledging the suffocating burden that the notion of revolution as such entails, the final chapters of this book ultimately address the content and form of future revolution. It is therein, in such critical political thought and such radical form of action, where the Russian Revolution’s legacy ought to be sought and can still be found. (shrink)

This article describes present day reaction of Ukrainian Baptist community on the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine and its reflection in first modern independent theological steps of named Late Protestant denomination. It is stressed, that complete process of theology creation is a maker of healthy and protected, factually free religious life in certain boundaries of country or land. Also it’s shown that in Ukrainian case for present day’s start of the modern Baptist theology discourse the trigger factor was (...) class='Hi'>Revolution of dignity 2013-2014 and de-facto Russian-Ukrainian ongoing war. Ideas and practices raising up in their environment mark how all this impacts the whole Ukrainians and members of Ukrainian Baptist Churches, do they feel themselves as responsible citizens of their country, would they react or not on realities of their country life or not, and do they think about question of their identity. This entire things signal about deeper processes of final institutionalization of named denomination, its entry into democratic era together with state. (shrink)

In the 16th century, Moscow proclaimed itself to be the the third Rome and discovered the special way or Russian Orthodox Messianism doctrine. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of Russia's unique global historical role went beyond exclusively church discussions, and the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome acquired an important place in the structure of imperial ideology. Even after a break with the past, after the 1917 October Revolution, the country did not abandon the idea of (...) Messianism, which organically fitted into the structure of Soviet ideology. At the same time, reanimation of messianic moods was carried out here in the format of the doctrine of the World Republic of Soviets and/or World Revolution. Of course, some backbone elements of old Messianism underwent a significant transformation, which can hardly be called secularization. The purpose of this article is to show that the time 1917 mid-1930s may be described with the help of a peculiar dialectic, as the unity of a radical break with the past and the specifically manifested continuity with it. Subsequently, despite large-scale changes, the idea of the peculiarity of the Russian way, firstly in Soviet and then in Russian society, including the specific perception of its past, continued to remain an influential political brand. This kind of discourse should be considered highly archaic today; however, it does not become an attribute of the distant past, retaining the attractiveness and even acquiring state ideology. (shrink)

This article considers revolution as a political clash and revolutionism as an aesthetic position, which is a topic inspired by the philosophical, social, and aesthetic experience of the twentieth century. This topic has been considered on the eve of the 100-year anniversary of the October Revolution. The author proceeds from the claim that one of the theatrical geniuses, Vsevolod E. Meyerhold, was, above all, a man of politics, while the other, Yevgeny B. Vakhtangov, was first and foremost (...) a man of art. The revolutionary pathos of Vakhtangov’s work is paradoxically actualized through the concept of myth and compassion as an alternative to cruelty and destruction. The personality of Meyerhold is described within the context of the revolutionary scene and in the unique mode of revolutionary nature and action. The experience of these theatrical geniuses in all their personal contradictions and artistic difference shows that it is possible to live during a time of revolution, but it is impossible to live in a constant state of revolution. Only creativity, as a source of hope and harmony, is an alternative to chaos and destruction. (shrink)

The essay concerns the highly controversial pamphlet of Rosa Luxemburg The Russian Revolution, in which Luxemburg criticizes Lenin’s post-revolutionary policies, in particular his dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, an elected body. The essay reviews the history of the text’s publication and the intense debate, which continues to this day, over whether or not Luxemburg changed her mind on its central critique. At stake in the argument is not only Luxemburg’s evaluation of Lenin’s actions but also the correct weighting (...) to be given to the two components in the central Marxist–Leninist dialectic of revolution: spontaneity and consciousness. In elaborating this point the essay brings in examples from the writings of Lukács and Stalin, and also discusses the dialectic’s centrality in socialist realism. (shrink)

The recently published story by D. Granin entitled Aurochs [Zubr] presents the recollections of N. V. Timofeev-Resovskii on Moscow University in the first years after the revolution. In his account, an interesting philosophical circle was active there at the time: "The logical and philosophical circle was headed by Gustav Gustavovich Shpet, who unsettled minds with unprecedented paradoxes and shook the most unshakeable foundations of this world, and Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin, a great mathematician who was able to find a (...) philosophical meaning in mathematics." V. Kaverin also tells about the tremendous impression made on him by a lecture Shpet gave in 1919 at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Through a brief analysis of the reflections of some prestigious contemporary philosophers such as Norberto Bobbio, Mulford Quickert Sibley, Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann, Michael Allen Fox, David Cortright, Larry May, John Rawls, Eric Reitan, Johan Galtung and David Boersema, this essay reconstructs Russell's pacifist commitment during the First World War. This dramatic event represented a real watershed for his multifaceted and ingenious personality, leading to his new political and civil commitment. Through a series of articles and lectures, he fought (...) against militarism, was in favour of a world government and underlined the psychological causes of war. All this coincided in part with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the ideas of which he initially shared; at the time of the Leeds Convention, he believed that the March revolution would involve a complete political and economic change at the international level by removing the causes of war. It was not by chance that he decided to join the Independent Labour Party, a choice that marked his separation from the Liberals. Although the latter explored in depth different forms of pacifism, Russell implicitly recalled the formula ‘Pax enim non belli privatio’ by Baruch Spinoza, supporting a fundamental paradigm of the modern political theory. (shrink)

The 1860s—the epoch of great reforms—brought to Russia a remarkable assortment of official actions that emancipated the serfs, liberalized the judicial system, created zemstva as experiments in limited local self‐government, granted universities an unprecedented scope of academic autonomy, and dramatically enlarged the number of young Russians enrolled in the leading Western universities in search of higher degrees in the sciences. These and similar reforms created an atmosphere favoring women's access to professional positions and contributing to the removal of the harshest (...) aspects of the lingering patriarchal system.Ann Hibner Koblitz's book offers a richly documented and judiciously analyzed portrayal of the widening scope of Russian women's active participation in the professional life of the nation. The book's analysis operates on two levels: the general dynamics of the rising social pressure to expand the range of professions open to women, and the personal experiences of individual women selected for special analysis. Koblitz is fully aware that the process of the emancipation and professional advancement of women was occasionally disrupted by adverse shifts in government policies. Concentrating primarily on the 1860s, this book makes many references to subsequent developments and provides enough documented information to create an adequate picture of the state of women's emancipation and professional employment during the waning decades of the nineteenth century.As might have been expected, Koblitz devotes the most interesting and penetrating analysis to the life and work of the mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaia, the brightest star in the emancipation movement and a most respected model of high professional aspiration and achievement. Inspired by the philosophy and ideology of the Nihilist movement of the 1860s, Kovalevskaia decided to enter the challenging world of science, specializing in mathematics, the queen in the world of scientific thought. The Nihilists made the idea of close interdependence of science and democracy a pivotal point of their ideology. Encouraged and guided by the well‐known German mathematician Karl Weierstrass of Göttingen University, Kovalevskaia published a series of mathematical papers that attracted wide professional attention. Henri Poincaré, a leading mathematical physicist, referred to the paper that brought her the Prix Bordin from the Paris Academy of Sciences as a “celebrated memoir.” The Petersburg Academy of Sciences elected Kovalevskaia an honorary member, the first woman to receive such a high honor—she was not, however, allowed to work for a magisterial degree in Russia, a requirement for university employment.Koblitz shows that despite compounded obstructions on the path to professional achievement, women's gains in Russia were equal to those in the West. Her study provides solid information and cogent comments on the historical background and the educational role of the higher courses for women established in all major cities. Women, however, had less difficulty in acquiring higher education than in finding employment commensurate with their professional qualifications. Their employment by institutions devoted to scientific research was almost always at the level of auxiliary personnel. I. P. Pavlov's main laboratory showed that even at this level there were women who not only manifested originality in experimental work but also published advanced scientific papers. In his classic volume on the development of the theory of conditioned reflexes, Pavlov referred to the publications of eleven women.This book is welcome as the first solid effort to draw a general picture of the multiple ramifications of the ascent of Russian women to professional positions in science. It also contributes to a better understanding of the growing movement in favor of broader participation by women in the full spectrum of professional activities. This book is a rich source of topics for special studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:After the Future. The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian CultureDmitry KhaninAfter the Future. The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture, by Mikhail Epstein; translated with an introduction by Anessa Miller-Pogacar; xvi & 394 pp. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.Mikhail Epstein, a renowned Soviet critic—his books in Russian include Paradoxes of the New (1988) and Faith and Image: The (...) Religious Subconscious in [End Page 508] Twentieth Century Russian Culture (1994)—emigrated to the U.S. in 1988. After the Future is the first collection of his major essays (written from 1986 to 1991) in English translation. It begins with the article “New Currents in Russian Poetry: Conceptualism, Metarealism, and Presentism,” which first introduced to the Soviet reader a group of postmodernist poets, just coming out (with the advent of glasnost) from the literary underground. Other articles (“Avant-Garde Art and Religion,” “After the Future: On the New Consciousness in Literature”), though first published in Russian literary journals, were shipped to Russia from “the other shore” (to use Alexander Herzen’s description of emigre writers’ whereabouts vis-à-vis their homeland). The latest studies (“Relativistic Patterns in Totalitarian Thinking: The Linguistic Games of Soviet Ideology,” “The Origins and Meaning of Russian Postmodernism”) were not only sent from the other shore but apparently produced for the other shore. Instead of analyzing the recent Russian literary crop and emerging aesthetic sensibilities, Epstein focuses on Russian historic experience in its entirety, which he somewhat didactically clarifies for the foreign reader.Despite its shifting perspectives, After the Future features a distinctive approach toward Russian postmodernism, its bona fide subject matter. Following Jean Baudrillard, Epstein defines postmodernism as simulation (“the production of reality as a series of plausible copies”) that engenders some new hyperreality and in so doing supplants “reality itself, which then becomes irrecoverable” (p. 189). The originality of Epstein’s position lies, however, in his claim that Russia as a historic and cultural entity is a postmodernist phenomenon in its own right that simulates and masterminds reality. Epstein’s claim that postmodernism is ingrained in Russian tradition is pitted specifically against those who doubt that Russia is ready to enjoy its own postmodernist bash since (contrary to the West) it never went through prior modernist phases. To prove that Russia foreshadowed postmodernism, Epstein draws on a number of historic illustrations. He cites the forceful adoption of Christianity under Prince Vladimir in 988, Peter the Great’s building of Petersburg in the “Finnish swamp” and Prince Potemkin’s infamous make-up villages as examples of the Russian tendency to forfeit the status quo for the sake of trumped-up, ersatz realities.However, Epstein’s arguments to the effect that Russia, and not the West, is the birthplace of postmodernism are not very convincing since (in accordance with his own premise) other countries can claim such a dubious distinction as well. (“Russia is the motherland of elephants”—the Russians joke about claims by zealous patriots that all great discoveries were known in their country before they appeared elsewhere.) Elsewhere, the building of the Chinese wall and the ensuing Chinese policies of isolationism, draconian enclosures of peasant land in England that led to a speedy transition to capitalism, drastic economic and social reforms after the French Revolution, and the racist policies of the Third Reich were just as arbitrary, and yet transformative of prior realities, as any of [End Page 509] Russia’s most foolhardy experiments. Ironically, Epstein’s claim that Russia is the motherland of postmodernism harks back to the turn-of-the-century controversy as to whether it is pertinent to apply Marxist theory to rustic Russia. Lenin argued that Russia can claim Marxism as its own because all of its long-suffering history was an anticipation of Marxism and leading toward it. Epstein analogously contends that there is a special, indigenous Russian route to postmodernism, a statement that evokes similar pronouncements ingrained in Russian philosophical tradition: Epstein’s thesis that Russia is “irreal” reminds one of Peter Chaadaev’s contention that Russia does not have a history; his idea that Russia is on the threshold of a cultural synthesis with the... (shrink)

A political and intellectual biographical study of Lenin which focuses on those aspects of his thought and political activities that had a bearing on the accession of the Bolsheviks to power in Russia in 1917 and the creation of the Soviet state. The book places Lenin in the context of his times and shows his relationship to other socialist thinkers. In particular it locates Lenin within the development of Marxist thought in Russia. Its historiographical chapter reveals the political factors which (...) influenced the way biographies of Lenin were written in the Soviet Union. The book makes use of first hand materials including sources from the Russian archives. (shrink)

The fundamental question in the Marxist theory of revolution is that of the socioeconomic and class content of a revolution. Under today's conditions this question takes on primary significance and is central to the ideological struggle. Compelled to recognize the role of revolution in the development of society, bourgeois sociologists strive, however, to give the concept of revolution a new content, eliminating its class essence. Inasmuch as the revolution in science and technology now in progress (...) is significantly changing the face of the contemporary world, it is characteristic of leading Western sociologists that they seek to present the changes resulting from the technological revolution as a qualitative change in the existing system, a "transformation" of capitalism. "It is a fact," writes the prominent American sociologist and economist Adolph Berle, "that during and after the First World War the entire world was steeped in revolution, and that its base was substantially more technological than social." Technological and not social changes in society are thus proclaimed to be the most important problem of our time. (shrink)

This article reviews the first book in Russian to reflect on Rand’s life and work in the context of her native land. It publishes some key documents from Rand’s Russian past for the first time and presents one of the most important independent and objective analyses of Rand’s legacy.

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the ending of the Russian Revolution delivered by the author at the 2008 Elie Kedourie Memorial Lecture held at the British Academy. It addresses the problems for historians in determining the meaning and moral of a revolution. The lecture analogizes the French and Russian Revolution and suggests that the Russian Revolution and its historiography has always been to some extent in the shadow of the (...) French. (shrink)

The article re-examines the key debates concerning the relationship between the Russian factory-committee movement and the Bolshevik Party and Soviet state in 1917‐18. It does so with reference to a four-volume collection of documents in Russian on the history of the factory-committees in 1917/18 which first began to be published in 1927 and completed publication in 2002. Rather than the traditional totalitarian view of a movement which was cynically manipulated and dominated by an authoritarian party, what emerges (...) is a much more complex and dynamic relationship. The article in particular argues that the so-called bureaucratisation of the factory-committee movement after the October Revolution emerged out of the practical dilemmas faced by the committees in the economic chaos of 1917/18 and the factory-committee leaders’ own desires to promote a rational, planned alternative to that chaos. (shrink)

Ukrainian lands in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been in proximity of great geopolitical changes several times. During that time the Ukrainian nation – due to various factors – encountered a number of “windows of opportunity” for achieving the realization of dreams about independence and national sovereignty. The author identified in the period considered four “general moments,” of which two have been completed successfully. The first of these occurred in 1990–1991, when for the first time in (...) modern history, Ukrainians managed to achieve a lasting and relatively stable independence. The second of the “moments” – still unresolved – are events that began in the late autumn of 2013. The process, called “Revolution of Dignity”, represents a new quality in the history of the Ukrainian nation, therefore, that the Ukrainians have to defend the status quo but not to seek to achieve an independent being. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the ability of Ukrainians to achieve and maintain independence is largely a function of the relative power of the Russian state as measured with respect to the shape and quality of international relations. (shrink)

What is the role of Soviet philosophers in the ideological and educational work being carried out by our Party in the shaping of a communist world-view in the builders of a communist society? First, it is the further elaboration on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist methodology of the problem area pertaining to world-view, as well as the exposure of contemporary bourgeois concepts in the field of world-view. Second, it is the elaboration of the methodological aspects of inculcating in the (...) toilers a world-view under present conditions, within the overall set of problems of shaping the person of communist society, including a theoretical validation of the entire system of concrete measures of inculcation of communism. Third, it is the direct participation in work aimed at the shaping of a communist world-view among the toilers of Soviet society, since all philosophers are workers on the ideological front. (shrink)