Salvaging Soviet Philosophy (1)

by Ralph Dumain


The philosophical legacy of the defunct USSR (and the other Soviet bloc nations) should not be left for dead without a serious salvaging operation to assess what it did and did not accomplish and to preserve what was valuable in it.

First, what can we expect of Soviet philosophy? One way to approach the subject would be to divide Soviet Marxism-Leninism into the three areas to be found in innumerable introductions and textbooks: dialectical materialism, historical materialism, and scientific communism. The further we move away from the first of these, the less worthwile the literature is likely to be. The regime had an incentive to showcase its goods in the one area in which it could at least potentially manifest some dimension of superiority, in the philosophy of science, i.e, an area in which creativity could be tolerated with the least threat to the regime. When we move into historical materialism, we enter a rigid framework and schema for the analysis of historical development and social structure, though it is still possible to be scientific up to a point as well as overly scientistic in pretension. And when we get to scientific communism, we can dismiss it as apologetics for the Stalinist regime.

Another approach would be through various schools of thought over the decades. One could follow schools of thought in philosophy proper, or one could follow schools of thought in the special sciences, including the human sciences, such as psychology and semiotics. One cannot overestimate the historic import of the work of Lev Vygotsky in psychology, for example.

What about the shortcomings in the core areas of philosophy? First, there is a lot of propagandistic work, and quite a bit of formulaic and unoriginal work, as one might expect from coercive bureaucracies. Secondly, there is a certain narrowness, most telling in the tendentious and dishonest treatment of schools of Marxist thought disapproved of by the regime, including much of what gets classified as "Western Marxism", dissident and anti-Soviet schools of Marxist thought.

However, there are some nuances here. There were original and not entirely "orthodox" philosophers who managed to survive in the Eastern bloc and in Western Communist Parties whose work was thus not completely excluded from the tradition, such as Lukács in Hungary and Gramsci in Italy. In the Soviet Union itself certain tendencies flourished or at least survived which share common ground with dissident and non-orthodox schools elsewhere, such as the work of the most influential Soviet philosopher of our era, Evald Ilyenkov. And, because of the abstract nature of the subject, certain aspects of subjectivity and dialectics could be treated in an interesting fashion without being fingered as dissident, such as the concept of the ideal in Soviet philosophy.

If it did nothing else, Soviet philosophy played a critical role in the critique of various schools of bourgeois philosophy, whether irrationalist or positivistic, esp. when in those cases where it shed the crudity of the Stalin era. Again, this is an area in which there would be a great incentive to show superiority of a Marxist philosophical perspective over the world views promoted in the West.

On a positive note, there would also be an incentive to develop areas in philosophy of science, epistemology, logic, semiotics, various special sciences, and related topics. While there is a limited amount of this work available in English, there is some worth reading, and presumably much more that was never translated, as well as a large body of mediocre work.

Finally, because of the inherently sociological conception of philosophy inherent in Marxism, one can expect some interesting work in the historiography of philosophy itself.

My main task for now is a bibliographical one. Let me outline very informally how I conceive of approaching it.

First, there is the language question. I want to concentrate on the material published—mostly in translation—in English, as I don't read Russian. I would also leave to the side for the time being works published in other languages such as French or German, whether translations or originals. There is much that was never translated from Russian, much of it good as well as bad. It is reasonable to suppose that, in choosing material for translation, there was an incentive to highlight some of the better and more prominent Soviet philosophers, as well as to pass on propaganda and hack-work.

Also, the intellectual life of the Soviet Union, of which most of us are acquainted with small pieces if anything at all, involves more than the official, dominant Marxist-Leninist tradition. There is also highly specialized, untranslated work in the areas of mathematics and the sciences, that was allowed to proceed apart from the main channels of production and dissemination of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Then of course there are underground pedagogical and intellectual efforts.

There is also the question of comparable works published in the Soviet bloc, in Yugoslavia, and perhaps other "socialist" countries, in a variety of languages. In Eastern Europe, in addition to officially sanctioned or tolerated schools of thought, there is the huge category of dissident Marxist schools, in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, reviled and persecuted by their respective regimes.

Then there is the question of periodization. There is pre-revolutionary (marxist) philosophy—and its relation to 19th century Russian thought—much of which continues through the early Soviet years, including Lenin, Deborin, and many others. I don’t know whether this can be sharply separated from the period of the early Soviet regime up through 1930, in which competing Marxist schools (in the 1920s, chiefly the Deborinists vs. the Mechanists) flourish until Stalin and his henchmen institute the New Turn in 1931. There is then the largely sterile period of Stalin's totalitarian grip on the cultural life of the nation. Then in the 1950s after Stalin's death the field begins to blossom again, gaining new life in the 1960s until the demise of the USSR. There is also the need to assess the course of philosophy in the post-Soviet period in Russia and the other post-Soviet states.

Limiting ourselves now to the English language, there are further subdivisions one can make in the pursuit of bibliographical aims.

Bibliographies, reference guides, dictionaries and encyclopedias are always entry points into the literature.

There are/were at least two English-language journals devoted to Soviet philosophy, and a few more of relevance.

In book form there are several surveys of Soviet philosophy, written by a variety of people ranging from sympathizers to opponents, covering the whole range up to the date of publication, or various periods, or topics, or individual thinkers, or various Eastern bloc nations. A few of the names that appear in this category are Wetter, Jordan, Scanlan, Bakhurst. There is a voluminous series, Sovietica, now published by Springer.

There are Soviet and Eastern European authors appearing via Western publishers, in journals, conference proceedings, and monographs. Just to give one interesting example, various technical philosophical works from Eastern Europe, some authored by dissidents, were published in the series Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, or in the Synthese Library.

There are a few outfits in the USSR that published Soviet philosophical literature in English (translation), but most of the books came from Progress Publishers in Moscow. The USSR Academy of Sciences published symposia and conference papers. Raduga Publishers put out a number of works on aesthetics. First I will concentrate on Progress Publishers.

Let me break down the literature into a number of sub-categories for my purposes:

  1. reference books (esp. dictionaries)
  2. textbooks, introductions to philosophy, Marxism, dialectical materialism, specific philosophers, and related topics
  3. various works of a propandistic nature for the general public
  4. various works seemingly specialized in character, but either propagandistic or vacuous in content
  5. classic authors: Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, etc., and favored thinkers of the pre-revolutionary era
  6. works in social sciences, political economy, law, education, linguistics, psychology, history
  7. serious works in what are for me hard-core (and overlapping) areas of philosophy:
    1. core philosophy: epistemology, ontology, logic, semantics, etc.
    2. (other) Marxist philosophy
    3. philosophy of science
    4. history of philosophy (general and specific topics and philosophers)
    5. aesthetics

I want to concentrate first on #7. Aesthetics is a big category by itself, and the quality of publications in this area is so wildly uneven, ranging from indigestible propagandistic trash up to serious works, I wish to put this aside until later.

I want to begin with Soviet philosophers of the contemporary era, from the 1960s onward, and I want to approach them first via Progress Publishers, whose publications are not easily at hand in local bookstores in the USA. So in the first installment of my bibliography I will concentrate on my core areas, excluding aesthetics, specialized non-natural sciences, dictionaries and other reference works, introductions and textbooks, classic authors, books of propagandistic or otherwise dubious import, books not published by Progress Publishers, non-book items such as journal articles, and all surveys of Soviet philosophy not by Soviet philosophers themselves. After that, I will proceed onward as time and opportunity permit.

It is impossible for me to establish this site as a headquarters for the study of Soviet philosophy. That belongs to much more ambitious projects in this area, such as the Marxists Internet Archive. It is even more difficult to cover all the interesting schools of Eastern European Marxist thought, such as the Hungarian school, the Praxis School of Yugoslavia, the Poznan school of Poland, etc., and a panoply of dissident philosophers such as Karel Kosik of Czechoslovakia. However, this being a resource of obscure and neglected sources, I do want to provide some entry points into what is for Americans the most obscure of all the areas of Eastern European thought: Soviet philosophy.

I welcome the suggestions and collaboration of my readers in developing this project here and/or on other sites.

Addendum: Please note that the links below are not limited to Soviet philosophy, but include related Eastern European philosophy as well as dissident and anti-Stalinist thinkers not considered part of the same Marxist tradition.


ON THIS SITE:

By R. Dumain:

Soviet Historiography of Philosophy: Review Essay 

New Year's Resolution: Exploring Philosophical Cultures (December 2003 - January 2004)

Evert van der Zweerde & Ralph Dumain: Correspondence on autodidacts & Soviet philosophical culture

Review of John Ryder, Interpreting America: Russian and Soviet Studies of the History of American Thought 

Review of David-Hillel Rubin, Marxism and Materialism: A Study in Marxist Theory of Knowledge  

Running thoughts on Merab Mamardashvili 

"Cultural Impasse & the Changing Forms of Ideality"

Jevgenij Zamjatin pri Revolucio, Entropio, Dogmo & Herezo (quotes translated into Esperanto / trad. R. Dumain)

Lenin on Aristotle (Bibliography)

V. I. Lenin: Collected Works, Volume 38: Philosophical Notebooks: selections from writings of 1914-1916

Lenin on fantasy & cognition

Pisarev, Lenin, & dreaming

Plato’s Idealism (1861) by D. I. Pisarev

V.I. Lenin: Their Abstraction & Ours

V.I. Lenin on Idealism & the Spiral of Knowledge

Plekhanov on “Bourgeois” Science

Amor Dei Intellectualis (Baruch Spinoza)” by Nikolai Bukharin

Mad Prophet (Friedrich Nietzsche)” by Nikolai Bukharin

‘The Colossal Old Fellow’ (Hegel) by Nikolai Bukharin

Nikolai Bukharin on oriental & racial mysticism & fascism

Marxism and Modern Thought by N. I. Bukharin et al

The Contemporary Crisis of Capitalism and the Ideology of Fascism by A. M. Deborin

Spinoza’s World-View by A. M. Deborin

"Reader Know Thyself" by Nicholas (Nikolai Aleksandrovich) Rubakin

Dialectic and Logic Since the War” by Herbert Marcuse

Short Handbook of Communist Ideology: Contents

Short Handbook of Communist Ideology: The Philosophic Principles of The Marxist-Leninist World-View

The Road to Disillusion: From Critical Marxism to Postcommunism in Eastern Europe (Contents) edited by Raymond Taras

Dialogues on the Philosophy of Marxism (Contents), edited by John Somerville & Howard L. Parsons

David-Hillel Ruben on Materialism & Praxis

On Merab Mamardashvili (from "Where Does Meaning Come From?") by Mara Stafecka

Evald Ilyenkov, V. A. Lektorsky, the Ideal, & Activity Theory:

For a more complete listing, see:

Evald Ilyenkov & Activity Theory: Bibliography of Writings in English (includes all Ilyenkov on this page, maybe more)

Evald Ilyenkov & Mikhail Lifshits: Aesthetics, Symbolic Mediation, & the Ideal: Selected Bibliography

"The Concept of the Ideal" by E. V. Ilyenkov

"The Universal" by E. V. Ilyenkov

"From the Marxist-Leninist Point of View" by E. V. Ilyenkov

"Humanism and Science" by E. V. Ilyenkov

Lenin and the Hegelian Conception of Thinking” by Evald Ilyenkov

Markso kaj la okcidenta mondo” de E. V. Iljenkov, trad. Yury Finkel (in Esperanto)

Galvano Della Volpe on E. V. Ilyenkov

Evald Ilyenkov's Philosophy Revisited

"On Trends in the Status of Dialectical Logic: A Brief Study of Lefebvre, Ilyenkov and Wald" by Claude M. J. Braun

The Problem of the Ideal: Contents by David Dubrovsky

The Problem of the Ideal: Introduction

The Problem of the Ideal (Extracts)

Subject, Object, Cognition: Contents & Preface to the English edition by V. A. Lektorsky

Idealised and Real Objects by V. A. Lektorsky

The Collective Subject. The Individual Subject by V. A. Lektorsky

"Cognition in the Context of Culture" by Vladislav Lektorsky

Activity Theory: A Marxist Approach to Psychology by Carl Shames

Theodore Oizerman:

Problems of the History of Philosophy by Theodore Oizerman [entire book offsite; pages listed below on this site]
Contents
Problem of Wisdom as a Real Problem
Review by Ralph Dumain
Wisdom and Abstract Thought by R. Dumain

The main trends in philosophy: a theoretical analysis of the history of philosophy by Theodore Oizerman [entire book offsite; pages listed below on this site]
Contents

Dialectical Materialism and the History of Philosophy: Essays on the History of Philosophy by Theodore Oizerman [entire book offsite; pages listed below on this site]
Contents
Philosophy and Everyday Consciousness
Dialectical Materialism and Hegel's Philosophy of the History of Philosophy

"A Scientist, or a Man of Wisdom?" by Galina Kirilenko & Lydia Korshunova

Principles of the Theory of Historical Process in Philosophy by T.I Oizerman & A.S. Bogomolov
Contents
Review by R. Dumain

Alternatives to Positivism by Igor Naletov (entire book)

Karl Marx and Modern Philosophy: Collection of Articles (Contents)

Hegel, Marx and the Problem of Transformations in the Logical Structure by V. S. Bibler

"The Image of Science and Metaphysics" by Nina Yulina

"The Relationship Between Science and Morality (Philosophical Aspects)" by A. Arsenyev

Robert S. Cohen's Introduction to The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's 'Principia' by Boris Hessen

Man in the “Industrial Society”: Is Herbert Marcuse’s “Critical Theory of Society” Critical? by Yuri Zamoshkin & Ninel Motroshilova

Denis Diderot by Tamara Dlugach

Semantic Philosophy of Art (Contents) by Yevgeny Basin

Chapter V. The Neo-Realistic Philosophy of Symbolism and Art: A. N. Whitehead

"On the Comic" by Tatyana Lyubimova

Soviet Aesthetics & Humor: The Societalists & Naturists by Edward M. Swiderski

"Man as the Object of Cognition in Arts Subjects" by L. I. Novikova

Red Stars: Political Aspects of Soviet Science Fiction by Patrick McGuire

Universal Language in Soviet Science Fiction by Patrick McGuire

Lenin, H. G. Wells, & Science Fiction

The Life and Thought of H.G. Wells by Julius Kagarlitski

Carnap’s ‘Elimination of Metaphysics’ by V. Brushlinsky

"Matter and Motion" by L. Bazhenov

On Revolution in Epistemology by V. Kurayev

Skepticism in Soviet Philosophical Dictionaries

Holism in Soviet & Anglo-American philosophical dictionaries & encyclopedias

Humanism, Atheism: Principles and Practice, by Inga Kichanova, Boris Grigoryan, et al: Introduction

Christ: Myth or Reality? by I. Kryvelev

Religion in the World Today by M. Mchedlov

Mankind and the Year 2000 by V. Kosolapov

"Hegel's Method of Doing Philosophy Historically: A Reply" by James Lawler & Vladimir Shtinov

Criticism of “Contemporary Society” and “Negative Dialectics” (Excerpts on Adorno) by E. Batalov

The American Utopia by Eduard Batalov
(Entire book on other site)
Chapter II.5:  The Technocratic Utopia
Chapter III.2: The Technocratic Utopia
Chapter 4:    "From Utopia to Antiutopia"

Eduard Batalov and the Philosophy of Revolt: The New Left through Soviet Eyes” by Ileana Rodríguez

On the Language of the Future by M. I. Isayev

Man and Culture, Language, Esperanto by Pavel Gurevich

Marx and the Western World, edited by Nicholas Lobkowicz

Hungary

András Gedö — Vita (Bibliography)

Crisis Consciousness in Contemporary Philosophy by András Gedö:
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: "Two Aspects of Bourgeois Crisis Consciousness"
Chapter 2: "The Contemporary Crisis in Bourgeois Philosophy"
1. Neopositivism: Linguistic Philosophy and Critical Rationalism
2. Life Philosophy (Lebensphilosophie)

"The Contemporary Attack on Science" by András Gedö

"The Historical Character of the Concept of Nature" by András Gedö

"Why Marx or Nietzsche?" by András Gedö

András Gedö on Rationality, History, Philosophy, and Post-History reviewed by R. Dumain

András Gedö on Marxism after the demise of the Soviet bloc by R. Dumain

Paul Szende on ideology & reification

Review of Béla Fogarasi, Logik by Alonzo Church

András Gedö et al on Lukács (1957) by Arpad Kadarkay

Alienation, Utopia, & Hungarian intellectuals: Mad�ch, Ady, Karinthy, Fogarasi, Nádor, Lukács, Mannheim by Joseph Gabel

Lukács’ Lost Manuscript Tailism and the Dialectic Reviewed by R. Dumain

The Question of Educational Work by Georg Lukács

On The Fiftieth Anniversary of Feuerbach’s Death” by Georg Lukács

The Two Epochs of Bourgeois Materialism: On Moleschott’s Centenary” by Georg Lukács

The History of Hegel’s Youth: Review of Wilhelm Dilthey’s collected writings, Vol. IV” by Georg Lukács

Simple and Higher Categories of the Dialectic by Georg Lukács

Georg Lukács on Relativism, Feuerbach, Nietzsche & Spengler

"Existentialism" by Georg Lukács

Georg Lukács on Nazism & Irrationalism: The Unity of Cynicism & Credulity

Lukács on Futurology

Lukács on Wittgenstein

"Lukács' and Husserl's Critiques of Science" by Mihály Vajda

Nature, Society, and Praxis” by Mihály Vajda

Theory and Practice from the Point of View of Human Needs” by Agnes Heller

Arta partikulareco kaj Esperanto [pri teorio de Georg Lukàcs] de R. P. Nogueira (in Esperanto)

Yugoslavia

Yugoslav Praxis Philosophy Study Guide (includes all of the following & more)

Praxis: Yugoslav Essays in the Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences

Humanist Ethics: Dialogue on Basics, edited by Morris B. Storer

“Does Humanism Have an Ethic of Responsibility?”: Comments by Kai Nielsen & Mihailo Marković, & Responses by Paul Kurtz

Historical Praxis as the Ground of Morality” by Mihailo Marković, with Comment by Paul Kurtz

Tolerance and Revolution: A Marxist-non-Marxist Humanist Dialogue, edited by Paul Kurtz and Svetozar Stojanović

Revolutionary Teleology and Ethics” by Svetozar Stojanović

Perspectives and Contradictions in the Contemporary Development of Man” by Niculae Bellu and Alex. Tanase; Commentary by Andre Niel

Human Nature and Present Day Possibilities of Social Development” by Mihailo Marković, Commentary by Mathilde Niel

Participation, Bureaucracy, and the Limits of Tolerance: Concluding Dialogue with Paul Kurtz, Mihailo Marković, J. P. Van Praag, Niculae Bellu

Marxist Humanism and Praxis, edited, with translations, by Gerson S. Sher

Introduction

Reason and Historical Praxis” by Mihailo Marković

Ideology as a Form and Mode of Human Existence” by Milan Kangrga

The State of Humanity and the Transition from Communism to Capitalism” by Svetozar Stojanović

Is Systematic Philosophy Possible Today?” by Mihailo Marković

Mihailo Marković on systematic philosophy in 1975 by R. Dumain

“Marx and Critical Scientific Thought” by Mihailo Marković

"The Concept of Critique in Social Science" by Mihailo Marković

Dialectical Theory of Meaning: Part One (Extracts) by Mihailo Marković

Dialectical Theory of Meaning: Part Two: Linguistic Meaning (Extract) by Mihailo Marković

Dialectical Theory of Meaning: Part Three:
General Definition of Meaning: The Interrelationships of the Individual Dimensions of Meaning

by Mihailo Marković

Philosophy and Revolution: Twenty Sheaves of Questions” by Gajo Petrović

History and Class Consciousness by Gajo Petrović

Reification by Gajo Petrović

"Freedom and Polydeterminism in Cultural Criticism" by Rudi Supek

Czechoslovakia

"On the Dialectico-Materialist Type of Rationality" by Jindrich Zeleny

The Logic of Marx: (Contents) by Jindřich Zelený

"Man and Philosophy" by Karel Kosík

The Individual and History” by Karel Kos�k

The Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Observations from the 1968 Era (Contents), by Karel Kosík, ed. James H. Satterwhite

Herbert Marcuse: Letter to Karel Kosík, March 22, 1963 (trans. Charles Reitz)

The Perspectives of Philosophy (1956) by Ivan Sviták

"Anthropological Conditions of Modern Culture" (1964): Conclusion by Ivan Sviták

The Sources of Socialist Humanism” (1963) by Ivan Sviták

Baron d’Holbach, Philosopher of Common Sense by Ivan Sviták

The Dialectic of Common Sense: The Master Thinkers by Ivan Sviták

"Toward a Materialistic Foundation of Logic" by Karel Berka

Poland

The Alienation of Reason (Extract) by Leszek Kolakowski

Debating the State of Philosophy: Habermas, Rorty, and Kołakowski (Contents & Contributors)

"What Philosophers Do" by Adam Schaff

"Wittgensteinian Foundations of Non-Fregean Logic" by Boguslaw Wolniewicz

Note on the Poznan School by R. Dumain

Bulgaria

"Doubt and Atheism" by Evlogi Dankov

The Main Principles of David Hume's Epistemology as a Source of Contemporary Positivism” by Elena Panova

Romania

Introduction to Dialectical Logic by Henri Wald

"Negativity" 

The Laws of Dialectical Logic

Philosophical Rehabilitations: Humor 

Mass Media and Creative Thinking” by Henri Wald

Henri Wald’s Contribution to Romanian Culture and Philosophy” by Alexandru Singer

"On Trends in the Status of Dialectical Logic: A Brief Study of Lefebvre, Ilyenkov and Wald" by Claude M. J. Braun

"The Graphic Figure & the Philosophical Abstraction" by Ion Banu

Miscellany

What Is Dialectical Logic?” by Franz Loeser

Yevgeny Zamyatin on Revolution, Entropy, Dogma and Heresy

Jevgenij Zamjatin pri Revolucio, Entropio, Dogmo & Herezo (en Esperanto, trad. Ralph Dumain)

The Second International: A Reexamination” by Andrew Arato

On the Origin of Language and Consciousness” by Jacinthe Baribeau

On the "Not Necessarily Atheist" Nature of Kwame Nkrumah's Philosophical Consciencism’ by Alexander Wooten

Science and Nature, Table of Contents, issues #1-10 (1978-1989)

Reflections on American Philosophy From Within: Chapter 8—Intersecting Dialectical Materialism by Roy Wood Sellars

Modern Science and Its Philosophy by Philipp Frank
Introduction - Historical Background
Chapter 5: Is There a Trend Today Toward Idealism in Physics?
Chapter 10: How Idealists and Materialists View Modern Physics
Chapter 11: Logical Empiricism and the Philosophy of the Soviet Union

Emergence Blog

Bibliography & Other Reference Works

Soviet Philosophy from Progress Publishers: Selected Bibliography, 1968-1990 (1)

Evald Ilyenkov & Activity Theory: Bibliography of Writings in English (includes all Ilyenkov on this page, maybe more)

Evald Ilyenkov & Mikhail Lifshits: Aesthetics, Symbolic Mediation, & the Ideal: Selected Bibliography

Merab Mamardashvili: Selected Bibliography & Web Links

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Selected Entries on Philosophical & Related Topics

Pod Znamenem Marksizma (Under the Banner of Marxism, 1922-1944)

Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science & Synthese Library

Selections from Contemporary East European Philosophy, Revolutionary World, B. R. Grüner Publishing Co, & Related Publications:
Bibliography & Web Links

Note on the Poznan School

Georg Lukács’ The Destruction of Reason: Selected Bibliography

András Gedö — Vita (Bibliography)

Yugoslav Praxis Philosophy Study Guide

Neo-Kantianism, Its History, Influence, and Relation to Socialism: Selected Secondary Bibliography

Second International Marxism, German Social Democracy, Austro-Marxism: Selected Secondary Bibliography

Marx and Marxism Web Guide

ON OTHER SITES:

Document Repositories & Bibliographies

Marxists Internet Archive: Soviet Philosophy

Marxists Internet Archive: Psychology & Marxism

The Value of Knowledge: a Miniature Library of Philosophy
(also part of Marxists Internet Archive)

Marxist Philosophy: Articles, Sources, Translations and Links

Filosofia: An Encyclopedia of Russian Thought

Soviet & related Marxist publications: Thomas Mrett collection at archive.org [12 pp.]

Social Sciences USSR Academy of Sciences @ archive.org

leninist.biz (Soviet titles & e-books: defunct site, but material available via Wayback Machine at archive.org)

BANNEDTHOUGHT.NET

Dialectical Materialism Page

Documents from or about the Soviet Union

Theoretical and Technical Books and Pamphlets from China in the Maoist Era: Philosophy

Mir titles [mostly science, mathematics, & children's books, 8 pp.]

A Handbook of Philosophy edited by B. l. Syusyukalov & L. A. Yakovleva

Lev Vygotsky by Mikhail Yaroshevsky

Philosophical Problems of Elementary Particle Physics edited by I. V. Kuznetsov & M. E. Omel'Yanovskii

The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics by D. I. Blokhintsev

Mir Books (blog)

Bibliography for Historical Materialism By Haines Brown

Bibliography of the History of Russian and Soviet Science and Technology

I Collect Soviet Books [for bibliography]

Philosophy of Science in Russia by Anna Alexandrova [interview with Daria Drozdova] |European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA), 18 August 2020

Georgi Plekhanov: Selected Philosophical Works [more recent scan]
     Vol. I
     Vol. II
     Vol. III
     Vol. IV 
     Vol. V

Georgi Plekhanov: Selected Philosophical Works
     Vol. I
     Vol. II
     Vol. III
     Vol. IV (in script markup language)
     Vol. V (HTML on ghost web)

Marxists Internet Archive: Georgi Plekhanov

Abram Moiseevich Deborin (Ioffe) (1881-1963)

Liubov Isaakovna Akselrod (Ortodoks) (1868-1946)

Sofya Yanovskaya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Philosophy in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: stub only

Marxist Educational Press

Diccionario soviético de filosofía / 1965 [in Spanish]

Nietzsche as Founder of Irrationalism in the Imperialist Period (Chapter III of The Destruction of Reason) by Georg Lukács

Philosophy in Soviet Russia by John Lewis (orig. 1946, reprint 1999)

Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History by Helena Sheehan

See also chapter 6 of Sheehan’s Navigating the Zeitgeist: A Story of the Cold War, the New Left, Irish Republicanism, and International Communism (New York: Monthly Review Press, March 2019)

Russian Philosophy [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Soviet Philosophy (Oxford Companion to Philosophy)

Dialectical Materialism (Oxford Companion to Philosophy)

Sovietica series (Springer)

Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science

Review of John Ryder, Interpreting America: Russian and Soviet Studies of the History of American Thought
by Peter T. Manicas

The American Utopia by Eduard Batalov

Bukharin and the Social Study of Science by Constantine D. Skordoulis

Fundamentals of Dialectics, by Yu. A. Kharin (Moscow: Progress, 1981)

What Is Dialectical Materialism (1965) by O. Yakhot. Individual chapters in HTML can be found here:

The Subject Matter of Marxist Philosophy, first talk
What Is Matter and in What Forms Does It Exist?, third talk
Matter and Consciousness, fourth talk

Problems of the History of Philosophy by Theodore Oizerman

“The Problem of the Scientific Philosophical World-Outlook” by T. I. Oizerman in Philosophy in the USSR: problems of dialectical materialism

“Kant’s categorical imperative as a subject of critical analysis” by Theodor I. Oizerman, in
Kantovsky Sbornik, Selected articles, 2008-2009

[Academic journal] (Kaliningrad: Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University Press, 2011), pp. 31-39

Skepticism (Skeptikoi: The Free Online Encyclopedia: TheFreeDictionary)
includes entry from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979).

Humanism: Its Philosophical, Ethical and Sociological Aspects by M. Petrosyan

Science at the Cross Roads; Papers Presented to the [2nd] International Congress of the History of Science and Technology Held in London from June 20th to July 3rd, 1931 by the delegates of the U.S.S.R.

Einstein and Soviet Dogma; An Elusive Relationship [review of Alexander Vucinich, Einstein and Soviet Ideology] by Alexei Kojevnikov

Elements of Gnosticism in Dialectical Materialism (Soviet Marxism)” by Boris Groys, e - flux, Issue #127, May 2022

Nonsense, but note the supposed ‘new self-understanding’ of dialectical materialism as “wisdom”’, per P. V. Alekseev.

Konstantin Megrelidze's Theory of Consciousness” [Georgian] by Giga Zedania, Identity Studies in the Caucasus and the Black Sea Region, Vol. 5 (2014)

Konstantine Megrelidze and His Times. Understanding Early Soviet Epistemology. Ilia State University, Tbilisi. October 1-2, 2014 [programme]

The Dialectics of Maria Zlotina” [Kiev School] by Yuriy Myelkov

Evald Ilyenkov, Lev Vygotsky, & Activity Theory

For a more complete listing, see (on this site):

Evald Ilyenkov & Activity Theory: Bibliography of Writings in English (includes all Ilyenkov on this page, maybe more)

Evald Ilyenkov & Mikhail Lifshits: Aesthetics, Symbolic Mediation, & the Ideal: Selected Bibliography

Stasis, Vol 5 No 2 (2017): Antiquity and Modernity of Soviet Marxism. All articles are downloadable in English or Russian.

Rereading Pashukanis: Discussion Notes (Antonio Negri)
Introduction: Antiquity and Modernity of Soviet Marxism (Maria Chehonadskih, Keti Chukhrov, Alexei Penzin)
‘When Was Caesar Born?’ Theory and Practice of Truth in Plekhanov and Bogdanov (Evgeni V. Pavlov)
Consciousness and Affectivity: Spinoza and Vygotsky (Pascal Sévérac)
The Communist Drama of Individuation in Lev Vygotsky (Maria Chehonadskih)
The Ilyenkov Triangle: Marxism in Search of its Philosophical Roots (Andrey Maidansky)
Cosmology of the Spirit (Evald Ilyenkov)
A Commentary on Evald Ilyenkov’s Cosmology of the Spirit (Giuliano Vivaldi)
Converted Forms. On the Need for Irrational Expressions (Merab Mamardashvili)
Boris Porshnev’s Dialectic of History (Artemy Magun)
Smart Matter and the Thinking Body: Activity Theory and the Turn to Matter in Contemporary Philosophy (Alex Levant)
Marx Against Marxism, Marxism Against Marx (Keti Chukhrov, Alexei Penzin, Valery Podoroga)

International Friends of Ilyenkov

Webinar Notes

The Ilyenkov Internet Archive

Reading Ilyenkov [mostly in Russian, some English, & photo gallery]

Ильенков. Фильм Александра Рожкова (Ilyenkov documentary, in Russian, with English subtitles; 1 hour, 24 min.)

Dialectical Contradiction and Formal Logic (1979) by Evald V. Il'enkov

On the Coincidence of Logic with Dialectics and the Theory of Knowledge of Materialism by Evald Ilyenkov, from Dialectical Logic (1977)

Ilyenkov - a philosopher under suspicion (1990) by Sergei Mareyev, translated by Angela Landon

INTERVIEW: Evald Ilyenkov and Soviet Philosophy by Andrey Maidansky and Vesa Oittinen, Monthly Review, January 2020

"Ilyenkov and Lenin's Dialectic" by Vesa Oittinen (2017)

Symbols, Tools, and Ideality in Ilyenkov” by Peter E Jones

"Ideality, Symbols, and the Mind (Response to David Bakhurst)" by Peter Jones

Ilyenkov and Foucault - some paradoxes and (im)possible connections by Jussi Silvonen

Corinna Lotz , Finding Ilyenkov: How a Soviet Philosopher Who Stood Up for Dialectics Continues to Inspire, reviewed by Dom Taylor, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, 29 August 2019

An International symposium: "Evald Ilyenkov - Prospects and Retrospects in Philosophy and Psychology" (2014)

Symposium on Evald Ilyenkov (University of Helsinki, 1999)

Soviet Philosophy and then some, David Bakhurst interviewed by Richard Marshall [3:16]

David Bakhurst (Dept. of Philosophy, Queen's University)

Peter E. Jones

The Problem of the Ideal by David Dubrovsky [available through chapter 4.1]

Mind, Culture, and Activity Summer 1995

Activity, Consciousness, and Personality by Aleksie Nikolaevich Leont'ev

Activity and Consciousness by Aleksei Nikolaevich Leontyev

Activity Theory and Individual and Social Transformation by Yrjö Engeström

Leontiev's Activity Theory Approach to Psychology: Activity as the "molar unit of life" and his "levels of psyche" by Paul F. Ballantyne

Activity Theory (Martin Ryder, 2007)

Psychological Conditions of the Origin of Ideal Acts by V.V. Davydov and V.P. Andronov

Subject, Object, Cognition by V. A. Lektorsky (entire book)

The Dialectic of Subject and Object and some Problems of the Methodology of Science by V. A. Lektorsky.
Also at Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition: Mind, Culture, and Activity

MCA: Research Paper Archive

ISCAR - International Society for Cultural and Activity Research

Vygotsky’s Tragedy: Hamlet and the Psychology of Art by Tania Zittounhttps and Paul Stenner

The Vygotsky Project (A Trbute to Vygotsky)

Vygotsky and Cultural-Historical Acttiviy Theory (bibliography, 2015)

G. S. Batishchev

“Primary and Secondary Figures in the Process of Alienation According to Marx,” translated by Julius Katzer, in Karl Marx and Modern Philosophy: Collection of Articles, pp. 213ff.

Activity: The Theory, Methodology, and Problems, edited by V. A. Lektorsky

“The Category of Activity: Inexhaustible Possibilities and Limits of Applicability,” pp. 7-14
“The Activity Approach in the Captivity of Substantialism,” pp. 89-92
“Not by Deed Alone,” pp. 169-176

The International Logical-Historical School [Victor Alekseevich Vazulin, 1932-2012]

Development of the philosophy of science in the USSR and the USA by Alexey Georgievitch Barabashev, Wilson Center, September 1, 1990 - February 1, 1991

Alexey Barabashev (Research Gate)

Institute of Philosophy of Russian Academy of Sciences [in Russian; see next link for English texts]

ABC list of texts in English and other languages

Igor I. Kondrashin - Dialectics of Matter

Nevajay I. - How is it Possible to Conceive Being in Science

Russian Institutions & Other Former Soviet Bloc Nations

The Independent Institute of Philosophy (multilingual)
Founded November 2022 by dissident Russian philosophers in exile ‘as a result of the military aggression against Ukraine’.

Logic [in Russia] [3 links dead]

Department of Logic. Moscow State University

Department of Logic. History (Moscow State University)

"Wisdom and Knowledge" [abstract] by L. N. Stolovich [ghost web link works]

The Chair of Social Philosophy of Ural State University

Globalistica (Russian Philosophical Society)

Voprosi Filosofii English Page

PHILOSOPHY IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA (1992–1997): Background, Present State, and Prospects?
by VALENTIN BAZHANOV

"The Social Role of a University Professor" by Mihailo Marković

Letter: Herbert Marcuse to Karel Kosik, March 22, 1963 (trans. Charles Reitz)

Karel Kosík (26 June 1926 - 21 February 2003) (blog, 28 June 2015 - )


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Uploaded 9 October 2001
Last update 8 September 2023
Previous update 22 September 2023

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