Hegel in the Mirrors of Soviet Philosophy

The attitude to Hegel in Soviet philosophy was contradictory and depended to a considerable extent on ideological conjuncture. Waves of love and hate for Hegel alternated periodically. At different times emphasis was placed on the “revolutionary” method, dialectics, or on the “reactionary” system, the justification of the old world. On one page Lenin admired Hegel’s logical discoveries, on the next page he scolded him with harsh words for idealism, mysticism and “goddikin”. The article draws a parallel between the stylistics of Lenin’s philosophical works and the avant-garde artists and poets who gave a “slap in the face” to public taste. Philosophy becomes in Lenin’s hands the servant of politics; later on, the “principle of partisanship” became the credo of Marxist dogma and the criterion of the truth of philosophical doctrines. The Hegelian wing of Soviet Marxism was formed in the 1920s. The party leader of the “Dialecticians”, Abram Deborin, initiated the publication of Hegel’s Collected Works, which was published with a number of large and small interruptions over the course of  30 years (and the last, 15th volume never saw the light of day). After the defeat of the Deborinites in 1931, Hegel’s popularity gradually declined. However, some original studies coloured by love for Hegel appeared. Vygotsky used Hegelian concepts of “mediation” and “cunning of reason” to create a cultural-historical psychology; he believed that Hegel “walked lamely to the truth”. Mikhail Lifshits regarded Hegel as a “great conservative of mankind”, and Georg Lukács, who came to the Soviet Union, wrote his famous Young Hegel here and defended this book as his doctoral thesis (1942). Lifshits and Lukács concentrate on Hegel’s “historical dialectic” and on his comprehension of the revolutionary events of his epoch. By the end of the Great Patriotic War, Hegel’s philosophy had been declared an “aristocratic reaction to the French Revolution” (Stalin), and hatred of Hegel became reflexive. The party of persecutors of “Hegelianshchina” was led by Zinovy Beletsky, Professor at Moscow State University. It was only after Stalin’s death that serious research into Hegel’s philosophy could be resumed. E. V. Ilyenkov interpreted dialectics as “the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete” and traced how this — materialistically reinterpreted — method works in Marx’s Das Kapital. It was Neo-Hegelians who brought to the fore the category of the concrete, understood as “diversity fused into unity” (Ivan Ilyin); in this respect, Lenin was in full solidarity with them. In parallel with European Marxists, Ilyenkov criticised the interpretation of dialectics as a universal picture of the world, a new metaphysics cultivated by “diamat” and “istmat”. He did not, however, share the anti-Hegelian sentiments of the schools of G. della Volpe and L. Althusser. For Ilyenkov, Hegel is the greatest revolutionary in logic since Aristotle. At the end of the article are the facts showing that interest in “Soviet Hegel” is still alive today.

1. Althusser, L. et al. (1965) Lire le Capital: 2 vol. Paris: Maspero.

2. Althusser, L. (1965) Pour Marx. Paris: Maspero.

3. Arzhanov, M. (1933) Hegelianstvo na sluzhbe germanskogo fashizma: Kritika neoHegelianskikh teorii natsionalizma [Hegelianism in the service of German fascism: Critique of Neo-Hegelian theories of nationalism]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ. (In Russian).

4. Colletti, L. (1961) ‘Prefazione’, in Il’enkov E.V. La dialettica dell’astratto e del concreto nel Capitale di Marx. Milano: Feltrinelli, pp. VII–LIX.

5. Deborin, A. (1923a) ‘Marx i Hegel [Marx and Hegel]’, Pod znamenem Marxizma, (8–9), pp. 5–20. (In Russian).

6. Deborin, A. (1923b) ‘Marx i Hegel [Marx and Hegel]’, Pod znamenem Marxizma, (10), pp. 5–17. (In Russian).

7. Deborin, A. (1924) ‘Marx i Hegel [Marx and Hegel]’, Pod znamenem Marxizma, (3), pp. 6–23. (In Russian).

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9. Hegel, G. W. F. (1812) Wissenschaft der Logik. Nürnberg: Schrag. (Russ. ed.: (1916) Nauka logiki: v 3 t. Petrograd: M.M. Stasiulevich Publ.).

10. Hegel, G. W. F. (1817) Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse zum Gebrauch seiner Vorlesungen. Heidelberg: Oßwald. (Russ. ed.: (1930) Sochineniya. T. 1. Entsiklopediia filosofskikh nauk. Chast’ I. Logika. Moscow ; Leningrad: Gosizdat Publ.).

11. Ilyenkov, E. (2019) Intelligent Materialism: Essays on Hegel and Dialectics. Edited by E. Pavlov. Boston: BRILL. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004388253

12. Ilyenkov, E. V. (1962) ‘Problema ideala v filosofii (stat’ia pervaia) [Problem of the Ideal in Philosophy (Article 1)]’, Voprosy Filosofii, (10), pp. 118–129. (In Russian).

13. Ilyenkov, E. V. (2016) ‘Filosofskaia tetrad’ [Philosophical Notebook]’, in Il’enkov i Korovikov. Strasti po tezisam o predmete filosofii (1954–1955) [Ilyenkov and Korovikov. Passions on Theses About the Subject of Philosophy (1954–1955)]. Moscow: Kanon+ Publ., pp. 169–228. (In Russian).

14. Ilyin, I. A. (1918) Filosofiia Hegelia kak uchenie o konkretnosti Boga i cheloveka: v 2 t. [The Philosophy of Hegel as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Humanity: in 2 vol.]. Moscow: G.A. Leman i S.I. Sakharov Publ. (In Russian).

15. Kozyrev, A. P. (ed.) (2011) Filosofskii fakul’tet MGU imeni M.V. Lomonosova: stranitsy istorii [The Faculty of Philosophy of the Lomonosov Moscow State University: pages of history]. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta Publ. (In Russian).

16. Lenin, V. I. (1968) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. T. 18. Materializm i empiriokrititsizm [Complete Works. Vol 18. Materialism and Empirio-criticism]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ.

17. Lenin, V. I. (1969) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. T. 29. Filosofskie tetradi [Complete Works. Vol 29. Philosophical Notebooks]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ. (In Russian).

18. Lenin, V. I. (1970) ‘O znachenii voinstvuiushchego materializma [On the Importance of Militant Materialism]’, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. T. 45. Mart 1922 – mart 1923 [Complete Works. Vol. 45. March 1922 – march 1923]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ., pp. 23–33. (In Russian).

19. Lenin, V. I. (1973) ‘K dvadtsatipiatiletiiu smerti Iosifa Ditsgena [To the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the death of Joseph Ditsgen]’, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. T. 23 [Complete Works. Vol. 23]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ., pp. 117–120. (In Russian).

20. Lifshits, M. A. (1988) ‘Iz avtobiografii idey [From the Autobiography of Ideas]’, in Kontekst 1987. Literaturno-teoreticheskie issledovaniia [Context 1987. Literary and Theoretical Studies]. Moscow: Nauka Publ., pp. 264–318. (In Russian).

21. Lifshits, M. A. (2012a) Nadoelo. V zashchitu obyknovennogo Marxizma [Enough. In Defence of Ordinary Marxism]. Moscow: Iskusstvo – XXI vek Publ. (In Russian).

22. Lifshits, M. A. (2012b) O Hegele [On Hegel]. Moscow: Grundrisse Publ. (In Russian).

23. Lifshits, M. A. (2015) Ocherki russkoi kul’tury [Essays on Russian Culture]. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt Publ.; Kul’tura Publ. (In Russian).

24. Mitin, M. (1932) ‘Hegel i teoriia materialisticheskoi dialektiki [Hegel and the theory of materialist dialectics]’, in Hegel i dialekticheskii materializm [Hegel and Dialectical Materialism]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ., pp. 63–99. (In Russian).

25. Pashukanis, K. (1932) ‘Hegel i voprosy gosudarstva i nrava [Hegel and the Issues of State and Morality]’, in Hegel i dialekticheskii materialism [Hegel and Dialectical Materialism]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ., pp. 214– 229. (In Russian).

26. Raltsevich, V. (1932) ‘Hegel — ideolog burzhuazii [Hegel — an Ideologist of Bourgeoisie]’, in Hegel i dialekticheskii materializm [Hegel and Dialectical Materialism]. Moscow: Partizdat Publ., pp. 100–129. (In Russian).

27. Vygotsky, L. S. (1982) ‘Istoricheskii smysl psikhologicheskogo krizisa [Historical Meaning of Psychological Crisis]’, in Sobranie sochinenii: v 6 t. T. 1 [Collected works: in 6 vol. Vol. 1]. Moscow: Pedagogika Publ., pp. 290–436. (In Russian).

28. Vygotsky, L. S. (1983) Sobraniye sochineniy: v 6 t. T. 5. Osnovy defektologii [Collected works: in 6 volumes. V. 5. Fundamentals of defectology]. Moscow: Pedagogika Publ. (In Russian).