marxist historiography in the ussr and other count

8/8/2019 Marxist Historiography in the USSR and Other Count

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Marxist historiography in the USSR and other countries after 1917. The victory of the

Great October Socialist revolution in Russia created for the first time the conditions for

transforming Marxist historiography into the dominant school of historical science of awhole country. Soviet historical science developed in the course of a fierce struggle with

bourgeois-landlord and Menshevik historical conceptions, with the Trotskyists and

followers of Kautsky, and with other distortions of history. Soviet historical science restedon the basic works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. In the post-October period, Lenin’s

development of the Marxist conception of the historical process was of enormous

significance: he drew conclusions from the preparation and carrying through of theOctober revolution, from the first years of Soviet power, and from the history of the party

and of the international workers’ and national liberation movements. The demands of

socialist construction and the tasks of the communist upbringing of workers and of

combating hostile ideology made it imperative for young Soviet historiography to work on new historical problems. An important stage in the rise of Soviet Marxist

historiography was the research of Soviet historians of the first generation—notably A. A.

Adoratskii, M. N. Pokrov-skii, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, E. M. Iaroslavskii, V. I. Nevskii,

F. A. Rotshtein, M. S. Ol’minskii, N. N. Baturin, and M. P. Pavlovich—on such topical problems of modern and contemporary Russian and world history as bourgeois

revolutions (especially the Great French revolution), the Paris Commune, the rise anddevelopment of Marxism, the Russian revolutionary movement, Bolshevism, the Great

October revolution, and the national liberation movements. Research on these new

historical problems was organically linked to the formulation and solution of the most

important theoretical problems, including the role of revolution in world history, the lawsof class struggle in various stages of social development, the difference between the Great

October Socialist revolution and past revolutions, the character, moving forces, and

international significance of the October revolution, and the role of the popular masses inhistory.

A new historiography dealing with traditional problems and periods of history wascreated in the course of reexamining and overcoming idealist conceptions of the world-

historical process and affirming the materialist conception of history and through a

thorough study and reinterpretation of the historical material amassed by pre-revolutionary historical science. Marxist historians of the first generation subjected to

searching criticism the most important theoretical tenets of bourgeois historiography—

historical idealism, pluralism, and the various forms of viewing the past in modern terms

—and the restricted nature of the problems studied by bourgeois historiography, such asignoring the history of class struggle.

M. N. Pokrovskii, the first professional Russian historian to attempt a systematicexposition of Russian history from a Marxist position, played a leading role in the

formative period of Soviet historical science. The successes and the difficulties of the first

stage of the development of Marxist historical science in the USSR were clearly reflectedin Pokrovskii’s work. Attempts to discover new paths for historical thought led to some

incorrect evaluations and tenets and gave rise to oversimplification, “economic

materialism,” and vulgar sociologism in the Soviet historiography of this period, owing to

the narrowness of the factual base of research on most historical problems and to the



inadequate Marxist training of young historians. In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s

Marxist historians’ discussion about socioeconomic formations, the “Asiatic mode of

production,” primitive communism, slaveholding, and feudalism reflected the strengthsand weaknesses of the first stage of development of Soviet historiography. Under the

leadership of the Communist Party, Soviet historians criticized and overcame both the

bourgeois-apologetic and nihilist approaches to the past.

A new stage in the development of Soviet historical science began in the mid-1930’s. By

this time Marxist-Leninist theory and methodology had become firmly established in allspheres of historical study. The interpretation of the world-historical process as a lawlike

sequence of socioeconomic formations—primitive communal society, the slaveholding

formation, feudalism, capitalism, and socialism (communism)—became predominant in

Soviet historical science. The growth of professional skills and the training of Marxisthistorians (also in those branches of historical science that had been previously the

monopoly of old pre-revolutionary historians) permitted the undertaking of intensive

work and the writing of monographs dealing with many problems and periods of Russian

and world history. The study of socioeconomic relations and the conditions of the direct producers occupied the central place in historical studies. Thus, researchers studying the

history of Russian and West European feudalism had their greatest successes in studyingagrarian relationships, the history of the peasantry, and ancient Russian crafts.

Outstanding are B. D. Grekov’s and N. M. Druzhinin’s studies on the history of the

peasantry in Russia, E. A. Kosmin-skii’s and S. D. Skazkin’s works on the agrarian

history of West European countries, and B. A. Rybakov’s research on ancient Russiancrafts. Historians studied and discussed the social and economic preconditions of the

transition from feudalism to capitalism in Russia.

In this period particular attention was devoted to revealing the unity of the world-

historical process and the general laws of social development. For example, in ancient

history it became firmly established that the societies of the ancient East and those of theclassical world were slaveholding societies; there were many efforts to overcome the

“Europocentrism” typical of bourgeois historiography and to prove the fundamental unity

of the paths of social development of the countries of the East and West. The feudalcharacter of Kievan Rus’ was established. In prewar, wartime, and postwar scholarship an

important place was occupied by works exposing the fascist falsification of the history of

the Russian and other Slavic peoples and by works on the history of wars, the art of war,

and military-patriotic subjects. Nevertheless, historical science suffered in these yearsfrom elements of dogmatism and oversimplification; in the study of a number of

problems, particularly in the history of the Great October revolution, the Civil War of

1918–20, and the subsequent development of Soviet society, one-sided, subjectiveinterpretations arose under the influence of the cult of personality of Stalin.

The elimination of the negative consequences of the cult of personality, beginning in themid-1950’s, fostered the more consistent application of Marxist-Leninist principles in the

study of historical processes. The scope of problems subjected to historical investigation

was expanded. In domestic history the center of gravity shifted to the study of the history

of Soviet society. The historiography of Soviet society and the party—the study of which



had lagged in the preceding period—was enriched by valuable publications of documents,

as well as by monographs and collaborative works on the history of the October

revolution, the Soviet working class and peasantry, socialist industrialization andcollectivization, and national-state construction in the USSR. Historians began to work

more intensively on the history of Marxism and Leninism, on the most topical problems

of the history of the world workers’ and communist movement, on the history of thecountries of the socialist community, on the formation and development of the world

socialist system, and on the history of national liberation movements. Research in Slavic

studies developed significantly. For the first time in Soviet historiography, the history of the countries of Africa and Latin America began to be studied, and research on the history

of Asian countries was considerably broadened.

Marxist-Leninist conceptions of the world-historical process were further developed andrefined, owing largely to the discussions in the 1960’s on socioeconomic structures and

the “Asiatic mode of production,” the origin of feudalism in Russia, Europe, and the East,

the “ascending” and “descending” stages of the feudal structure in Russia, the origin of

capitalism in Russia and Western Europe, the principal stages of the Russianrevolutionary movement and paths for its future study, and Russian imperialism. While

emphasizing, as before, the general laws of the historical process, Soviet scholars beganto devote more attention to their specific manifestations in different regions and countries

of the world and to different variants and types of historical development. The history of

ideology and culture received greater attention than in the preceding period, and there

was a noticeable tendency toward more thorough investigation of classes and socialgroups in different historical periods. Historians began to work more intensively on the

history of historical science. There was a broadening of the scope of the problems relating

to the methodology of Marxist historiography (including the correlation of history withthe theory of historical materialism; the criteria of truth in historical science; the subject,

method, and tasks of Marxist historiography; and the specific character of historical

research), as well as an expansion of the problems concerning the conceptual framework of Marxist historiography (including periodization and the nature of historical facts and

transitional periods).

In the period of Marxist historiography in the USSR, Soviet historians have produced

many valuable studies that have received recognition in the USSR and abroad. In

research, a number of schools have developed, distinguished by the specific character of

their work on important problems in history, for example, those of M. N. Tikhomirov(Russian history of the feudal period), A. L. Sidorov (the history of Russian imperialism),

I. I. Mints (the history of the Great October revolution), and M. V. Nechkina (the history

of the Russian revolutionary movement of the 19th century). The development of schoolsstudying the Great French revolution and the history of socialist theories is associated

with N. M. Lukin and V. P. Volgin. Other research schools include those of E. A.

Kosminskii and A. I. Neusykhin (the agrarian history of Western Europe in the MiddleAges), V. V. Struve (the history of the ancient East), V. B. Lutskii (the modern and

contemporary history of the Arab countries), and I. M. Reisner (the history of India). The

rise and achievements of national historiography in the Union republics and the training

of Marxist historians in these republics attests to the fruitful development of Soviet



historical science.

The Marxist-Leninist conception of domestic and world history was concretely embodiedin basic, comprehensive collaborative works: the ten-volume World History (1955–66)

and the 12-volume History of the USSR From Ancient Times to the Present. The five-

volume History of the Civil War in Russia (193660) and the six-volume History of theGreat Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941–1945 (1963–65) were written, and the six-

volume History of the CPSU is being published. Collaborative works by Soviet historians

dealing with bourgeois revolutions include The French Bourgeois revolution of 1789– 1794 (1941). The revolution of1848–1849 (vols. 1–2, 1952), and The English Bourgeois

revolution of the 17th Century (vols. 1–2, 1954). The results of research on the

international workers’ movement were gathered in the collaborative works The Paris

Commune of 1871 (vols. 1–2, 1961), The First International (parts 1–3, 1964–68),History of the Second International (vols. 1–2, 1965–66), and a short history of the

Comintern (1969) prepared by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. The collaborative

History of Diplomacy (1st ed., vols. 1–3, 1941–45; 2nd rev. ed., vols. 1–3, 1959–65)

provides a Marxist treatment of the entire history of diplomacy. Specializedcomprehensive works devoted to the foreign policy of the USSR include the History of

International Relations and the Foreign Policy of the USSR (2nd ed., vols. 1–3, 1967),The Soviet Union and the United Nations (vols. 1–2, 1965), and The Soviet Union and

the United Nations, 1961–1965 (1968). Comprehensive collaborative works have been

written on the history of many foreign countries, including Poland, Bulgaria,

Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, the USA, Italy, and Germany; collective workshave also been written on the modern and contemporary history of the East and of Latin

America. The basic three-volume History of Byzantium was published in 1967, and the

Soviet Historical Encyclopedia, the first Marxist general reference work on historical problems, is being published; as of 1975,15 volumes had appeared.

The formation of the world socialist system created the preconditions for the victory of Marxist-Leninist ideology in a large number of countries. General processes, as well as

specific national features, were revealed in the young Marxist historiography in socialist

countries abroad. Three main stages in the development of the historiography of most of these countries may be distinguished, basically connected with the common landmarks of

their historical development. In the first period, from 1945 to the end of the 1940’s, steps

were taken to place historical science on a new foundation and to significantly expand the

organization of historical science, the study of sources, and the publication of historicalworks. During this period, however, the Marxist school, under conditions of fierce

ideological, political, and class struggle, only began to establish itself as the dominant

school in historiography. Scholars who based themselves on the old bourgeoismethodology continued, as a rule, to dominate historical research and teaching. From the

late 1940’s to the mid-1950’s, with the strengthening of the creative nucleus of Marxist

historians and with the appearance of a large number of monographs, Marxistmethodology gradually achieved a more leading position. However, this process was

complex and contradictory and did not yet embrace all fields of historical science. Since

the mid-1950’s, the final victory of Marxist-Leninist methodology in historical research

has been achieved. The consolidation and victory of Marxist historiography took place



under the ideological leadership of the Communist parties.

In research on specific historical problems two principal trends may be discerned amonghistorians of the socialist countries. The first of these trends consists in a scholarly,

critical reinterpretation of former bourgeois conceptions of national history, such as the

reconstruction of the basic course of the modern and contemporary history of Germanyand the history of the German workers’ movement in the general works and specialized

monographs of the historians of the German Democratic Republic (notably G. Schilfert,

J. Streisand, K. Obermann, E. Engelberg, and H. Barthel); Czech scholars’ new treatmentof the revolution of 1848 as not only a national but also a social-class movement; and

Hungarian historians’ study of the liberation struggle of the Hungarian people against the

Hapsburgs.

The second major trend in the research of the historians of socialist countries has been the

discovery and work on new problems, including those that had been ignored by previous

scholarship. Entire periods of national history have been interpreted for the first time, and

the objective socioeconomic foundations of basic social processes, long obscured, have been revealed. Examples of such scholarship include the fruitful work on the workers’

and peasant movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, andBulgaria (N. Gasiorowska-Grabowska, M. Gosiorovsky, A. Ojetea), the studies on the

influence of the Russian revolution of 1905–07 and of the Great October Socialist

revolution on the developing class and national struggle (L. Stern, P. Constantinescu-Jas),

F. Culinovic), and the thorough study of the antifascist Resistance movement by scholarsin the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania (O.

Winzer, J. Marjanovic; various collaborative works). There has been a marked tendency

toward research in contemporary history, and an important place is given to the study of the popular-democratic and socialist revolutions and of socialist construction.

The thorough elaboration of such key problems of domestic history as the history of the peasantry and its class struggle, the formation of the proletariat, and the development of

the workers’ movement, of the national liberation movement of the 19th and early 20th

century, and of the antifascist struggle permitted the writing of comprehensive works onthe history of Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and other countries on the

basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology.

marxist historiography in the ussr and other count

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