The Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism (PSSCM): Particular Characteristics,Main Tendencies,and Its Place in the System of Marxist Studies in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract

The author characterizes the main stages in the rise of the Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism (PSSCM) and highlights its most important features, distinguishing it from other tendencies of Marxist thought in Russia. The latter include the orthodox version of Marxism, the social democratic tendency, and the ‘Russophile’ tendency. In contrast to these trends, the PSSCM is oriented toward elaboration of a dialectical materialist methodology; toward development of creative Soviet and world traditions in the study of social alienation and de-alienation; toward the critical use of Marx and his followers’ achievements with the aim of developing the main elements of the ‘Capital’ of the 21st century; and toward studying the prospects for the future ‘realm of freedom’ (Marx) as the dialectical sublation not only of capitalism, but also of the entire system of relations of social alienation in the context of facing the contemporary global problems. A feature of the article is its extensive bibliography of works by Russian Marxists.

Keywords

Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism Marxism Marxism in Russia dialectics political economy late capitalism

Origins, basic characteristics, and main stages of the development of the PSSCM

A brief general description of PSSCM

The Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism (PSSCM) has been formed as a result of the long-term activity of Russian scholars belonging to the Marxist tendency, who believe that classical Marxism requires not only protection, but also development. This development suggests a sound criticism of the classics and the standpoints of its predecessors. The school evolved out of creative (unorthodox) Soviet Marxism.

The representatives of the PSSCM claim to be those who seek a dialectical sublation-development of Karl Marx’s methodology and theory. They are critical of social democratic reformism but emphasize not only the reactualization of Marx’s classical ideas but also their positive negation, critique, and dialectical development.

The PSSCM as a scientific community is an open network of scholars who are focusing on different areas of social studies, including philosophy, political economy, sociology, political science and other fields, representing different generations of social researchers from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other countries of the post-Soviet space. As for Russia, the most important geographical centers where this tendency is developing presently are Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but scholars close to this school also work in the South and East of Russia, in many of its regional scientific and educational centers.

At present, the PSSCM is the most stable (having had three decades long activities) and largest in the post-Soviet space, which is proven in particular by the following facts: conferences initiated by the PSSCM have engaged several hundred people each; every year its representatives have dozens of publications, including individual articles in leading Russian and international journals, collective monographs, and the publication of the journals Voprosy politicheskoy ekonomii [Problems in Political Economy] and Alternativy [Alternatives], with the PSSCM members strongly represented in the editorial boards. The school maintains broad international relations, conducting a dialogue with the Marxists all over the world (this aspect will be explored in more detail below).

The legacy being the basis for the PSSCM representatives

Speaking of the differentiae specificae of this tendency, it should be emphasized that all its adherents have a certain heritage as their basis, which creates the foundation for their unification into this school. And in this heritage, Karl Marx is the most important one, with his works having formed the mindset of all the adherents of this school. In contrast to dogmatic ‘Marxism’ (Soviet and non-Soviet), it is the critical aspect of Marxism that is emphasized by scholars collaborating within the PSSCM.

We emphasize that Marxism has always been and remains a tendency for which the criticism of its predecessors (including the founders of Marxism, Marx and Engels) is an indispensable precondition for the vitality and development of the theory. However, in the 20th century, in the ‘real socialism’ countries and beyond, a wide range of tendencies emerged that can be conventionally classified as dogmatic Marxism, in which the positions of the classics were perceived as the absolute truth and could not be questioned. In contrast to this dogmatic Marxism, the PSSCM adherents consider constant sound criticism of their predecessors and colleagues, as well as self-criticism, as a condition for the development of their theory.

The PSSCM fully is reproducing and critically developing the entire set of works by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, including their manuscripts, early and late works. In particular, an indicator of the interest in the critical use of this heritage is the extensive array of publications in leading academic journals and the whole series of monographs dedicated to the celebration of the 200th anniversaries of Marx and Engels (Buzgalin et al., 2020; Marx after Marx, 2018; Socioeconomic Theory of Karl Marx, 2018).

The PSSCM adherents have a deep respect for, and are critical of, the legacies of Georgi Plekhanov and Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin, considering them to be major theoretical thinkers but not idolizing them, with their ideas being not subject to creative criticism and development. In particular, evidence of the interest in the development of Lenin’s heritage was the publication of the book ‘Lenin Online: 14 Professors on V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin’ in two editions (Lenin Online, 2020), whose authors explore different aspects of Ulyanov the theorist and Lenin the practitioner, relying on verified theoretical methodology (the book is published on the 140th anniversary and then on the 150th anniversary of Lenin). Also of note are the book ‘V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin. The Breakthrough’ (Buzgalin et al., 2022) and articles in leading academic journals published by such researchers working as part of the PSSCM framework or conducting an active dialogue with the school as Mikhail Voeykov, Georgy Vodolazov, Vladlen Loginov, Boris Slavin, Vladimir Shevchenko, and others.

The representatives of Marxism in the mid-20th century, whose legacy is treated with the greatest attention (although they do not consider it true a priori), are György Lukács, Michael Lifshitz, Evald Ilyenkov, Jean-Paul Sartre, Erich Fromm, and others

Another important aspect of the Soviet heritage, which is used by the contemporary Russian Marxists and, in particular, by the PSSCM adherents, are the works by several authors who have creatively developed Marx’s ideas and shown that, along with the classical formational division that was reproduced in the Soviet textbooks (primitive communal social formation, slave-holding social formation, feudal, capitalist and communist social formations), Marx’ works suggest other breakdowns of historical process, in particular the singling out of such large subspaces of world history as the ‘realm of necessity’ and the ‘realm of freedom’, prehistory and history.

The legacy in the field of philosophy of culture reflected in the works of Vadim Mezhuev (2006, 2007) and Nal Zlobin (1980, 1997) in particular is developed as part of the PSSCM tendency primarily in the works by Lyudmila Bulavka-Buzgalina, Professor of Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Interaction of the PSSCM with other tendencies of global Marxism

At present, the PSSCM representatives are actively engaged with organizations, networks, and intellectual trends such as Transform!, Historical Materialism, Science & Society, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, International Critical Thought, World Review of Political Economy, Radical Review of Political Economy, Radical Philosophy Association, Third World Forum, founded by Samir Amin (Forum Tiers Monde), and others.

The School’s scholars have conducted and continue to conduct research on the problems of late capitalism in face-to-face and in a long-distance dialogue with such renowned Marxist political economists as Michael Brie (Germany), Radhika Desai (Canada), David Kotz (USA), David Lane (UK), David Laibman (USA), Michael Levy (France), Hiroshi Onishi (Japan), Wolfgang Haug (Germany), and Cheng Enfu (China).

Regarding international political economy associations, in recent years the closest cooperation has been kept with the PSSCM and the World Political Economy Association (WAPE) as well as with scholars who belong to the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy (IIPPE) (the latter include Lane Campbell, Alfredo Saad-Filho, Dimitris Milonakis, and so on).

We should also note the active dialogue maintained by scholars engaged with the PSSCM with scholars who belong to the spectrum of the Radical Philosophical Association, with their main representatives working in the United States, and with the legacy of J.-P. Sartre playing an important role in their activities, as well as the analysis of socio-cultural problems, problems of the relationship between the movement toward socialism and the solution of environmental problems—the so-called ‘ecomarxism’. Here we can mention such researchers as Elizabeth Bowman, Robert Stone, Karsten J. Struhl (1998) and some other representatives of the Radical Philosophy Association of the United States.

The PSSCM representatives are taking an active part in major international forums devoted to the development of political economy and Marxism, such as the annual IIPPE conference, the Left Forum in New York, and the World Congress on Marxism in Beijing.

Regarding the relationship of the PSSCM scholars with such tendencies of Western Marxism or with intellectual traditions close to Marxism as Freudo-Marxism, the Frankfurt School, the postmodernist left tendencies, and analytical Marxism, it should be stressed that in most cases the PSSCM scholars interact with these trends much less than with the trends mentioned above.

There has been a certain dialogue among the PSSCM scholars with representatives of the intellectual tradition of Trotskyism (Ernest Mandel, Daniel Bensaid, Alex Callinicos, etc.). The Trotskyist theorists are attracted first and foremost by their desire to creatively develop Marx’s own legacy and their critical attitude to Stalinist deformations of socialist theory and practice, although the rigid political engagement of most of these theorists is one reason why the PSSCM representatives cannot be classified as part of this tendency.

The core of the school and a brief description of its relationship with other tendencies and trends in Marxism

The core of the School includes such scholars as professors Alexander Buzgalin and Andrei Kolganov, Lyudmila Bulavka-Buzgalina, Mikhail Voyeikov, Gennady Lobastov, and Boris Slavin, whose works will be described in detail below. We should also mention such representatives of the school’s younger generation as Gleb Maslov, who develops the problems of technological development and planning from the perspective of Marxist methodology (Maslov, 2020), Natalia Yakovleva, who studies the problems of education (Yakovleva, 2018), Grigory Sergeev, who studies the contradictions of modern imperialism (Sergeev, 2020), and Rafael Abdulov, who studies the contradictions of global capitalism. The author of this article also identifies herself as a representative of the PSSCM younger generation. Young researchers such as Alexandra Arabadzhyan, Gulnara Aitova, and Olga Lemeshonok apply the methodology developed within the PSSCM to various degrees, and Daler Dzhabborov, Oleg Komolov, Tamara Stepanova, and others are engaged in an active dialogue with the school. The scientific specialty of researchers within the PSSCM will be analyzed in more detail in the following sections of this article.

A detailed description of the School’s relationship with other Marxist scholars will follow. For the purposes of this section, we will simply note that there are some scholars who, although not directly affiliated to the PSSCM, are closely interacting with the core school both in scholarly research, including joint publications, and in various public dialogues. Among the most prominent researchers who engage in dialogue with the School are Grigory Vodolazov, Ruslan Dzarasov, Emil Rudyk, Kaisyn Khubiev, Mikhail Pavlov, Vladimir Shevchenko, and David Epstein. Also an active dialogue with the PSSCM was maintained by two scholars in political economy, who passed away in 2020: Georgy Tsagolov, the son of the famous Soviet political economist Nikolai Tsagolov (the founder of the so-called ‘Tsagolov, or university school of political economy’), who was actively developing the theory of a new social system—‘integral society’, which, in his view, is to replace both capitalism and ‘real socialism’ (Tsagolov, 2016, 2018) and Viktor Ryazanov (2017, 2019), who was focusing on characterizing the contemporary stage of capitalism, including crisis theory and socially oriented development, and exploring possibilities of post-Marxist synthesis in political economy. We should also note the dialogue with philosophers working at the Faculty of Philosophy of Lomonosov Moscow State University, who analyze the role and significance of Marxist methodology for the development of socio-philosophical thought and the solution of current problems—Vladimir Mironov (Mironov, 2018a, 2018b), Karen Momdzhyan (2018), Vladimir Krzhevov, etc.

However, it should be stressed that each of the authors mentioned is an independent scholar, and the characterization of him or her as a thinker close to the PSSCM should be understood with a certain degree of formality.

The institutionalization of PSSCM activities (research centers and projects, scientific journals, regular conferences)

The School has developed around three projects which are at the same time institutional forms of the School’s activity: the journal Alternativy [Alternatives] (which has been published regularly for 30 years—since 1991), the Professorial Seminar, which has been working in dialogue with the Education Committee of the Russian State Duma for over 15 years, and the Scientific and Educational Centre for Modern Marxist Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy of Lomonosov Moscow State University, which was established in 2017. This center is now one of the most important institutional centers for the activities connected with the PSSCM school. Also noteworthy as a PSSCM connected educational project are the regular lectures for those interested in the topic of applying Marxist methodology to explain reality, which are held within the framework of the Internet Institute ‘Socialism-XXI’, operating since 2007.

It should be noted that Russia’s leading academic journal in the field of political economy, Voprosy politicheskiy ekonomii [Problems in Political Economy], was also established at the initiative and with the active participation of several key members of the PSSCM (the journal has been published in print form since 2015). The journal is recognized by the academic community in both the post-Soviet and English-speaking space (from 2019 the official languages of the journal have been English and Russian) and is a platform for the publication of leading researchers in the field of political economy in the post-Soviet space.

An important feature of all the PSSCM institutional forms is that they are open to a dialogue both with representatives of other trends of Marxist thought and with researchers and thinkers who do not directly identify themselves with Marxism, but who explore in depth certain theoretical and methodological problems in this area.

The PSSCM institutional forms are the initiators and one of the main organizers of the International Political Economy Congress, which has been held regularly in Russia since 2012 (the 5th Congress took place in 2021). This Congress is the largest event in the post-Soviet space, bringing together researchers working in the field of Marxism and political economy, and actively engaged in a dialogue with foreign scholars in this field. Events such as the IIPPE Annual Conferences and the Beijing World Congresses on Marxism organized by the WAPE are similar to it in scale and scope.

Apart from the regular International Political Economy Congresses, the PSSCM is the initiator and one of the main organizers of major scientific events such as forums dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Marx (held in May 2018 at Lomonosov Moscow State University, having brought together over 300 speakers from 30 countries, the Forum was opened by Victor Sadovnichy, Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University), the 200th anniversary of Engels (held in November 2020, saw leading Marxists from Russia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, and other countries) as attendees. Also of note were the major scientific events devoted to the 150th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin, held with the active participation of the PSSCM in 2020. All scientific congresses, forums, and conferences result in the publication of proceedings and collective monographs.

It should be noted that an active publishing activity is one of the special features of the PSSCM. In particular, the Library of the Journal ‘Alternativy’ series of books has been published for many decades (over 60 volumes have been published to date), including both author’s and collective monographs and conference proceedings. The series publishes the works of both authors and co-authors, as well as researchers who actively participate in scholarly conferences initiated by the PSSCM and engage in active dialogue with the PSSCM. The series of these books has published works such as Bulavka (2013), Buzgalin (2009), Buzgalin and Kolganov (2019), Slavin (2013), Voeykov (2013), and many others.

The most important features that make PSSCM distinguished from other tendencies of Marxist thought in post-Soviet Russia

In this section, we will provide a general description of the main trends of Marxist thought in post-Soviet Russia and then will analyze the features that make the PSSCM distinguished from other trends and tendencies.

The Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism and other tendencies of Marxist thought in post-Soviet Russia

In the post-Soviet space (and mainly in Russia), various tendencies are developing within the Marxist trend, with the main ones corresponding quite closely to the respective tendencies developing in the global Marxist philosophical thought. Below, we will characterize these tendencies, with their basic principle of differentiation being their relation to the fundamental principles of Marxism—dialectical and historical materialism.

The orthodox current

The orthodox ( ‘Stalinist’) version of Marxism is focused mainly on reproducing the basic dogmatic positions in the field of dialectical and historical materialism developed in Soviet Marxism in the 1930s and 1950s, with a predominant emphasis on the works by Stalin and his followers.

Buzgalin and Kolganov have rightly said of this tendency of orthodox Marx followers that it is a trend which

in persons of some representatives reaches the level of Stalinist-Zhdanov grotesqueness, while in other persons (above all Richard Kosolapov and David Dzhokhadze) it arises to adequacy with the classical legacy of Marx himself. In most cases, these authors reproduce the main points of the Soviet standards of the mid XXth century with innovations added, mainly concerning criticism—quite justified—of contemporary capitalist development in Russia and more or less strong Stalinist tendencies. (Buzgalin and Kolganov, 2019: 23)

One of the paradoxes of the present day Russian Marxist studies is that this trend is not represented by sufficiently prominent figures, and rather it can be considered that a number of young researchers belong to this trend, since a number of Marxist circles (clubs) have been created in the country, in which students are actively involved. These circles tend to be grassroots-initiated and not always supported by Marxist scholars teaching at universities or working in the Academy of Sciences.

However, among the names that can be attributed to this orthodoxy of Marxism in Russia, two scholars should be singled out. One of them is Professor David Dzhokhadze, who for more than 20 years has led the Marxist club at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Dzhokhadze, 2002, 2018); Professor Dzhokhadze himself is one of the prominent scholars of the Institute of Philosophy.

A second scholar who belongs to this field, and who should be mentioned in particular, is Mikhail Popov. He is the founder of the so-called ‘Workers’ University’. The task of this organization is to research problems of the theory and practice of the workers’ movement, as well as to contribute to the education of workers. The Workers’ University has been delivering lectures on Marxism, largely reproducing Soviet textbooks, for over 20 years.

The social democratic ( ‘Westerners’) trend

This trend focuses on the reproduction of the main ideas of European social democratic theorists of the 1950s and 1960s. Such scholars as V. Afanasiev, A. Galkin, R. Grinberg, Y. Krasin, V. Medvedev, R. Medvedev, B. Orlov, Y. Pletnikov, V. Tolstoy, and A. Weber work within this trend (see e.g. Galkin and Krasin, 2003; Grinberg, 2010; Medvedev, 2003; Pletnikov, 2008). The philosophical component of this trend is expressed in its most complete and vivid form in the work of Theodore Oizerman (2003).

It should be emphasized that Russian supporters of the social democratic line in most cases reproduce the main points characteristic of their colleagues from Western Europe and the United States, characterizing Marxism as largely an academically valid theory, which, however, requires substantial revision in accordance with the fundamental changes in the nature of the capitalist social order that occurred during the second half of the 20th century in Western Europe and beyond. They tend to gravitate more toward the works of the Frankfurt School and other authors close to this trend.

The ‘Russophile’ trend

The main feature of this trend is the attempt to combine the postulates of Marxism with the preservation of the ‘traditional values of Russian civilization’.

These researchers, in particular, focus on the civilizational approach and civilizational commonalities between Russia and the countries of the East, particularly China. In this respect, such scholars as Vladimir Shevchenko (2004) and Vladlen Burov should be mentioned.

In connection with this tendency, one of the significant issues that has been quite actively debated in Russian Marxism should be noted. It is a discussion about the relationship between the formational and civilizational approaches. Two positions stand out quite clearly in this discussion. One of them is the position that suggests the necessity and possibility of creative combination of civilizational and formational approaches in a new synthesis. Arguments in favor of this position can be found in the works by Vladlen Burov, Vladimir Shevchenko, and Georgi Tsagolov. This position is largely shared by Ruslan Dzarasov.

On the other hand, authors such as Alexander Buzgalin and Andrei Kolganov emphasize in their works that the Marxist method is also quite sufficient to include analysis of the socio-spatial, cultural, and religious characteristics of different peoples, which has been specifically shown in a number of works (Buzgalin, 2014; Kolganov, 2014).

It should be emphasized that on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Marx there has been a very interesting discussion on the problems of Marx’s attitude to Russia. In particular, many critics of Marxism in Russia take the position that Marx was a Russophobe and had an extremely negative attitude to Russian society as a whole, to the Russian state and to the Russian people. This position has been subjected to well-reasoned criticism in the works of, first of all, such a famous scholar as Professor Vladimir Mironov, formerly the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philosophy, who sadly passed away in 2020. In his article (Mironov, 2018c), he showed that Marx was not critical of the Russian people or the achievements of the Russian people, and even less of the Marxists in Russia, who were among the first to have translated Capital into foreign languages, but of the feudal-bourgeois order in Russia and the monarchical regime in the Russian Empire.

Characterization of other researchers and their associations that use Marxist methodology in their works

In this section, we will mention researchers who are difficult to categorize explicitly as belonging to any one of the major intellectual currents of contemporary Marxism in Russia, but who work in line with Marxist methodology focusing predominantly on a particular issue of Marxism.

The community of followers of Evald Ilyenkov, one of the major philosophers of the second half of the 20th century should be included into this group of researchers (Sergey Mareev, Elena Mareeva, Gennady Lobastov (Lobastov, 2000), as well as members of the philosophical ‘Dialectics and Culture’ society, which holds the annual Ilyenkov Readings conferences) and the followers of two other major philosopher-thinkers, Viktor Vaziulin (Alexander Segal (Segal, 2018)) and Mikhail Lifshitz (Viktor Arslanov (Arslanov, 2007)).

Of special note is the schools engaged in the field of political economy that develop and continue the ideas of Nikolai Tsagolov (Anatoly Porokhovsky, Kaisyn Khubiev, and Victor Cherkovets (Cherkovets, 2017; Khubiev, 2018; Porokhovsky, 2016)), world-systems analysis (George Glovely (Glovely, 2018)), and several others. What is also worth mentioning is such a project as ‘The New Political Economy Laboratory’, which is an association of young scholars who use Marxist methodology in investigating the current problems and contradictions of contemporary economic life. Oleg Komolov (Komolov, 2020) is the initiator and formal leader of this creative team. It is noteworthy that the core of the temporary creative team of the laboratory is made up of both young representatives of PSSCM—Gleb Maslov and Rafael Abdulov—and young scholars close to PSSCM—Tamara Stepanova (Stepanova, 2020) and Daler Dzhabborov. This research project is thus yet another example of the openness to dialogue in research that is characteristic of both the older and younger generation of PSSCM.

Among the scholars who work rather in the field of philosophy of politics, but also take into account and develop the Marxist heritage, Boris Kagarlitsky should be mentioned, who is quite actively engaged in a dialogue with foreign Marxists (Kagarlitsky, 2005).

An important aspect of the legacy of classical Marxism in contemporary Russian Marxism has been the study of the Asian mode of production, which is the focus of the works by Yuri Ivanovich Semenov, a famous contemporary Russian Marxist philosopher, who proposed the concept of a polytarian society and even formulated the thesis that the Soviet system was one of the varieties of such a polytarian society.

The so-called Uralian School of Marxism, which began to take shape around Professor Konstantin Lyubutin in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is not the largest in number but is also well known in Russia and internationally. The representatives of this school—Konstantin Lyubutin, Pyotr Kondrashov, Andrey Koryakovtsev, and others—claim to be oriented on the social and anthropological theory of Marx, oppose dogmatic forms of Marxism, while in the global heritage they focus on traditions that are laid down (besides Marx himself) by Fromm, Marcuse, Bloch, Ilyenkov, Lifshitz, Lukács, and so on (see Kondrashov, 2017).

Also, in contemporary Russian Marxist philosophical thought a tendency can be distinguished that is called conventionally post-Marxism. This tendency has its roots in the philosophical research of the Frankfurt School. In particular, this concerns the works of Jürgen Habermas and his followers. This tendency publishes its main research papers in such journals as the Logos, Skepticism, and New Literary Review. Such scholars as Sergei Solovyov, Svyatoslav Shachin, and a number of others work within this trend. Among the works that characterize this tendency, attention should be paid to the works (Shachin, 2017, 2019)

A special place in the research field analyzed is occupied by Vladimir Kutyrev, who applies the main theses of classical Marxist methodology to the study of postmodernism. In particular, he emphasizes the material foundations of the emergence of postmodernism, which he sees in the development of virtual space, that objectively creates preconditions for the deconstruction of material phenomena and the development of various kinds of simulacra. These viewpoints are developed in his work Philosophy of Postmodernism (Kutyrev, 2014).

For a complete characterization of Marxist thought in Russia, we should also mention a very specific trend, which can be conventionally called ‘liberal Marxism’ (see, e.g. Belykh and Mau, 2018; Gaidar and Mau, 2004). Its representatives point out that, in its academic part, Marxist theory contains a number of constructive propositions, especially concerning the questions of classical political economy and some questions of the philosophy of history, but all the socio-political and ideological tenets of Marxism should be considered outdated. The position of these researchers is a capacious expression of the attitude toward Marxism and among a fairly wide range of contemporary Russian economic theorists who do not identify themselves with Marxism, but work mainly within the framework of neoclassical or neo-institutional tendencies. This position combines, on one hand, formal recognition of Marxism’s contribution to the development of economic thought, and, on the other hand, qualification of a significant part of its theses as at least obsolete.

The distinctive features of PSSCM that distinguish it from other trends of Marxist thought in the post-Soviet space

The distinctive features of PSSCM: a general description

The PSSCM is one of the best known and most actively represented in both academic communities and international contacts. As a generalized characterization of the school, we should note among the most important common features of the PSSCM the following.

The use of a predominantly dialectical method, supplemented by a theory of transformations and questions of the dialectics of regression—the movement opposite to progress, including questions of reversible evolution.

Developing the formational approach towards a more thorough investigation of the problem posed by Marx and Engels of the transition from the “realm of necessity” to the “realm of freedom” in the process of overcoming alienation and progress of social emancipation.

Exploring the new quality of the categories revealed by Marx in Capital—the new quality of commodity and market, money, capital, and relations of exploitation that characterize the modern stage of capitalism; based on these characteristics a Marxist explanation of processes of financialization, globalization, world exploitation, and so on is given.

Showing the positive potential and at the same time highlighting the objective and subjective contradictions that resulted in the crisis of socialism in the USSR.

An analysis of the 21st century socialism as a non-linear process of social emancipation, that is, a process of dialectical negation not only of capitalism, but of the entire system of relations inherent in social alienation.

Below we will concentrate on a more detailed characterization of the first three of the above-mentioned areas of PSSCM research, since this part of the subject field of the PSSCM school is, albeit not without some reservations, generally relevant also in terms of other trends of contemporary social-humanitarian and economic thought. As for the work of the PSSCM adherents in the field of research on socialism and socialist tendencies (items d and e in the above list), in view of the specificity of this subject, it is appropriate to cover this area in a separate text in the future.

Distinguishing features of PSSCM: detailed characterization and dialogue with foreign and Soviet developments

In considering the specific features of the PSSCM, we will each time point out which aspects of foreign and Soviet Marxist developments are inherited, taken into account and creatively developed here.

(a) The use of a predominantly dialectical method, supplemented by a theory of transformations and questions of the dialectics of regression—the movement opposite to progress, including questions of reversible evolution.

First of all, let us dwell on the socio-philosophical developments of the school, which are in the reactualization and development of a dialectical materialist methodology.

The use of the dialectical method by scholars belonging to the PSSCM means that they emphasize the contradictions of social development, consider the subject of society in development, and emphasize that development is characterized not only by evolution, but also by qualitative revolutionary changes (qualitative leaps in development). In addition, they use the method of ascending from the abstract to the concrete, a method that was applied by Marx in Capital.

It should be emphasized that the development of the method of ascending from the abstract to the concrete is one of the achievements of Soviet Marxism, which are developed in the PSSCM framework. This method is rather rare in global Marxism, and in Western Marxism we can mention only a few researchers who apply it, among them Sean Sayers, Chris Arthur, and Bertell Ollman. Within the PSSCM, the dialectical method is used by Alexander Buzgalin and Andrei Kolganov (2016b) in studying historical processes and contemporary Russian economy, by Lyudmila Bulavka-Buzgalina (Bulavka, 2007) in an analysis of problems of culture and the relationship between culture and history, and by Boris Slavin (2014) when analyzing problems of social philosophy and philosophy of history. The dialectical method is also the main method of research for Sergey Mareev and Elena Mareeva (Mareev, 2012, 2015; Mareeva, 2009; Mareeva and Mareev, 2013), as well as for Gennady Lobastov (Lobastov, 2021).

It should be noted that among the PSSCM representatives there is also a group of scientists who use mainly the method of positivism, relying on the analysis of empirical facts, statistical data, historical evidence, on their systematization, rather than on the study of dialectical contradictions. The positive method is predominantly used by PSSCM representatives operating in the field of economic science: Mikhail Voeykov and Soltan Dzarasov (Dzarasov, 2010, 2012), who worked actively until his last day and contributed very much to the development of PSSCM, and Ruslan Dzarasov, and so on. The methodological dispute between the followers of the dialectical method and positivism cannot be called the main one for the PSSCM school representatives, but at the same time it is a significant manifestation of the differences in the positions of researchers observed within the school. Although it should be emphasized that the main line of the school in terms of methodology is the dialectical method.

The reactualization and development of the dialectical method has enabled scholars working within the PSSCM to provide a constructive critique of postmodernism and post(neo)positivism. This critique focuses on identifying the reasons for the large-scale propagation of this ‘narrative’ that denies any and all narratives and on revealing the consequences of the expansion of postmodernism, which become the basis for abandoning fundamental methodological-theoretical research and for reproducing and strengthening the neoliberal trend in social science research.

However, as Buzgalin and Kolganov note, the merit of the representatives of PSSCM is not only ‘the reactualization of the methodological heritage of Marxism of the past and the century before. . . . This legacy is complemented by the development of the dialectics of transformation, genesis and the “decline” of social systems’ (Buzgalin and Kolganov, 2019: 79). The PSSCM emphasizes the unevenness of socio-economic development in historical time and in social space, stressing that the historical experience of recent decades has shown the need to study not only progressive, but also regressive trends in the historical process.

Inheriting the accomplishments of Soviet Marxists such as Evald Ilyenkov, Richard Kosolapov, Vladislav Kelle, Matvei Kovalson, Ivan Frolov, Mikhail Lifshitz, as well as Marxist scholars in the United States such as Bertell Ollman and David Harvey, and Marxist scholars in Western Europe (Lucien Sève, István Mészáros, and others), the PSSCM extends the need to base the analysis of contemporary realities on the progress paradigm. In doing so, based on the developments of Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Lukacs, and the aforementioned scholars, not only the development of the productive forces, but above all the free harmonious development of the individual is taken as a criterion of social progress. Such personal development is possible as the workers’ social creativity develops in a free working voluntary association. The main developments in the field of the theory of associate social creativity are contained in the works of such representatives of the PSSCM as Professor Lyudmila Bulavka-Buzgalina, and the issues of the socialist and communist ideal are contained in the works of Professor Boris Slavin.

As we have noted, a feature of the Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism is that along with progress, regression in historical evolution is also singularized. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century have shown that historical time can turn backward, just as many great rivers that moved generally in the direction from West to East or from North to South can at some point turn backward and move westward. But the regression of history is short-lived and the forces of progress, the forces of social creativity, will sooner or later prevail in the world. At the same time, however, social evolution unfolds not only in time, but also in space.

The PSSCM engaged in an active dialogue with representatives of world-systems analysis (I. Wallerstein, A. G. Frank, S. Amin) in the study of these problems. Particularly productive was the cooperation of the PSSCM with such a prominent Marxist scholar as Samir Amin, in dialogue with whom representatives of the School worked on the problems of catching-up and outpacing development, as well as de-linking (problems of overcoming dependence of the periphery on the center). The above-mentioned issues are also developed in the research conducted by such Russian Marxists as Professor Ruslan Dzarasov (Dzarasov, 2015) and Professor Georgy Glovely (Glovely, 2018) and their young students.

(b) Developing the creative Soviet and foreign traditions of the study of social alienation and de-alienation (social emancipation); updating the methodology of “historical materialism”.

The study of the problems and contradictions of Man’s development in the world of alienation is one of the key socio-philosophical problems being developed within the PSSCM framework. The development of this issue implies further development of the formational approach toward a more thorough investigation of the problem of transition from the ‘realm of necessity’ to the ‘realm of freedom’ posed by Marx and Engels in the process of overcoming alienation and progress of social emancipation.

An important subject of the PSSCM research has been the critical update and upgrade of the socio-philosophical legacy of Marxism, or what is commonly referred to as ‘historical materialism’. The last two words conceal a twofold inversion: on one hand, the reduction of the diverse socio-philosophical heritage of Marxism to just one aspect of it—the materialist understanding of history—and this latter to a set of dogmatic provisions of the Stalinist version of ‘istmat’; on the other, the quite fair highlighting of materialism as the starting point of Marxist social philosophy, which in turn quite rightly allowed a leading Marxist movement to give this name—Historical Materialism—to its journal and to the entire network.

In this field, PSSCM, on one hand, highlights many essential points of the previous Marxist heritage that have disappeared from the attention of contemporary researchers (including Marxists) and, on the other hand, develops this heritage, showing how it can ‘work’ in the study of a number of contemporary problems, and supplementing previous developments with new results.

With regard to the former, proponents of the PSSCM emphasize that the Marxist view of history is far from being limited to identifying five socio-economic formations, as was done in the traditional Soviet textbooks on historical materialism. They emphasize the fact that both the classical works of Marx and the later works of Marxist scientists singled out not only these social structures, but also the Asian mode of production, and they also emphasize the need to identify global leaps in the social development of humanity, to identify two major stages in the historical process—prehistory and history, ‘the realm of necessity’ and ‘the realm of freedom’ in the terminology of Marx. In this regard, they regularly refer to the provisions of the famous works—Marx’s Capital and Engels’s Anti-Dühring, which distinguish these two great transitions (Engels, 1987: 270–271; Marx, 1998: 807).

We should also emphasize another issue addressed by scholars working within the PSSCM framework. It is the contradiction of social being, not often stressed by Marxists, in which human beings act both as the creator of history and as a function of objective alienated social forces. This contradiction underlies both historical progress and regress, and determines the main features of the Marxist theory of human being.¹ The systemic representation of the socio-economic foundations of the Marxist theory of human beings, carried out by the PSSCM representatives, enables them to show the system of relations of social alienation and the preconditions for the social emancipation of human being.

The representatives of PSSCM also claim to develop a set of original positions characterizing socio-economic transformations. They continue and develop developments in the dialectics of reverse movement and allow us to take a new look at the problems of the theory of pre-bourgeois social systems, as well as at the issues of the socio-spatial dimension of social existence, which were not actively developed in Marxism, but are essential for understanding the essential characteristics and contradictions of globalization.

All these classical and new positions of social philosophy of Marxism allowed the researchers, belonging to the PSSCM, to give a constructive criticism of ‘civilization approach’, which is presented in a series of works, showing, on one hand, the need for creative dialogue with the representatives of civilization approach, and on the other hand—arguing that many positions, attributed to the so-called civilization approach, were developed on the basis of Marxist methodology in the 20th and early 21st centuries within the Marxist tradition. In particular, this refers to explaining the specificity of Russian society, its history, and its characteristics at the present stage.

The PSSCM school emphasizes that Marxism is not an unambiguous economic determinism. It is an exploration of the contradiction between the subordination of social human being to external, alienated social relations (slavery, the market, capital) and his role as the creator of history. At the same time, the researchers of these problems within the PSSCM framework emphasize both of these sides and lay emphasis on the fact that people themselves make history, and it is this social creativity of the masses that moves the world along the road to social emancipation. Here we should note the special attention of a number of researchers, in particular Lyudmila Bulavka-Buzgalina, Alexander Buzgalin, Andrei Kolganov, and others, to the problem of alienation and de-alienation (see Bulavka-Buzgalina, 2018; Buzgalin, 2018; Kolganov, 2018). Alienation is understood as subordination of man to objective, dominant social relations—exploitation, and so on, and de-alienation is understood as the process of the removal of this domination, the process of social liberation of man and his work, society and culture from external, enslaving forces (market, bureaucracy, money, capital, etc.).

The analysis of the problem of de-alienation allows the representatives of PSSCM to substantiate the thesis (mostly ‘forgotten’ by the majority of Russian Marxists) that the communist ideal is formed not as a utopian dream, but as an expression of the objective orientation of the social liberation process—the process that leads to ever more free and harmonious human development in and through association (for details, see Slavin, 2013, 2014, 2018) or, as it is stated in ‘The Communist Manifesto’, toward a society where ‘the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’ (Marx and Engels, 1976: 506).

The most important achievements of the PSSCM in the field of social philosophy also include the study of the contradictions of the modern socio-economic system—late capitalism, which will be analyzed in the next section of the article.

(c) A study of the new quality of the categories revealed by Marx in Capital—the new quality of commodity and market, money, capital, and relations of exploitation which are characteristic of the modern stage of capitalism.

In the field of political economy, PSSCM research focuses mainly on the problems of the contradictions of modern capitalism in general and its Russian specificity in particular.

As far as views on the nature of modern capitalism are concerned, the school’s distinctive features are, first, the emphasis on the fact that late capitalism is characterized by a deep inner contradiction: relative progress of productive forces and human qualities within late capitalism is only possible through the development within capitalism of elements of post-capitalism, elements of communism—such as social planning (partial state regulation) and redistribution of part of the profit in favor of the workers (socialization) (see e.g. Buzgalin and Kolganov, 2016a; Dzhabborov, 2016). This is a distinctive feature of the PSSCM since most other scholars in Russia see state regulation and restrictions on the market as another stage in its progressive development, without linking it to the growth of post-capitalist relations (communism) within capitalism.

Second, what is common for scholars of the School is to consider the contemporary problems of global capitalism on the basis of the method set forth in ‘Das Capital’, and to identify how the content of the main categories revealed by Marx is changing in the 21st century (Buzgalin and Kolganov, 2019, 2021).

Third, scholars of PSSCM show how the economic contradictions of late capitalism manifest themselves in its socio-political contradictions, and argue that the development of socialization that characterized some periods of history for some “center” countries has a positive effect on economic efficiency (Buzgalin et al., 2018; Epstein, 2020). Moreover, representatives of the PSSCM justify the thesis that the strengthening of social justice promotes rather than contradicts economic efficiency (Aitova, 2016; Buzgalin, 2013), show changes in the social structure of late capitalism, and apply the methodology of geopolitical economy analysis to the study of problems of recent imperialism (Buzgalin et al., 2016).

Finally, as far as Russia is concerned, it is accepted within the PSSCM that it is characterized by a particular type of semi-peripheral capitalism, characterized by the dominance of oligarchic capital fused with the higher state bureaucracy.

Below we will consider in detail the main points elaborated by the PSSCM within the framework of the systemic analysis of late capitalism. In this area, the PSSCM representatives have prepared prolegomena (certain fragments) which allow us to talk about how the basic relations reflected in the categories of Marx’s ‘Capital’ have changed by the present moment. In particular, the works by Buzgalin, Kolganov, Voeykov, and other PSSCM scholars show the new quality of the market, money, and capital.

Thus, the PSSCM works argue that the market has become total-manipulative. Trends of the development of the market in this direction were already noted by Lenin, who wrote in the early 20th century that commodity production still reigned but was already ‘undermined’ (Lenin, 1970). In the 21st century, this trend has led to a total market of networks, where corporations manipulate other actors. Added to this is the market of simulacra (what J. Baudrillard calls the ‘market of signs’), where consumers hunt for brands, overpaying huge amounts of money, that is, wasting resources (as money is an expression of resources) on symbols artificially imposed by large corporations. Money in the 21st century is a product of fictitious virtual capital. Virtuality is an important characteristic, and cryptocurrency, for example, is only one form of this characteristic.

The relations of exploitation involve a wide range of different forms of domination by the hegemony of capital: semi-slave forms of personal dependence; ‘classical’ forms of capitalist exploitation of industrial workers; different methods of generating and appropriating monopolistic (and imperialist, periphery-based) profit; substantially new relations of exploitation of creative activity (implying not just the appropriation of the surplus value created by the creative worker, but the exploitation of the universal creative capacity of humanity, the universal cultural wealth (see Buzgalin and Kolganov, 2013, for details). As a result of these transformations, the relations of accumulation have also changed (see Buzgalin and Kolganov, 2017, for details).

All the trends noted above have led to a profound contradiction between human beings, nature, and society, on one hand, and capital on the other, rather than simply between labor and capital. At the heart of this contradiction lies the contradiction between productive forces and the global hegemony of capital as an inadequate, obsolete form of production relations.

The PSSCM representatives emphasize that the causes of the current contradictions in the world and national economies on the agenda do not lie in the realm of more or less right decisions of governments or experts, but are conditioned by the content of productive forces and production relations which have developed during the last decades of the evolution of late capitalism. This necessitates the purposeful use of modern Marxist categorical apparatus in order to investigate the foundations and causes of qualitative changes in the modern economy.

An important line of research of the PSSCM is the study of the limits of capitalism. As long as 30 years ago Francis Fukuyama formulated the thesis of the final victory of the neoliberal model of capitalism and the ‘end of history’ in his now famous article ‘The End of History’. But history does not stop. Two hundred years after Marx was born, The Economist wrote that the Millennial generation is choosing socialism, and the experts who wrote the 2019 report to the US president described socialism as a major threat.

The PSSCM scholars have shown in their research that the cause of these fears is the crisis of the existing system of economic relations and institutions of late capitalism. Evidence of this crisis includes (1) the potential for a qualitative leap in technological development and humanitarian and environmental problems, the realization of which is hampered not by resource constraints but by the dominant political-economic model of capitalism; (2) the gradualist transformation of the market from a mechanism for stimulating progress into a system of relations of manipulation of consumers to whom simulacra-goods are imposed; (3) the growth of useless goods, one evidence of which is financialization, managerialism, and bureaucratization; (4) increasing inequality and social tensions.

The dominant political-economic elite is looking for a way out of the impasse through ‘neoliberal conservatism’, which integrates further de-socialization and deregulation in the economy with conservative-authoritarian trends in politics and ideology. In contrast, PSSCM researchers have uncovered a range of ways of socializing, humanizing and ecologization of capitalism (objectively driven by advances in technology and the practices of civil society actors) which are distinct from existing social democratic projects which have proven to be largely ineffective.

* * *

Summing up our description of the PSSCM, it should be noted that, in general, the main distinguishing feature of the views of its proponents is (1) the unity and integrity, the mutual adequacy of its main methodological and theoretical positions, and (2) their close connection with the practices of Russian and international social transformation forces.

Regarding the former, the basic tenets of the methodology (materialist dialectics, attention to the problems of transformation, inclusion of reversible, regressive processes, etc.) prove to be the basis for the formation of theoretical positions that distinguish the School. In the field of social philosophy, it is the dialectic of alienation and de-alienation, the contradiction of human being as a slave and as a creator of history, the non-linearity of the transformation of the ‘realm of necessity’ into the ‘realm of freedom’, and so on. In the field of political economy, a dialectical treatment of late capitalism as a period of non-linear genesis of post-capitalist elements (elements of communism) within a capitalism that retains its dominance, and the more specific points arising from this. The contribution of the PSSCM to the development of the political economy of modern capitalism consists, in particular, in the fact that the works of representatives of the School show a new quality of the market (total market of simulacra), money (virtual fictitious financial capital), exploitation, and so on. In these studies, members of the PSSCM develop a kind of Capital of the 21st century, critically developing the methodology of Marx’s Capital in order to develop tools to explain the realities of modern socio-economic life.

As for the connection with the practices of socially transformative forces, the PSSCM scholars use their positions to advise social movements in Russia and abroad; they have practically participated and are involved in the organization and holding of social forums and other socially creative actions and draw lessons from these practices for the further development of their theory.

It is important to emphasize that while there are certain common features that make the school distinctive, it is not a unified organization along the lines of political parties or closed corporations. The PSSCM is, as stated in the beginning of the text, an open network. Its theoretical distinctiveness, the ‘boundaries’ outlined above, are relative and rather blurred, which is absolutely normal for any school in the social sciences.

Each of the scholars who, to one degree or another, identifies with the school is a creative individual in his or her own right who differs in a number of ways from what constitutes the distinctive features of the school as a whole. Each of the PSSCM scholars goes beyond the ‘boundaries’ of the school in some respects, and in some respects they are at variance and do not see eye to eye with other scholars. Moreover, there is a considerable ongoing debate within the school, which makes it a lively and open school.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Olga Barashkova

Notes

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