Succession or Subversion: Professional Strategies of Soviet Cultural Revolution. The Case of Nikolai Marr

Abstract

Nikolai Marr's controversial New Teaching on Language was officially recognized as Marxism in Soviet linguistics and gained the position of the dominant scientific authority and social power in the early 1930s. Although the phenomenon of Marrism is frequently analysed from different points of view, its sociological dimension remains under-researched. Specifically, it is the role of the institutional environment and social dynamics within the discipline of linguistics that deserves particular attention. Making use of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the scientific field and professional strategies, this paper examines the ascent of Marr's doctrine with regard to the institutional incentives and bureaucratic mechanisms employed for its promotion. Taking into account Marr's social and professional status, the article examines the ideological struggle in Soviet linguistics between Marrists and their opponents in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and argues that the succession and subversion strategies employed by the younger practitioners in the scientific field played a significant role in determining its outcome and securing the intellectual and social victory of Marrism, facilitated by the general socio-political atmosphere of Soviet Cultural Revolution.     

苏俄意识形态教育的变迁与重建

从社会主义苏联到当代新俄罗斯的转轨过程．不仅涉及其社会制度、政治经济等诸多方面,亦触动了这些转轨领域的深层次背景即政治文化,其中以意识形态为标志的社会思潮变迁最为引人注目和发人深省。在原来信奉的共产主义意识形态被打破之后,用什么去填补业已形成的思想真空。是俄罗斯政治经济发展过程中不可忽视的问题。历经一段盲目追求西方民主的狂热时期之后,俄罗斯社会本身已开始对其进行反思．并转向关注思想建设问题．有可能从一个方面为俄社会走向平稳发展创造条件。就当前的俄罗斯而言,思想混乱的状态还未发生根本转变,完成统一思想的创建也非一朝一夕所能做到。本文从苏俄意识形态教育的变迁与重建为视角研究其变化的阶段特点,为中国意识形态教育提供警示意义,以期有助于加强和改进我国的思想政治教育,更好地为社会主义现代化建设及改革开放服务。     

The Incomplete Revolution

South Africa's negotiated transition promised significant gains for gender equality, as women acquired one-third of the seats in the national parliament, secured constitutional protection, and began a process of legislative and institutional reform. Once apartheid was dismantled, the programs of racial and gender empowerment theoretically should have proceeded at the same rates, given the rhetorical commitments of the liberation parties. Life for the majority of South African women, however, continues to be marked by socio-economic hardships, patriarchal domination, and gender violence. This article asserts that the roots of women's continued inequality are found within the western reform models utilized by the anti-apartheid movement that reproduced public/private, male/female dichotomies in state institutions, thereby entrenching male discourse and power. The data suggest that in order to disrupt the power of the patriarchy women need to challenge male domination within the domestic sphere as well as challenging gender discrimination in public political spaces.     

The Sociological Profession and Revolution*

Is present Western sociology helping prepare revolution? Conservative and liberal sociologies clearly help keep the social system as it is without questioning it at its roots. But also the current radical research is not as radical as it may seem, since it implicitly accepts the socio-political ignorance of the masses and does not question the neo-capitalistic principle of separation between theory and praxis. The final objective of a revolutionary sociology should be to make all people become their own revolutionary sociologists.     

The origins of Soviet sociolinguistics

The work of Lev Iakubinskii, Boris Larin and Viktor Zhirmunskii working at the Institute of Discursive Culture in Leningrad in the 1920s and 1930s deserves to be recognised as an early version of sociolinguistics. These thinkers combined dialect geography with Marxist sociological thought and contemporary work on linguistic conflicts and planning to produce very sophisticated sociological reflections on language. The influence of their teacher, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, was crucial to their work, as was the tradition of Russian dialect research carried out by Aleksei Shakhmatov and others. However, the socio-political conditions for linguistic research brought about by the 1917 revolution were decisive. The historical significance of the reception and reinterpretation of these ideas is considerable, leading to a reconsideration of the origins of sociolinguistics and of the relationship between Marxism and the language sciences in the early years of the Soviet Union.