National Sociology and Paradigm Pluralism:
Pragmatist Reflections on Current Russian Sociology

By Dmitri N. Shalin

This paper examines the controversy over the meaning of patriotic social science, the legitimacy of a multiparadigmatic approach, and the resistance toward pragmatism as a philosophical and cultural phenomenon in Russian culture.  The argument is made that the fissure splitting the Russian sociological community over the issue of paradigm pluralism has its counterpart in the West, that it reflects the struggle for power in contemporary Russia, that theoretical monism advocated by nationalist sociologists is incompatible with a scientific ethos, and that Russian intellectuals need to explore how the nationalist right and the illiberal left thwarted democracy in 20th century Europe, or risk “stepping on the same rake” all over again. 

Introduction

The controversy over the proliferation of paradigms in sociology and the threat it poses to the theoretical unity of the discipline is an old one.  According to Robert Merton (1975:39-40), the “debate between theoretical pluralism and theoretical monism” reemerges at strategic junctions in the discipline’s history when sociologists committed to “an overarching theoretical system” clash with those favoring “a multiplicity of occasionally consolidated paradigms.”  Russian sociologists appear to have reached such a juncture.  

The current controversy follows the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a traumatic experience for many soviet citizens that provoked soul-searching among Russian intellectuals and engendered heated debates about patriotism and scholars’ ties to the state.  Not surprisingly, social scientists committed to the notion that Russia has unique historical destiny mistrust paradigm pluralism.  Rejecting Western theories, they advocate developing a “national sociology” as an urgent task for patriotic scholars (Dobrenkov 2007; Malinkin 2005, 2006, Osipov 2004, 2006, 2007; Osipov and Kuznetsov 2005; Zhukov 2002). 

Sociologists with liberal credentials take a different view.  Vladimir Yadov (2003, 2006, 2007; see also Kravchenko 2004) is probably the best known proponent of the multiparadigmatic approach among sociologists who remain skeptical about the need for an overarching theoretical framework to study Russian society and advance its national interests.  Other scholars stake middle ground, endorsing the legitimacy of the multi-paradigmatic approach while encouraging the search for a sociological theory reflecting the Russian cultural tradition (Filippov 1997; Zdravomyslov 2006, 2007).  

This paper reviews the current controversy – its origins, historical context, and political alignments in each camp.  It also addresses the animosity that Russian social scientists and intellectuals have shown toward pragmatism as a philosophical teaching and a sociological perspective.  “The polyparadigmatic approach is grounded in the ideological and philosophical principles of liberalism and pragmatism,” asserts Aleksandr Malinkin, a key opponent of paradigm pluralism, and “pragmatist philosophy is fruitless and unproductive as a theoretical and methodological foundation of sociology” (Malinkin 2006, 2005).[1]  Lev Gudkov, head of the Levada Center, has no affinity with the conservative strain in Russian sociology, but he is also concerned about the pragmatist attitudes taking hold among Russian sociologists:  “Since the authorities took little interest in the work and recommendations of academic scholars, the more pragmatic and lacking in principles among them were forced to look for support among Western foundations and clients, offering their services to carry out foreign projects” (Gudkov 2005).  The enmity toward pragmatism crosses political fault lines, animating liberal as well as conservative thinkers, and it may offer an interesting gloss on Russia’s intellectual and popular culture. 

My discussion starts with the historical context of the current controversy, after which I examine the opposition to paradigm pluralism and the nascent patriotic strand in Russian social thought.  Next, I focus on the political affinities of the intellectuals committed to the nationalist agenda and their opponents, examine their relationship with the government, and connect their stance to the views that sociologists from each camp espoused under the Soviet rule.  Finally, I discuss Russian intellectuals’ attitude toward pragmatism and explore its political and cultural implications.

Internationalism and Theoretical Monism in Soviet Social Science

Soviet sociology has had a long and troubled history.  It began with a fitful start after the Bolsheviks took power, went extinct in Stalin’s years, reemerged as an empirical field during the Khrushchev “Thaw,” took painful hits in the Brezhnev era, then gradually positioned itself as a scientific discipline affiliated with, yet autonomous from, its philosophical counterpart – historical materialism (Batygin 1999; Beliaev and Butorin, 1982; Doktorov 2007; Firsov 2001, 2003; Greenfeld 1988; Osipov 1979; Osipov and Kuznetsov 2005; Shalin 1978, 1979, 1990; Shlapentokh 1987; Yadov and Grathoff 1994; Zdravomyslov 2006, 2007).  Internationalism has always been a hallmark of Marxist thought which styled itself as a universal doctrine that applies to humanity at large and foretells the emergence of a global communist community.  Nationalism, by contrast, was castigated as a vestige of the past, an obstacle in the path of the proletariat coming to terms with its world-historical mission.  Bolsheviks saw themselves as Westernizers leading the fight for world revolution.  Lenin in particular was determined to deliver Russia from its backwardness and thrust his country in the forefront of the international communist movement. 

Consistent with this paradigmatic stance was the perception of Western theories as muddled and ideologically biased.  Soviet scholars cast the diversity of theoretical schemes and methodological approaches as a sign of inferiority and gleefully contrasted paradigm pluralism in the West to the united front Marxist social scientists forged in their pursuit of monistic sociological theory.  This is how Gennady Osipov, a well-placed soviet sociologist and an acknowledged leader in today’s patriotic camp, expressed his opposition to the paradigm pluralism:  “The diversity of approaches and schools in bourgeois sociology . . . reflects the contradictory and unstable character of contemporary capitalism, the absence of a truly scientific worldview,  and it is a consequence of the anti-historical and anticommunists stance of contemporary bourgeois sociology, as well as a proof of its ideological crisis” (Osipov 1979:64). 

It is not that soviet sociologists had nothing to learn from their Western counterparts.  They all had their conceptual favorites and borrowed freely methodological tools from abroad, but soviet scholars had to be careful in doling out praise on foreigners, lest their ideological vigilance came under suspicion.  The critique of “bourgeois sociology” called for a careful balancing act where positive comments were punctuated by stern dressing-downs of ideological adversaries.  An article reviewing Western authors or theories usually included а mandatory statement that ran something like this:  “In our time of deepening ideological struggle, it is especially important to distinguish between certain positive scientific elements found in the works of bourgeois thinkers and the reactionary essence of their overall views.  [A telling example] is the neo-Kantian movement that nourishes all sorts of revisionist concepts” (Malinkin 1983:131).  Bred into the soviet sociologist’s bones was the notion that Marxist scholarship was politically engaged, that “the party spirit of Marxist-Leninist sociology is at the same time the best guarantee of its scientific character.  The Marist-Leninist class analysis embodies the unity of partisanship and scholarship. . . .  Nonpartisanship and neutrality in sociology is nothing but a myth, a thin veil disguising an allegiance to a particular class” (Osipov 1979:137, 142). 

When it came to the ethnic dimension of social life, the politically correct stance was de rigueur.  The soviet authorities denounced nationalist deviations in all areas, including social science.  Local colors were welcome to the extent that they dovetailed with the Marxist internationalist agenda.  “National in form, socialist in content” – such was the all-purpose formula that cut some slack to local cultures while warning regional elites to stay away from nationalism and hew to socialist policies. 

More nuanced was the take on the national traditions in the Western world.  Soviet scholars acknowledged the cultural diversity in bourgeois social science, treating it as something understandable, even progressive, insofar as local intellectuals sought to distance themselves from the American patronage.  The expectation was that national sociological currents would eventually yield to the triumphant Marxist teaching.  Igor Golosenko provided a sophisticated treatment of the subject in his 1981 article titled “The Universal and the National in Non-Marxist Sociology.”  “The national specificity is more germane to the social than to natural sciences,” pointed out Golosenko (1981:78).  “This is why a historian and sociologist of science can talk a about  ‘German sociology,’ ‘English social anthropology,’ ‘American social psychology’ . . . .  The national culture helps us understand why sociological positivism triumphed in the 19th century in France and England, why Germany remained staunchly anti-positivist, and why both traditions took roots in Russia” (Golosenko 1981:78).  Soviet scholars were aware that in the 1960s sociologists around the world grew weary of American dominance – not only in world politics but also in scholarly discourse, and they sought to encourage this trend without ceding ground to ultranationalists or discarding the internationalist agenda.[2]  

The issue came into play with new force after Gorbachev announced his perestroika.  The nascent reforms boosted sociology in the Soviet Union.  In June of 1988, the Communist Party Politburo passed a resolution “On Strengthening the Role of Marxist-Leninist Sociology in Solving Key Problems of Soviet Society.”  Following this decree, the Ministry of Higher Education moved to establish sociology departments in flagship universities in Leningrad and Moscow.  With the new trends came a more relaxed attitude toward Marxist orthodoxy and bourgeois sociology.

In 1988 soviet scholars adopted the “Professional Code of Sociologists” which struck a balance between the old and the new imperatives.  The preamble reiterates the familiar thesis about the “clear class position” expected from soviet sociologists, but it also encourages social scientists “to defend their ideas and concepts regardless of the established views” and show “moral courage and willingness to take on established opinions” (Professionalnyi kodeks 1988:95).  Vladimir Yadov, a leading soviet sociologist, amplified this position in his programmatic article.  Acknowledging that “our sociology is directly linked to dialectical materialism, to Marxist philosophy, and as such, it deserves to be called Marxist-Leninist,” he goes on to stress that this is no reason to “brag about its exclusivity,” that Marxist sociology must overcome its “isolation from sociological scholarship in the rest of the world” (Yadov 1990:6, 15-16). 

The Patriotic Strand in Russian Sociology

As the Soviet Union collapsed, so did state funding for sciences and the humanities.  Left to their own devices, Russian social scientists searched for ways to legitimize their enterprise and find new sources of income.  A few were commissioned to do polling for the emerging political parties, some managed to subsist on scholarly grants administered by international foundations, many more had to take additional jobs just to get by, and still others left academia or the country altogether.  Paradigm pluralism flourished after perestroika, as Russian sociologists translated Western treatises and published the long suppressed works of Russian thinkers.  No theoretical or methodological strand emerged as a clear favorite.  With the confusion of the 1990s, the voices began to be heard inside the academic community about the need to establish a national agenda for Russian sociology.  This is when paradigm pluralism came under assault from the self-styled patriots who accused their liberal colleagues of promoting ideas alien to Russian culture.

Among the first to sound the alarm about the epistemological chaos in postsoviet sociology was A. F. Filippov.   He contended that history does not know successful efforts to “transplant foreign concepts in their original form, and Russia cannot be an exception” (Filippov 1997:11).  There are many theories in today’s Russian sociology, Filippov claimed, but no “theoretical sociology.”  The only practical solution is the “creation of our own theoretical sociology as a series of ambitious concepts” (Filippov 1997:16). 

Aleksandr Malinkin is probably the most articulate opponent of paradigm pluralism and champion of Russian national sociology.  He is careful to acknowledge Yadov’s standing among Russian sociologists but uses his older colleague’s prestige as a springboard to challenge the liberal orthodoxy (Malinkin 2005).   Malinkin is concerned that “many middle-aged and most young sociologists in Russia are becoming converts to faddish Western teachings” – a trend that underscores the “noncompetitive character of home-grown theories.”  He is appalled by reigning eclecticism, by the “unbridled hybridization of ideas” and “theoretical kasha in the heads of many Russian sociologists.”  “The polyparadigmatic approach makes virtue out of necessity,” Malinkin maintains, as it surreptitiously “translates the values of liberalism into the conceptual apparatus and methodology of sociological science.” 

Malinkin is skeptical about the value neutrality espoused by the proponents of paradigm pluralism.  The “deideologization forced upon us merely signifies that the reigning ideology is being supplanted by another one. . . .  The Russian Federation has shed its ideological garments to a dangerous point where it exposed itself to anarchy and became vulnerable to the ideological manipulation from abroad” (Malinkin 2006).  The fact that Russia is moving away from its past does not justify the break with theoretical monism:  “In their opposition to the ‘dark,’ allegedly totalitarian soviet past, those embracing the logic of rapture promise the ‘bright’ democratic future. . . .  We are led to believe that Russia cannot escape the Euro-American style modernization.  Such ‘catching-on’ (“догоняющая”) modernization means colonization for Russia.  This framing sidesteps the question of what kind of modernization is in Russia’s national interest.  In reality, such a modernization leads to the annihilation of Russian national culture along with the bulk of its population” (Malinkin 2006).  Malinkin does not advocates banning ideas borrowed abroad as much as adapting them to the Russian context: 

What I have in mind is the creation of genuinely Russian theories, concepts, and doctrines.  We can call them “Russian” (regardless of the percentage of the borrowed material in them) not so much because they are formulated by Russians, but because they are rooted in the national cultural and social realities, because they have emerged in response to the challenges facing Russian society and in line with the interests of Russian people, society, and the state.  National rootedness of sociological theory presupposes a certain cultural-historical continuity, a positive connection with the heritage of Russia’s imperial and soviet past. (Malinkin 2006)

A stronghold of nationalist sociology in today’s Russia is the Institute of Socio-Political Studies (ISPS), a research division within the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Lead by Gennady Osipov, scholars affiliated with this institute have put forward a rationale for patriotic sociology that emphasizes the need to align academic sociology with the government policies and to clamp down on educational institutions financed from abroad (Dobrenkov 2007; Osipov 2006; Osipov and Kuznetsov 2005; Zhukov 2002).  A programmatic document detailing the new agenda was adopted at the 2007 meeting sponsored by the ISPS under the heading “On the Methods of Solving the ‘Russian Question’.”  Among the members of the academic establishment assembled at this gathering was Vladimir Dobrenikov, dean of the School of Sociology at Moscow State University.  Dobrenkov put into a spotlight “the extremely worrisome processes in the Russian educational and scientific establishment [reflecting] the aggressive actions of foreign-based educational and scientific centers, as well as Russian organizations financed from abroad.  Such organizations undermine the indigenous educational and research establishments and serve as conduit for Western positivist perspectives and methods alien to the Russian tradition” (Dobrenkov 2007).  The dean of the sociology faculty contrasted the native school of sociological thought distinguished by its pro-Russian stance with the liberal school marked by its pro-Western orientation.  Among the proponents of the latter, Dobrenkov singled out “Yadov, Zaslvaskaya, and Zdravomylsov who contrive to purge Russian sociology of its Russianness.” 

Of particular concern to Dobrenkov is that liberal sociologists threaten to infuse the new generation of Russian social scientists with unpatriotic sentiments.  “What we witness is a conscious effort to foment ideological protest across college campuses.  Various political technologies are deployed with the express purpose to mobilize extremist moods and pseudo-revolutionary movements among students.  These are the same technologies that proved effective in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan.  I speak with authority as a dean and as a sociologist when I say that the specter of ‘color revolution’ is spreading among Russian students, the real specter [that] can provoke the students and lead to bloodshed” (Dobrenkov 2007).  As a step toward the consolidation of patriotic sociologists, Dobrenkov proposed to convene a “national congress of sociologists of Russia” (Dobrenkov 2007). 

Gennady Osipov, head of the Institute of Socio-Political Studies, is a key figure in the patriotic sociology movement.  Looking back at the recent history of sociology in Russia, he discerns in it two strands, one led by Vladimir Yadov and liberally minded sociologists gathered around the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology, the other gravitating toward the Institute of Socio-Political Studies headed by Osipov and staffed by nationalist scholars.[3]  Ever since its creation in 1991, the Institute of Socio-Political Studies took up the cause of resisting the Western influence, “the pernicious conceptual framework offered as a strategic blueprint for Russia’s development where Russia is drawn into the linear, Western-centric schema of socio-historical process.  Based on a Western blueprint, this linear schema of development officially, if tacitly, supplants the equally linear communist model of the uniform social development that dominated the soviet era.  The alternative model offered by the Institute presumes the multipolar world and acknowledges the civilizational polarities in contemporary society.  Russia transpires here as the core of self-sufficient Eurasian civilization whose existence and development is the necessary condition for stability in the world order” (Osipov 2006).  To realize its potential, the national sociology movement must utilize “all the state resources fit to advance the strategic task of moving Russia ahead according to its national interests and the traditions of its people” (Osipov 2006).

On June 27, 2007, patriotic sociologists convened the First Congress of the Union of Sociologists of Russia (the Russian acronym – SSR).  Preparations for this meeting were shrouded in secrecy, liberal scholars were kept out.  The invitation-only audience comprised by sociologists close to Osipov and ISPI set up an organization that billed itself as an alternative to the cosmopolitan sociologists led by Yadov, Zaslavskaya, and their liberal colleagues.  The congress passed the organization’s bylaws (Ustav 2007) and elected the SSR president.  Addressing the congress delegates, Gennady Osipov advocated the “incorporation of Russian sociology into the system of state governance” (Demina 2007).  Vasily Zhukov, rector of the Russian State Social University, berated sociologists who expressed reservations about the creation of a rival professional organization (Zhukov 2007).  He praised the soviet-era sociology as a continuation of the illustrious tradition dating back to prerevolutionary Russia.  According to Zhukov, “Russian sociology has reached a point when (1) the need for consolidation of the sociological community is fully understood, and (2) when the conditions for such consolidation are in place.  The Union of Sociologists of Russia aims to unite all those who respect the history of sociology in our country, who critically appropriate its heritage, and who are ready to assume the responsibility for sociological knowledge and bear themselves with dignity as professional and moral human beings” (Zhukov 2007).  The nation’s top legislative and government officials hailed the creation of the new professional organization (Demina 2007).   

Several momentous events followed the establishment of the SSR.  One was closing of the St. Petersburg European University, the other – expulsion of student activists from the MGU School of Sociology.  In the summer of 2008, a group of senior sociologists with liberal credentials was laid off at the St. Petersburg-based Sociological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences.  The official reason – “a planned culling of scientific cadres.” 

After the public outcry, the St. Petersburg administration agreed to reopen the foreign-grant-funded European University that had been closed on account of its failure to meet the fire code, but its long-term prospects appear uncertain.  Students expelled from the Moscow State University were not reinstalled.  Some were admitted to other educational centers in the country, others are exploring the prospects for continued education abroad.  Scholars who lost their jobs at the Institute of Sociology, including Andrey Alekseev, a highly regarded sociologist who had once lost his job under the soviet regime, appealed the decision with no success. 

These developments dovetail with the program championed by the nationalist sociologists (Den Zakrytykh Dverei 2008; Otchisleny iz MGU 2008).   It looks like proponents of the SSR platform are poised to move from debates to actions. Or as Osipov put it, it is time drop “passive resistance [and heed] President Putin’s demand spelled out in his letter to the Federal Parliament [where he called] to go on the offensive and expose the mendacious, anti-humanist and Russophobic slogans and programs” (Osipov 2007; Demina 2007).

Paradigm Pluralism, Scientific Ethos, and Political Activism

Although nothing resembling the virulent nationalistic strand is evident in world sociology today, the debate about paradigm pluralism and theoretical monism has its counterpart in the West.  The issue flared in the 1960s when younger sociologists, particularly in the U.S., took on the reigning orthodoxy.  Alvin Gouldner (1973), Irving Louis Horowitz (1964), C. Wright Mills (1959) were among prominent sociologists who criticized structural functionalism for its status quo bias and clamored for “radical sociology,” “new sociology,” “politically engaged science,” and kindred projects spurred by the disenchantment with value-neutral inquiry.  It is in response to this clarion call by the Young Turks that Robert Merton took up the issue and tried to place it in historical perspective.   

Using Gouldner’s Coming Crisis in Western Sociology as a fodder, Merton took on the radical critics.  He reminded his colleagues that they were hardly the first to diagnose a crisis in their discipline: “The aspects of sociology that have been taken to provide the signs and symptoms of crisis are of a familiar kind:  a change and clash of doctrine accompanied by deepened tension, and sometimes abrasive conflict, among practitioners of the craft.  The clash involves the strong claim that existing paradigms are incapable of handling problems they should, in principle, be capable of handling.  It is in this sense that we can describe sociology as having experienced chronic crisis, intermittently broken only by short surprising periods of relative calm” (Merton 1975:22-23).  According to Merton, the claims that sociology reached the state of crisis tend to surface at the time when the younger generation of scholars comes into its own and feels confident enough to take on the entrenched scientific hierarchy.  Generational dynamics tend to overlap here with the momentous political shifts, producing a phenomenon worthy of close sociological scrutiny.  Merton cites Joseph Ben-David’s seminal article that traces the current revolt against value-neutral sociology to the political upheavals of the 20th century:

This unity of the profession [in the immediate post-war period] was not based on the existence of anything resembling a ‘paradigm’ for theory and research, such as postulated by Thomas Kuhn as the characteristic of a ‘normal science.’ There was no paradigm in sociology, and sociologists were often very critical of each other’s approach.  Consensus existed only in one respect, namely that all sociologists accepted the scientific method as relevant to sociology, and the scientific morality as binding for sociologists.  They clearly demarcated science from ideology. . . .  My hypothesis is that the passing of this consensus in the late 1960s was due to a new change of generations.  The generation which obtained its Ph.D. in the 1960s consisted of young people for whom the problem of sociology versus ideology did not have the same crucial importance as for their predecessors. . . .  Lacking the experience of liberation from ideology, they could find in sociology few past achievements or great intellectual opportunities to command their loyalty to, and the unshaken belief in, sociology of the latter.  Therefore, questioning the very possibility of a scientific sociology, and considering the possibility that the demarcation line between sociology and ideology drawn in the 1950s may not have been final, does not have for them the same meaning of totalitarian threat as for the older generation (Ben-David 1973, quoted in Merton 1975:27).

Merton rejects the notion that politically engaged scholarship is an improvement on the value neutral stance embedded in the scientific ethos and that the current “crisis” in Western sociology calls for a special cure.  He declares himself a principled opponent of theoretical monism and restates his commitment to the ethos of science.  Merton reminds his readers that as far back as the 1940s he stood up to Parsons in rejecting the latter’s call for theoretical monism.[4]   Having documented the vintage nature of the current argument, Merton goes on to question the cure that 1960s sociological radicals offered to the problems ailing the discipline:

Were I called in as a consulting physician to review not only the diagnosis but also the recommended therapy, my opinion would be this:  that the chronic crisis of sociology, with its diversity, competition and clash of doctrine, seems preferable to the therapy sometimes proposed for handling the acute crisis, namely the prescription of a single theoretical perspective that promises to provide full and exclusive access to the sociological truth.  The reasons for my opinion are clear.  No one paradigm has even begun to demonstrate its unique cogency for investigating the entire range of sociologically interesting questions. . . .  [I]t is not so much the plurality of paradigms as the collective acceptance by practicing sociologists of a single paradigm proposed as a panacea that would constitute a deep crisis with ensuing stasis” (Merton 1975:28).

One cannot analogize American sociology of the 1960s and early 21th century Russian social science.  The political context and historical roots of the Russian controversy are quite different.  Yet some parallels can be profitably drawn, particularly with the newly-found interest in a monotheoretical approach and partisan scholarship among Russian sociologists.[5]  

Gennady Osipov is a veteran Soviet sociologist who saw its reemergence during Khryushchev’s “Thaw” and helped establish the Soviet Sociological Association in 1958 but his present zeal for ideologically engaged science and theoretical monism is reminiscent of the radical claims raised by sociologists of the bygone era.  “What is ideology?,” asks Osipov (2003a).  “It is a science of ideas [and] scientific ideas cannot be general the way the law of gravity is everywhere the same.  Scientific ideas gestate in the depth of history and culture, reflect the tradition and the mentality, as well as the economic, social, and political foundations of a given state and people.”  The fact that Marx had little use for ideology does not faze patriotic scholars, for “ideology is the science of ideas, and that means that ideas must be scientific as well.”  Nor should the patriotic scholars’ willingness to work closely with the government be mistaken for opportunism:  “The mission of sociologists in contemporary society is not to be servants of power but act as guardians of Russian national interests, of the Russian people, of the socially-minded Russian state” (Osipov and Kuznetzov 2005). 

Yadov’s reply to the self-styled patriotic sociologists mirrors Merton’s logic.  He does not object to the search for a grand theoretical schema but feels that such efforts are likely to prove sterile.  “Should Russia produce its own macrotheorist of note, the way we produce a recognized world champion in sports – all the better.  That would be a truly national achievement.  But if all we do is put on a pedestal yet another inventor of our unique (Russian) theory that is ignored by anyone but ‘local’ admirers, this will not be a contribution to sociology as much as to ideology” (Yadov 2007).  Equally spurious is the thesis advanced by patriotically-minded theoretical monists that paradigm pluralism and methodological eclecticism spells out subjectivism and amounts to the rejection of scientific standards.  Methodological standards are hotly contested within the discipline, Yadov contends, and the debate about the range of permissible tools should not be throttled.  This is not to suggest that the ideas borrowed elsewhere will be automatically applicable to Russian society, that the latter does not have a history all its own.  It is a red herring argument, according to Yadov, that the polyparadigmatic approach ignores local culture.  Contrary to Malinkin’s claim, Russian sociologists bend over backward trying to identify their society’s historical roots and do justice to its cultural idiosyncrasies (Yadov 2006).  “If the world itself is constantly changing, why should sociological theory that aspires to explain the world stay the same? . . .  Russian sociology needs no ‘nationally-specific’ social theory. . . .  If you wonder who needs today national Russian sociology, the answer is obvious – the ideologists of Russian exclusivity” (Yadov 2003; 2007).[6]    

Biographical Trajectories of Liberal and Nationalist Sociologists

The issues in the present debate may be intellectually challenging but the consequences they engender are hardly academic.  Those who win the argument will be in a position not only to secure scarce resources but also establish control over sociological education in the country, increase their representation in international organizations, and marginalize their opponents.  It is all the more important to find out where the adversaries acquired their values and how they intend to wield their institutional power vis-à-vis their opponents.  As we ponder the divergent political agendas, it might be helpful to trace their historical trajectories, to examine how major players have arrived at their current positions.  Much relevant information is supplied by the International Biography Initiative (2005), an online project that collects interviews with and memoirs about leading Russian sociologists.[7]  

Yadov’s path toward sociology began at the School of Philosophy, Leningrad State University, where he enrolled in the undergraduate program a few years after World War II.  As a student Yadov was active in the Young Communist League, reaching a leadership position in the organization.  He joined the CPSU in his second year of studies and appeared to be on his way to a successful career, possibly within the party hierarchy, when his advancement abruptly halted.  Yadov was purged from the party and the university on the charge that he had concealed his father’s membership in Zinovyev’s anti-party block (Yadov 2005).  Uncertain about his future, Yadov took up an apprentice job at an industrial plant.  He resumed his education and restored his party membership after Stalin’ death.  Already as an undergraduate Yadov grew disillusioned with philosophical abstractions and turned his attention toward more empirical subjects.  In graduate school he settled for the social sciences, writing a dissertation on the interfaces between ideology and politics. 

In 1960 Yadov was appointed head of the Sociological Laboratory at the Leningrad State University where he lead a major study published under the title Man and His Work (Yadov, Zdravomyslov and Rozhin 1967).  This publication established his reputation at home and abroad as one of the country’s leading sociologists.  Around this time Yadov moved to the Academy of Sciences Institute of Concrete Social Research where he assumed directorship of its Leningrad branch, remaining in this position until the Institute merged with several other research divisions into a new organization reporting to the local party authorities.  In the late Soviet era Yadov came under attack for his lack of ideological vigilance.  He lost control over his research division and had to give up his position as president of the Leningrad Sociological Association.  It was not until perestroika that his contribution to the discipline was recognized once again.  With Gorbachev’s reforms gathering speed, Yadov was appointed director of the Institute of Sociology and elected president of the Soviet Sociological Association. 

Looking back at his life career, Yadov is quick to acknowledge his communist past.  He retained his loyalty even after he was purged from the party and found himself working at an industrial plant.  “At the time, I was a veritable shock trooper [хунвейбином] and happily accepted the invitation. [When] our Leader and Teacher died, I sincerely wept on that occasion” (Yadov 2005).  After Stalin’s death Yadov settled for an academic career, forgoing an opportunity to move up the party hierarchy.  Yet, one would be hard pressed to find him lamenting his travails or taking credit for the hardships he suffered under the ancien régime.  When the tide turned and sociologists felt free to speak their mind, Yadov did not rush to disown his old views or hide his early political sympathies:  “I definitely was a Marxist and in no way feel embarrassed about it today.  I write a lot about the polyparadigmatic character of contemporary sociology in which Marx occupies a prominent place alongside Weber.  Marx is a great thinker.   His works are discussed in all Western sociology textbooks.  Just his notion of alienated labor (proletariat) rivals the Weberian concept of social action.”  (Yadov 2005).  Today, Yadov defends the view that sociology thrives in an environment conducive to political and theoretical diversity.  He wants sociologists to be engaged in civil society and promote the ideals of social justice: 

In the introduction to his book about social change Peter Stompka writes that the progress in astronomy does not impact the planetary motion, whereas social theories can change the “worldview” of humanity.  He is exactly right.  If we, sociologists, do nothing more but write books, we shall not fulfill our civil duty.  We must try to influence the movement of social planets. . . .   If Russia is to find its rightful place in the world community while remaining itself, it must take into account its cultural tradition and derive a proper lesson from the seventy years of Soviet rule.  We have no viable ideological alternative besides building a just society.  Fighting the corruption, empowering the independent judiciary, establishing fair progressive taxes, and much more – that is what our people demand. (Yadov 2005)

Gennady Osipov’s professional career began at the Moscow Institute of International Relations.  After graduating in 1952, he enrolled in the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Philosophy where he wrote a dissertation on the problems of labor, science, and technology.  In 1960 he was appointed head of a sociology division at the institute, the first of its kind in Moscow, as well as president of the Soviet Sociological Association, a position he held for the next 12 years.  Osipov’s colleagues give him credit for promoting the new discipline, especially for the role he played at a key meeting where sociologists and high level party apparatchiks discussed the need for a sociology division within the Academy of Sciences structure.[8]   Osipov’s presentation accentuating the role of sociology as a research tool in the party’s hands paved the way to the creation of the Institute of Concrete Social Research, with Osipov designated as a deputy director in the newly founded organization.  When sociology fell on hard time, Osipov was pushed aside by Mikhail Rutkevich, the new Institute director, but retained his job at the Institute.  He weathered the ideological storm without sustaining much damage to his scholarly or political credentials.  With Gorbachev’s call to glasnost, Osipov cast himself as a champion of perestroika, trumpeting the role that sociology can play in democratic reforms.  In time he secured a coveted position as a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and received an appointment as head of Institute of Social and Political Studies.  

Osipov’s achievements as a scholar do not match his organizational talents.  His published corpus is vast, but much of it is filled with vacuous, impersonal verbiage that makes for tedious reading, and it is replete with statements whose obsequiousness exceeds the demands of the time.[9]   There may be a simple explanation for the generally shoddy quality of the man’s scholarship:  most publications bearing Osipov’s signature are believed to be ghost written.  “In order to emerge as author of numerous books and articles, Osipov did not have to rely on the ‘copy and paste’ method which, according to expert analysis, V. Dobrenkov and A. Kravchenko used in their work.  Rather, he preferred the ‘power play’.  Witnesses report that, during his tenure as a deputy director of IKSI, Osipov repeatedly leaned on doctoral students or even an experienced scholar with the order-request:  ‘Do you wish to defend your thesis?  Write this for me.  Do you want something else?  Here is what you need to do for me’” (Demina 2007).  When recently asked what he thought about scholars appropriating other people’s works, Osipov replied:  “My attitude toward that is strictly negative.  If you appropriate someone else’s work, that means you have no opinion of your own, you have no place in science” (Demina 2007).  This stance is consistent with the Professional Code of Russian sociologists:  “Plagiarism and appropriation in any form or shape of ideas that belong to other people are unacceptable and incompatible with the professional code of sociologists” (Professionalnyi kodeks 1988:95).  But then Osipov needs to explain why, after Sociology Today was translated into Russian, Robert Merton’s introduction to this milestone volume mysteriously vanished and in its place appeared Osipov’s foreword containing several pages of Merton’s original text. 

The strategy Osipov uses to reconcile his soviet past with his perestroika persona differs from Yadov’s.  As soon as it became clear that Gorbachev’s reforms were for real and that it was safe to speak about reform, Osipov sprang into action.  He unearthed a telling quote from Lenin about the “arrogant party functionary who is ready at a moment’s notice to write a ‘thesis’, formulate a ‘slogan’, or advance some abstract proposition,” after which he boldly denounced “the army of sycophants who used their power to scorn dissidents for the views they themselves expounded when it was safe to do so” (Osipov 1987:16).  Those familiar with Osipov’s bureaucratic proclivities might take this statement as self-criticism, but that is not how this member of the Soviet academic establishment meant it.  Osipov offered a revisionist account of his soviet past where he pictures himself as a person who had always harbored contempt for the partocracy, suffered grievously for his unorthodox views, and finally unveiled his true self after perestroika.[10]   On March 26, 2008, at the meeting celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Sociological Association, Osipov gave the keynote address in which he traced critical junctures in the evolution of sociology in Russia, with two events in particular singled out as harbingers of the downturn in soviet sociology: “the Levada affair” and “the Osipov affair.”   In this account Osipov likens himself to the legendary sociologist Yuri Levada who had to leave the discipline during the ideological purges while Osipov managed to keep his job, published copiously throughout the era, traveled abroad, and made digs at Levada when the man was down and out and could not respond to his detractors.  These days Osipov lambasts the “partocratic leaders of the past” and inveighs against “the betrayal of national interests by Communist Party” (Osipov 2005), but back then, he spared no effort to affirm his allegiance to the regime.  It is not just that Osipov occupied high positions in the soviet academic hierarchy and used his party connections to promote his career.  Yuri Levada was also an elected party official at the Institute of Concrete Social Research, but each man used his perch to achieve different ends.  As Levada (1990) recalls in his Harvard interview, “I did not feel badly because I had occupied a party leadership position in those days, because this restrained people like Osipov and helped us do our work.”[11]  

Gennady Osipov’s commitment to democratic reform did not survive perestroika.  When Gorbachev’ successor Boris Yeltsin lost public support and the opposition began to pose a real threat to his administration, Osipov reinvented himself once again, this time as a patriotic sociologist inspired by the nationalist agenda.  These days he rails against “the warped spirituality and egoistic individualism of the West,” extols “Russia’s uniqueness and catholicism (соборность) (Osipov 2004), demands to update the tsarist formula “Orthodoxy, autocracy, and the folk spirit” as “spirituality, state-centrism, and folk power” (1997), and spearheads a successful campaign to induct Metropolit Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, into the Russian Academy of Social and Humanitarian Sciences (2002). 

Several things stand out in these two divergent scholarly trajectories.  While both sociologists stress the continuity between their old and new selves, endorse activist social science, and look for ways to aid the nation in distress, they follow different orbits.  Yadov does not hesitate to acknowledge his communist past, endeavors to revise orthodox Marxism in line with democratic values, and goes out of his way to insure theoretical diversity and organizational pluralism in the field of sociology.  Osipov willfully obscures his credentials as a stalwart communist, exaggerates his exploits as an opponent of the communist regime, and glosses over his perennial willingness to align himself with the latest power swing in a bid to advance his career.  If you take a look at the people around Yadov and Osipov, you will discover that each scholar is surrounded by kindred spirits.  Yadov teams up with the likes of Zaslavskaya, Shubkin, Levada, Kon – scholars whose scientific credentials are recognized at home and abroad and whose commitment to democratic ideals is beyond reproach.  Osipov throws his lot with Dobrenkov, Zhukov, Dmitriev, Glaziev and their ideological kin who often hail from the Academy of Social Sciences or similar party-affiliated soviet institutions, whose scholarly credentials are meager and in some cases nonexistent, and whose xenophobic proclivities suggest that they are unlikely to settle for peaceful coexistence with their liberal opponents.  The vision of the future embedded in each camp is starkly different. 

Vladimir Yadov and his colleagues see Russia becoming fully integrated into the European and world community.  This process of integration is spurred by the forces of “globalization, internet networking, the emergence of the worldwide information space, cooperation with the NATO alliance, integration into the world economy, and so on” (Yadov 2003).  Sociologists are called upon to aid this process by promoting international cooperation, identifying the sources of intolerance, and researching a broad range of problems facing Russian society as it struggles to shed its totalitarian past. 

Gennady Osipov has a different agenda that tears Russia away from its democratic neighbors:  “The thesis about the integration of Russia into the Western civilization, which nowadays undergoes a systemic crisis, is not only historically spurious but also practically pernicious, for it destroys the singularity of Russian culture, tradition, customs ” (Osipov 2004).  The most pressing task for patriotic sociologists is to consolidate the nation around core Russian values, cast liberal social scientists as unpatriotic, and centralize control over sociological institutions in the country.  Since V. Dobrenkov heads the ministerial council in charge of appointing sociology department chairs in the Russian Federation, there will be an ample opportunity for him and his comrades to reinforce the vertical of power in the nation’s academic institutions in years to come.

If there was any doubt as to how the Russian government views the dispute between the liberal and nationalist sociologists, it was dispelled by Vladimir Putin who bestowed on Gennady Osipov a medal honoring his service to the country. 

Liberalism, Patriotism, and Pragmatism in Russian Culture

Boris Firsov, a noted student of soviet sociology, once remarked on Osipov’s “pragmatism” as underlying “his ability to adopt to the powers that be” (Firsov 2001:127).  The word “pragmatism” in this description hints at the ambivalent attitude Russian intellectuals feel about this phenomenon, which they often qualify by adjectives “crass,” “cynical,” “naked,” “cold,” and “devoid of principles.”  Put into an internet search engine the expressions “голый прагматизм,” “холодный прагматизм,” “циничный прагматизм,” “оголтелый прагматизм,” “беспринципный прагматизм,” and you will get thousands of hits conveying an abiding contempt for everything that reeks of pragmatism in today’s Russia. 

According to Vladimir Bukovsky, a person with impeccable liberal credentials, “Pragmatism is only a polite name for the utter lack of principles” (Bukovskyh 2006).  “The foundations of humanism are eroded in today’s world,” asserts Beliaev (2006), “in fashion these days are conformism, pragmatism, hedonism, and a complete lack of principles.”  “No national ideas, naked pragmatism,” agrees Kolesnikov (2008).   “Pragmatism is a rejection of conscience and morality” (Veller 2008).   “Pragmatism is the ideology of scoundrels.  ‘Pragmatism’ is a creed of burgers, arrogant and self-satisfied.  A burger-pragmatist is a conduit of evil” (Vetrochet, 2004).  “Where naked pragmatism and utilitarianism reign, the soul expires, and what is the Russian folk without a soul?  Without its soul, the Russian people could not have survived under the harsh historical conditions, nor would they be able to create the treasures that have enriched the world culture” (Saveliev, 2003). 

For the most part, the authors of these philippics use the term “pragmatism” in its non-technical sense.  It serves as a figure of abuse directed against apolitical, uncultured, money-driven, overly competitive attitudes widespread in postsoviet Russia.  The term assumes a more explicitly political meaning in conservative writings.  Gennady Osipov discerns in it a Western influence when he treats as synonymous “pragmatism and the lack of scruples.”  To grasp the ideological bent the term has acquired in Russia’s nationalistic academic circles we must turn to Aleksandr Malinkin, the theoretician of patriotic sociology and champion of monoparadigmatism in social science (Malinkin 1999, 2005, 2006). 

As many in Russia’s nationalist circles these days, Malinkin takes his cue from I. A. Il’in, an early 20th century Russian philosopher who celebrated the nation’s genius inexorably tinged in ethnic colors:  “A person who can create something that is beautiful in the eyes of all the people must first foremost engross himself in the creative act of his own people.  ‘A world genius’ is always and invariably a national genus.  Efforts to create something ‘great’ out of internationalism and its effusions will produce either dubious, ephemeral ‘celebrities’ or planetary evildoers.  True greatness is nativist (почвенно).  True genius is national” (Il’in 1990).[12]   In addition to this hyper-nationalism, Malinkin borrows the anti-democratic concept of “ressentiment” from two other signature German thinkers – Nietzsche and Scheler.  The latter translated nationalist idioms into phenomenological terms.  Back in the Soviet era Malinkin slammed neo-Kantianism for its idealist leanings, but now he finds in it a rationale for his sociological nativism.  What attracts Malinkin in the concept of ressentiment is the jaundiced view of humanism as “a universal movement whose love for humanity masks not the craving for positive values bu ta protestant sentiment, a negative impulse – i.e., hatred, envy, vengefulness, and so on – directed against the dominant minority that harbors positive values” (Malinkin 1999).  Pragmatism with its liberalism, democratism, and trust in scientific inquiry is a philosophical expression of ressentiment.  Not surprisingly, Malinkin discerns the spirit of pragmatism and the invidious stirrings of ressentiment in the cosmopolitan intelligentsia of postsoviet Russia: 

In the early 1990s, the majority of academic sociologists adopted a shortsighted, ethically warped stance.  Their pragmatism is designed to curry favor with economic and political elites, to secure generous grants from the foreign donors.  With a few exceptions, such pro-Western intellectuals are indifferent to the nation’s plight, refusing to own up to their responsibility. . . .  The first casualty of this pragmatist indifference turns out to be truth.  Philosophical pragmatism begets extreme subjectivism, relativism, and eclecticism. . . .  Behind liberalism as an ideological movement and an empty humanistic creed stands philosophical pragmatism [with its] polyparadigmatism. . . .  The notion that democracy and science are twins, that they share an origin, that science needs democracy as much as democracy needs science, that science cannot tolerate the dictate and hegemony of one paradigm, theory, or idea – all such views fall short upon closer examination. . . .  (Malinkin 2005).

The animosity toward pragmatism is by no means unique to Russia.  It has a counterpart in the West, notably in the works of Max Scheler (1926), who was among the first to advance the thesis that pragmatism exemplifies the democratic spirit and positivism inimical European culture.  Scheler’s writings influenced a generation of critics on the left and the right straining to define themselves in opposition to pragmatic liberalism.  An admirer of Scheler, Martin Heidegger (1977:231, 200) built on his ideas when he stressed “the blindness and arbitrariness of what is . . . known under the heading of ‘pragmatism’” and condemned this transatlantic current as a species of a broader intellectual malaise sweeping through Western civilization – “humanism.”  What Heidegger’s nationalistic anti-humanism meant pragmatically became evident after the Nazi swept into power.  Heidegger embraced fascism with a vengeance, grounding his commitment in the nativist rhetoric that celebrated “the forces that are rooted in the soil and blood of a Volk,” “the honor and the destiny of the nation,” “our will to national self-responsibility,” “the new German reality embodied in the National Socialist State” (Heidegger, 1991:31, 33, 38, 48).  “Fuhrer alone is the present and future German reality and its law,” Heidegger declaimed, while he denounced the “much-praised academic freedom [which] is being banished from the German university; for this freedom was false, because it was only negative” (Heidegger, 1991:47, 34).  And it is his ultranationalist conviction that compelled him to write secret letters to Nazi authorities denouncing his colleagues from “that liberal-democratic circle of intellectuals around Max Weber . . . closely tied to the Jew Frankel” (Heidegger, quoted in Safranski, 1998:273).

The failure of the nonliberal left to grapple with pragmatism and democracy is equally instructive.  Influenced by Marxist theory, the left-wing intellectuals from the Frankfurt School were as dismissive of this liberal philosophy as nativist thinkers on the right.  Horkheimer slammed pragmatism as “the abasement of reason” and “a genuine expression of the positivistic approach,” a philosophy which advocates the “reduction of reason to a mere instrument” and serves as a “counterpart of modern industrialism, for which the factory is the prototype of human existence, and which models all branches of culture after production on the conveyor belt, or after the rationalized front office” (Horkheimer, 1947:45-54).  The disillusionment with democratic liberalism led the Marxism-inspired intellectuals to look for a conceptual link between repression and liberal rational­ism.  Indeed, “we can say that liberalism ‘produces’ the total authoritarian state out of itself, as its own consummation at a more advanced stage of development,” insisted Marcuse (1968:19).  “The pattern of all administration and ‘personnel policy,’” according to Adorno (1978:131), “tends of its own accord . . . towards Fascism.” Left to its own devices, Horkheimer (1978:219) charged, “democracy leads to its opposite – tyranny.”

It took a new generation of European scholars like Apel (1981), Habermas (1985, 1987), and Joas (1985, 1993) to shatter the old preconceptions about pragmatist philosophy and embrace its commitment to liberal values as an antidote to the authoritarian tradition of European social thought.  Jürgen Habermas played an especially critical role in this transformation.  He showed that “the old Frankfurt School never took bourgeois democracy very seriously,” that it “is only in Western nations that the precarious and continually threatened achievements of bourgeois emancipation and the worker’s movement are guaranteed to any extent worth mentioning. . . .  And we know just how important bourgeois freedoms are.  For when things go wrong it is those on the Left who become the first victims. . . .  I have for a long time identified myself with that radical democratic mentality which is present in the best American traditions and articulated in American pragmatism” (Habermas, 1986:98, 42; 1985:198; see also Shalin 1991).  Pragmatist ideas of Peirce, Dewey, and Mead are central to Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, as well as to other pragmatism-inspired currents in contemporary European social science (Bernstein 1991; Joas 1993; Halton 1986; Shalin 1986, 1992). 

Given this historical transformation, we can say that Russian intellectuals are well behind the curve as they continue to heap abuse on pragmatism and expose themselves to the dangers that befell ultranationalists and anti-liberal intellectuals in the West. 

“. . . The tainted Thomas theorem paraphrases the ancient motto according to which ‘things are just as they seem to you’.  It serves to justify pragmatically the idea that social reality is infinitely malleable and constructed,” writes Malinkin about the interactionist school of sociology built on pragmatist premises (2006).  This statement misses its mark.  Pragmatist philosophers never claimed that reality is whatever we believe it to be. They do contend, however, that the convictions we act upon and bring to bear on reality may come true as self-fulfilling prophesies – particularly when competing beliefs are suppressed.  What Malinkin and like-minded scholars fail to realize is that pragmatism is first and foremost a method, an attempt to understand what and how we mean.  Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, looked for ways to make our ideas clear by aligning abstractions with the earthy particulars for which they stand and social actions which nudge them into being.  When it comes to sociological concepts, the point is to find the somatic, affective, and behavioral indicators that vouch for the concept’s meaningful occurrence (Peirce 1991; Joas 1993; Shalin 2007).  Pragmatists take note of creedal statements and political manifestos, but they put their stock into the means we use to achieve our ends, measuring the latter by the former.  Stalin’s constitution enunciated many of the rights found in the United States constitution, yet just as it proclaimed basic liberties guaranteed to Russian citizens, the Soviet Union plunged into a terror campaign that had claimed over a million lives and engendered consequences still felt in Russia today.  Shunning the “ethics of ultimate ends,” pragmatists embrace the “ethics of means,” or what Max Weber would call the “ethics of responsibility.”  The latter looks for the unseemly particulars lurking behind highfalutin universals and doggedly tracks the consequences of our theoretical commitments, while the former is tethered to the notion that worthy ends justify the means, however inhumane their immediate and long-term consequences might be. 

Russia’s patriotic discourse is replete with statements of principle and declarations of good faith that obscure hideous realities.  Ultranationalists lament “the deficit of nationally-minded intelligentsia in Russia” (Malinkin 2006) yet evade the question of who qualifies as a patriotic intellectual.  They refuse to acknowledge that patriotism can be the last refuge of a scoundrel just as the last stance of a dissident.  Patriotic sentiments goad skinheads to attack foreigners; they also move the citizen to shield a neighbor from a pogrom.  Patriotism compels a soldier to sacrifice himself on a battlefield and gives an excuse to a general ordering his soldiers to clear a minefield with their bodies.  We cannot be sure which patriotism is in play until we examine the murky particulars hiding behind the universals.

Russian nationalists extol “the Russian national ethics and communicative culture marked by kind-heartedness, longing for justice, catholicism, nonutilitarianism, hard work, and hospitality” (Malinkin 1999).  Pragmatists point out that like many other people, Russians are also not immune to sloth, cruelty, and corruption.  Nationalists rail against “the historically obsolete idea that by nature humans are equal” and renounce the notion of “‘universal’ values” (Malinkin 1999).   Pragmatists contend that we may profit from such universal values as the freedom of inquiry, respect for ethnic differences, or sacredness of human life.  By the same token, where liberals decry “pragmatism and indifferentism of the masses” in present-day Russia (Ryvkina 2006), pragmatists contend that this picture is painted with too broad a brush, that it ignores many a hopeful sign in postsoviet society – a willingness to take the initiative, start a private enterprise, form voluntary associations, respect privacy, travel abroad.   

When Russian authorities moved to close the European University in St. Petersburg, not a single patriotic sociologist in the Osipov group raised one’s voice against this politically motivated decision.  Their brand of patriotism did not call for such solidarity.  Nor did Dobrenkov and his colleagues at Moscow State University defend students expelled from the university after the sociologists-in-the-making dared to criticize the quality of teaching at this institution.[13]   Swearing by principles does little good unless you embody those principles in your actions, show a willingness to flesh them out in emotionally intelligent conduct.  Juxtaposing systematically the discursive-symbolic, somatic-affective, and behavioral-performative signs is the task of pragmatist hermeneutics (Shalin 2007).   The penchant for disembodied generalities and grandstanding signals acute distress.  It is a symptom familiar to the students of Russian culture whose agents let their high-minded abstractions get in a way of messy realities and poison their affective palette (Kon 1996; Etkind, 1996; Paramonov 1996; Shalin 1996, 2004b).  Sergei Averintsev (1996) offers an intriguing explanation for this cultural characteristic, tracing it to Platonism permeating Russian culture and the underestimation of the Aristotelian tradition: 

I daresay that the meeting between Plato and Russian culture has taken place, and more than once.  In ancient Russia this meeting was mediated by the Platonizing Church Fathers.  In the 19th century, mediators included such figures as Schelling and his Russian followers, including the great Tiutchev, Vladimir Solovyev, Vladimir Ern, father Pavel Florensky, Viacheslav Ivanov.  Ancient philosophy attracted the opponents of positivism and materialism, with their more or less romantic orientation.  Naturally, they preferred not the boring treaties of Aristotle but the poetic dialogues of Plato.  And so, the meeting with Aristotle did not take place.  In spite of the work of the above mentioned specialists, Aristotle remains unread by the Russian educated society (Averintsev 1996).

Averintsev does not link Aristotelian philosophy to pragmatism, but the two share several key characteristics, including the willingness to measure ideal forms with their mundane manifestations, to conduct an empirical inquiry, to make room for emotions in political discourse, to acknowledge unforeseen circumstances which may scuttle our best-laid plans (Shalin 2005). 

Even though Russian intellectuals are yet to appropriate fully the legacy of Aristotle or to appreciate the relevance of pragmatism, they have made strides in the right directions.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover on the Russian internet a lively debate whose participants advocated the virtues of pragmatism.[14]   Dmitri Medvedev, Russia’s new president, recently offered this advice to his American colleagues:  “I am sure that any administration of the United States of America, if it wishes to succeed, among other things, in overcoming essentially a depression that exists in the American economic market, must conduct a pragmatic policy inside the country and abroad” (Levy 2008:A9).  Clearly, pragmatism can serve facile purposes.  Those who pride themselves on the willingness to compromise, think out of the box, check theories against realities, and make a short-term retreat for the sake of achieving long-term goals – all key pragmatist virtues – can find themselves crossing into opportunism and unscrupulousness.   Again, this problem is not unique to Russia.  Witness Barack Obama’s reversing himself on his earlier commitment to public financing of the presidential election or John McCain’s flip-flopping on tax cuts for the rich.  There is room for the honest difference of opinion on whether such moves embody crass opportunism or bespeak tough pragmatism – we would have to examine their words and deeds in months to come to resolve these puzzles.  But that is exactly the kind of debate that intelligent pragmatism engenders.  The sooner Russian intellectuals stop arguing over principles and get on with pragmatically grounded discussions, the better their country will be.

Conclusion

No man is an island, no culture is a historical singularity.  Russia shares its heritage with the Indo-European family of ethno-linguistic groups.  Its mindset owes as much to the Byzantine religious tradition as it does to Mongol statecraft.  Lithuanian, French, German and other formative influences must be considered as well (Paramonov 1996; Pankhurst, 1996; Shalin 1995).  The manner in which these crosscurrents coalesced into a whole may be unique, but taking them into account and exploring the manner in which they hang together is crucial for the understanding of this complex cultural phenomenon.  Efforts by patriotic scholars to reduce this phenomenon to a national paradigm are misguided.


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Endnotes

1. Some of the materials cited in this paper exist only in the electronic form.   Where both printed and digital versions are available, the information about the print publication source is provided in the reference section, but the citations draw on the readily available electronic version, the URL for which appears alongside the standard reference at the end of this paper.

2. “In Eastern Europe the proponent of American methods are beginning to acknowledge that American theories explaining social stratification, crisis in education, and so on, are inapplicable to their own societies.  Understandably, we witness the renaissance of Weber, Simmel, Durkheim. . . .  However, the national dimension in the history of sociology is not an arrogant philosophical conceit indifferent to facts (in the spirit of N. Danilevsky’s ‘national science’) or a symptom of ethnocentric ideology asserting national exclusivity.  The exploration of the national is a real scientific task that can be solved only historically, retrospectively.  Hard-pedaling the national specificity as a normative research stance is a dangerous thing, for this very specificity is historical, and ignoring its historical dimension obscures the true nature of the national (Golosenko 1981:76-77). 

3. This is how Osipov narrates the momentous developments in the discipline since the beginning of perestroika reform and a special role he played in the ongoing transformation:  “At the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, two distinct concepts of perestroika and Russian reform developed in the Institute of Sociology. . . .  The first approach stressed the need to destroy everything build under the Communist Party, risking to undermine the stability and social order.  This concept had some justification in the fact that the slowdown in dismantling the Soviet system of government opened the door to the partocratic revenge.  This approach also had its dark side:  the wholesale destruction endangered the society, the state, and its citizens, which in the end turned out to be the case.  The second concept stemmed from the premise that the most important indicator of reform was the real human being, that the reforms must take into account the human dimension and aid rather than devastate the individual, whose needs were the main reasons for reform.  This approach revolved around the democratic idea of social stability and order.  But it also had a drawback.  This approach had a potential of slowing down reform.   Hence, the evolutionary pace of development could have opened the door to the partocratic revenge.  In line with these two concepts, the Scientific Council of the Institute of Sociology received and reviewed two programs of scholarly development, with V. Yadov and G. Osipov serving as heads of the rival scholarly collectives.  Following the narrow group interests, the new – “Yadov’s – Scientific Council created the climate which rendered impossible the coexistence of two programs within the confines of one institute.  The ensuing conflict [lead to] the creation of two academic sociological institutes, each one pursuing a different vision of Russian reality and different schools of sociology.”  (Osipov 2006).

4. “Talcott Parsons was anticipating and advocating theoretical monism.  As he put it, ‘there is every prospect’ that the then-current diversity of theories advanced within the ‘professional group’ – the collectivity of trained sociologists – would ‘converge in the development of a single conceptual structure’ (Parsons 1948:157).  Even in those remote days, as no doubt to excess since, one of Parsons’s students countered this monistic orientation by observing the actuality and, advocating the uses, of a plurality of theories.  The clash of opinion was no less deep-seated for being expressed in would-be forceful but civil terms such as these: ‘[W]hen Mr. Parsons suggests that our chief task is to deal with ‘theory’ rather than with ‘theories,’ I must take strong exception.  The fact is that the term ‘sociological theory,’ just as would be the case with the terms ‘physical theory’ or ‘medical theory,’ is often misleading.  It suggests a tighter integration of diverse working of theories than ordinarily obtains in any of these disciplines. . . .  To concentrate solely on the master conceptual scheme for deriving all sociological theory is to run the risk of producing twentieth century equivalents of the large philosophical systems of the past, with all their suggestiveness, all their architectural splendor and all their scientific sterility” [Merton, 1948:164-165]  (Merton 1975:40-41).

5. To be sure, the 1960s’ American sociologists were out to challenge state authorities while Osipov and his comrades align themselves with the extant powers, yet in both cases one senses the skepticism about the ethos of science, willingness to stake a strong ideological stance, and the claim to speak on behalf of the overriding national interest (Shalin 1979). 

6. Andrey Zdravomyslov takes a somewhat different position.  Although not opposed on principle to paradigm pluralism, he welcomes an inquiry into national schools of sociology and their cultural-historical roots.  In a series of articles devoted to the subject he sets out to identify the characteristic features of several sociological traditions (2006, 2007).  The current state in the evolution of Russian sociology, according to Zdravomyslov, is marked by “the polyparadigmatic orientation,” the competition between “French, German, American, and English sociological enclaves within Russian social thought,” and the “intense creative process aimed at the appropriation and transformation of the world sociological perspectives so that they become relevant for the analysis of Russian social reality” (Zdravomyslov 2007).   The author specially notes the intense struggle over the relationship between sociology and power in contemporary Russia, with the two paradigms emerging as chief contenders in the field:  “The first paradigm:  society is an object of both research and government.  Science investigates, power governs.  The good authorities consult research, the bad ones ignore them, which is a bad thing.  The second paradigm:  power and science belong to society. . . .  The field of power and the field of science are circumscribed by the conditions of their time, available resources, culture.   While each belongs to a societal domain, they operate in separate niches with different sets of values and rules” (Zdravomylsov 2007).  Zdravomyslov does not take a stance on the optimal relationship between social science and power, but the issue he raises is vital.  We now turn our attention to the power struggle at the heart of the present controversy.

7. The materials gathered on this site illuminate the narrative strategies that senior Russian sociologists have deployed to reconcile their communist selves with their postsoviet incarnations (Doktorov 2007, 2007b; Doktorov and Kozlova 2007; Mazlyumyanova and Doktorov, 2007; Shalin 2006).  The following overview focuses in particular on the biographical trajectories and self-constructions of Vladimir Yadov and Gennady Osipov.

8. “When heard him speak,” remembers Igor Kon who attended the same gathering (Yadov and Grathoff 1994:60), “I had a clear impression that we were certain to fail.  Beforehand we talked about a big picture, our long-term plans.  And now Andrey was spouting nonsense, reciting the list of missives we had prepared for the Central Committee Department of Science, or something along those lines. . . .   As it turned out – that was exactly that sealed the decision.”

9. See Osipov (1979:40, 159, 261; 1977:52). 

10. “In 1970, we published a book Mathematical Models in Sociology (under my editorship) which advanced an idea that models of socialism can be natural and artificial. . . .  As a result, the CPSU Central Committee, the Moscow and regional party offices set up a joint commission to investigate the Institute.   And the new pogrom of sociology commenced.  Some sociologists left the Institute.  Others faced the party reprimands.  I faced the expulsion from the party and a threat of criminal investigation. . . .  What helped me survive was the fact that in those days, my father worked with the aid of [the Central Committee member] Suslov, who telephoned the Central Committee Science Department and asked, ‘What’s the matter with Osipov?’  That was sufficient to cool the zeal of the commission members.  But I lost my positions and had something like five official reprimands served on me (Osipov 2003).

11. Osipov’s opportunism was on display in 1969 when the authorities unleashed a campaign against Levada’s Lectures in Sociology.  On December 4th, at the party meeting convened to evaluate Levada’s book, Osipov rejected as unjustified the attack on the book, citing the opinion of A. Rumiantsev, Institute director.  But five days later, at another gathering attended by high-ranked members of the regional and city party officials, he changed his tune, insisting that “Lectures failed to outline the role of historical and dialectical materialism as a foundation of Marxist-Leninist theory and methodology, downplayed class analysis and the principle of communist partisanship in dealing with social reality, and neglected the demands of ideological struggle.”  Gennady Osipov proposed that “Y. A. Levada ought to be relieved from his duties as the Institute party secretary and member of the politburo”  (Batying 1999; Shalin 2008).  In a book published a few years later, Osipov brought up Levada’s writings to emphasize his disagreement with the disgraced colleague, even though Osipov knew that Levada was in no position to reply to his critics at the time (Osipov 1979:176).

12. We should note that this precept has a long pedigree, especially in German culture, which exerted a tangible influence on Russian intellectuals in the last two centuries (Shalin 1996).  It is worth noting that among the complaints launched by the expelled students was the decision by the administration to Christianize education at the School of Sociology – a programmatic commitment that patriotic sociologists wish to impose on all Russian teachers.  Indicative in this respect is a recent book about the pragmatist George Herbert Mead published by Elena Kravchenko, a faculty member at Moscow State University.  In this book she claimed that there could be no chasm between religious and scientific knowledge, citing the 18th century luminary M. I. Lomonosov as an ultimate authority in this matter:  “Science and religion are sisters, daughters of the Heavenly Father, and they can never be cross at each other, except in a feat of vanity. . . .  Does Mead agree with that?  Unfortunately not” (Kravchenko 2006:215; see Shalin 2008b for a review of Kravchenko’s monogrpah).

13. It is worth noting that among the complaints launched by the expelled students was the decision by the administration to Christianize education at the School of Sociology – a programmatic commitment that patriotic sociologists wish to impose on all Russian teachers.  Indicative in this respect is a recent book about the pragmatist George Herbert Mead published by Elena Kravchenko, a faculty member at Moscow State University.  In this book she claimed that there could be no chasm between religious and scientific knowledge, citing the 18th century luminary M. I. Lomonosov as an ultimate authority in this matter:  “Science and religion are sisters, daughters of the Heavenly Father, and they can never be cross at each other, except in a feat of vanity. . . .  Does Mead agree with that?  Unfortunately not” (Kravchenko 2006:215; see Shalin 2008b for a review of Kravchenko’s monogrpah).

14. In one such debate elementary school teachers were called upon to imbue their pedagogical efforts with a healthy dose of pragmatism:  “Based on pragmatism – democracy – culture, education has as its goal imparting the new personal qualities, skills, and abilities to solve practical problems. . . .  Outside of school, children learn what really interests them, and such education is more effective (J. Dewey), as it encourages strategies of critical thinking (Nazarenko, Nigai, and Zhurina 2006).  And here is a nod toward pragmatism from the Russian foreign minister:  “You can hear complaints that we lack an ideology, which amounts to pragmatism in foreign policy.  But pragmatism does not imply lack of principles.  We simply start with life, with the real needs of the nation and its citizens.  Russia is content to pursue the ideology of common sense” (Lavrov 2007).