no TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL but that are not captured in any intentional characterization of the labor process in terms of its raw materials, instruments and product. This, in turn, would need to be recombined with Marx's analysis ofthe overriding capitalist intentional structure of surplus-value maximization to provide a Chapter 5 three-dimensional characterization of any example of capitalist produc­ tion: social relations ofproduction, labor process as intentional structure, and labor process as material combination ofcausal mechanisms. This approach can now be turned into a provisional strategy for explainingwhy capitalistproductiontends to undermine its ownecological conditions. The forms of economic calculation that govern patterns of SOVIET capital investment and accumulation, and, through that, the distribution ofactivity as between different "concrete" labor processes, are conducted ENVIRONMENTALISM in terms of abstract values. They are thus not only highly insensitive to qualitative differences between different concrete labor processes and use The Path Not Taken values but also, and for the same reasons, insensitive to ecological context­ dependence, ecologically significantunintended consequences, timescales oforganic processes, and so on. Marx's undertheorization ofthese aspects ARRAN GARE ofcapitalist economic calculation merelyreflects actuallyexistingpractice, the result ofwhich is a tendency to materially assimilate all labor processes to the productive-transformative model, and to drive productive practices themselves beyond their sustainable limits. However, there are importantlimits to the argument thus stated. What INTRODUCTION is characterized here is a general tendency of capitalist production. The consequences of any actualization of this tendency in any specific branch Capitalism is 'a system that by its very nat~re must expan~ ~ntil it destroys ofproduction could not be predicted in advance of the kind of threefold the conditions of its own existence. It IS hardly surpnsmg,. then, that analysis suggested above. Inparticular, this confirms Leffsinsistence onthe Marxists in the argued that in the current envIronmental need for interdisciplinary collaboration between a revised historical mate­ crisis lay the ultimate reason for replacing capitalism with sociali.s~: ~ A. rialism and ecology, as well as othernaturalsciences. In particular, this form D. Ursal, the editor ofPhilosophy and the Ecological Problems ofCivilization, ofanalysis raises problems for any account, such asJames O'Connor's, that argued: seeks to identify a contradiction between capitalist forms and relations of production and their conditions. This approach also suggests that the The crisis ofthe environment, which is reaching extreme develo~n:ent question of capitalism's long-term ecological sustainability cannot be an­ almost everywhere, coincides with the last stage ofthe general cnSIS of swered a priori from an economic theory of capital, but can only be capitalism. A conviction is growing throughou~ t~e world that only addressed in terms of the relationship between the requirements of ex­ collapse ofthe capitalist system and victory ofSocialism t~rougho~t the panded capital accumulation and the possibilities for social and technical world will create a general, fundamental, social oppor~umty~or ratlO~al reorganization oflabor processes as forms ofappropriation ofnature. use ofnatural resources and the highest degree ofoptlmum mteractlon with nature. ... Convincing evidence that is a necess~ry condition for optimizing relations between society and nature is SOCial­ ism as it actually exists, and the policy of socialist countries in respect NOTE I ofthe environment. 1. See, e.g., MurrayBookchin, The Ecology ofFreerkJm (Montreal: Black Rose ~at Books, 1991). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however,.all hope Soviet mightbe transformed into a more attractlve, less environmen-

ill li2 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet EnviroIlll1entalisIll: The Path Not Taken li3

tally degradedsocial orderthan the liberal democratic societies ofthe West The origins of environmentalism in Russia go back long before the has been destroyed. The description ofthe modern predicament by Alvin revolution; also, there were a number of strands to Bolshevik environ­ W. Gouldner has become even more poignant: "The political uniqueness mentalism. In his monumental history of Soviet environmentalism up of our own era then is this; we have lived and still live through a desperate until 1935, Douglas Weiner pointed outthe strong commitmentby Lenin political and social malaise, while at the same time we have outlived the to the cause of conservation. In 1919, with Kochak's armies crossing the desperate revolutionary remedies that had once been thought to solve Urals and making their way toward the heartland of Soviet-controlled them.,,2 If this is the case, there is reason to examine the environmental Russia, Lenin personally took time out from dealing with this crisis to failures ofthe Soviet Union more closely. Was it possible that things might hear the case for conservation.s Lenin's conservation policies and gen­ have worked out differently? Ifso, does this provide any orientation for the eral attitude to government were for the most part very similar to those present? In this chapter, I will showhowan alternative pathfor Soviet society of the Progressive conservation movement that developed in the United had been charted and partly implemented in the 1920s by the radical wing States under Theodore Roosevelt.9 Like Roosevelt, Lenin had a strong ofBolshevism, a paththatmade environmentalconservationa centralissue. faith in science and was committed to creating an efficiently managed And I will suggest that this is the path that holds most hope for the future.3 society. Lenin's environmentalism, while important and enlightened, offers us little that is new. In fact, there are good grounds for acceptmg the argument of the communist but anti-Bolshevik Anton Pannekoek SOCIALIST ENVIRONMENTALISM that was simply the expression ofthe late drive by Russians for industrialization.1o Marxism, as it was used by such Russians as Struve, One of the unfortunate legacies of Soviet communism was to leave Plekhanov, and Lenin, provided an ideology that enabled them (as it has Russians ignorant of much of their own past. In the last decades of the since enabled a number of political leaders in the Third World) to Soviet Union, there emerged a large environmental movement:4 This was appropriate the Western drive for technological development while more than a movement concerned with the environment. While some struggling against efforts by the advanced capitalist societies ofthe West Soviet ideologists such as Ursal attempted to use environmental destruc­ to subjugate them. The history of the Soviet Union has been a conti~u­ tion in the West as an instrument ofideological struggle, and others such ation of this struggle. It is impossible to understand the oppressIve, as Boris Komarov used this destruction to condemn communism as an technologically oriented policies of the Soviet Union except in relation inherently environmentally destructive system,5 some saw in the environ­ to almost-constant threats of invasion from the West. However, many mental crisis a common cause for all humanity. Environmental destruction more radical ideas than those supported by Lenin were not only pro­ throughout the world was seen by Ivan Frolov (who under Gorbachev moted, but also to some extent put into practice. The central theme of became editor ofthe Communist Party's theoreticaljournalKommunist) to these radical ideas was that to create a socialist society it would be providejustificationfor ending the , for reorganizing societies for necessary to develop a new culture, which, among other things, would the benefit of their members rather than for the struggle for world transform humanity's relationship to its environment. supremacy, and more fundamentally, for replacing anthropocentricism In September 1918, the Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organi­ with "biocentricism" or "biosphere-ocentricism."6 Since the overthrow of zations, or Proletkul't, held its first All-Russian Conference to give sub­ communism, new environmental movements have formed, mostly anti­ stance to the dreams of these radical Marxists to create a proletarian Marxist either of a right-wing, extreme nationalist, and racist stripe, or of culture. The leader of the radical Bolsheviks was Aleksander Aleksan­ a left-wing, anarchist variety. However, none of these environmentalists drovich Bogdanov. To fully understand his ideas and their significance, it appear to be aware that a strong environmental movement developed in is necessary to see his work in relation to his political views and those of the 1920s as one of the outcomes of the Revolution of 1917,7 nor of the the philosophers and scientists whom Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks roots ofthis environmentalism in the ideas ofthe left wing ofBolshevism; condemned as idealists. These thinkers were influenced primarily by a movement that attempted to create a synthesis ofsocialism and anarcho­ thermodynamics or energetics. Their "empiricism" was elaborated as part and which was aligned with Western Marxists opposed both oftheir efforts to overcome the dualism between matter and mind associ­ to the control of society by markets and to the domination of society by ated with the mechanistic view ofthe world.ll Being almost all socialists of centralized state bureaucracies. one kind or another, theywere among the founders ofwhatJuan Martinez- li4 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet Environmentalism; The Path Not Taken li5

Alier has called "ecological economics." The first to develop ideas along pherJosephDietzgen (1826-1888), who hadarguedthat"for a workerwho these lines was a Ukrainian Narodnik, strongly influenced by Marx's seeks to take part in the self-emancipation of his class ... the prime economics, Sergei Podolinsky (1850-1891), who met Marx and Engels in necessity is to cease allowing himself to be taught by others and to teach 1872 andcorrespondedwithMarxin 1880. Podolinskytried to reformulate himselfinstead."17 Dietzgen arguedfor a monistphilosophyinwhichactive, Marx's theory of surplus value in physicalist terms as appropriation of experiencing subjects had a place in the world. However, Bogdanov usable energy, thereby focusing attention on the limits of the natural regarded Dietzgen's philosophy as still too much based on contemplation, environment, the way in which peasants were being exploited, and how defendingMarx's (and modernphysicists') conceptofmatter as thatwhich some regions were being exploited by other ones. Such ideas were later resists labor (or action) against Dietzgen's conception ofmatter as primary reformulated, largely independently, by Edward Sacher, Leopold Pfaun­ being. The basic source of inspiration for Bogdanov's own philosophy, dler, Josef Popper-Lynkeus, Wilhelm Ostwald, Ernst Mach, Frederick throughwhichhe was able to unite these diverse concerns, was the monism 12 Soddy, and Otto Neurath. and energism ofWilhem Ostwald. Therewere two mainstages inBogdanov'sintellectualcareer. To begin with, inhis workEmpiriomonism, the secondeditionofwhichwas published BOGDANOV between 1904 and 1906, Bogdanov added a social dimension to the epistemological theories of the empirio-critics Ernst Mach and Richard Who, then, was Bogdanov? As a medical student, Bogdanov had become Avenarius, whom Ostwald had used to justify taking energy, rather than a Narodnikandstill adhered to the views ofNarodnayaVolya (the People's matter, as the basic principle of scientific explanation. Opposing the Will-the group that assassinated Alexander II in 1881) after his exile to empirio-critics' passive concept of experience, Bogdanov argued that the T~la, ,his ,native town, in 1894.13 It was while participating in political mental world is the product of individually organized experience, while agitation III Tula that he became a Marxist. However, unlike most other the physical world is the product of socially organized experience. These Russian Marxists, Bogdanov was not interested in combating the Narod­ two worlds reveal two different biological-organizational tendencies.18 niks, and was sympathetic to the spontaneous action of the workers. In Like Western Marxists (and unlike Lenin), Bogdanov was interested in 1904, he wrote that "workers know better by experience what exploitation people's alienationfrom the world andfrom eachother, andin the cultural is" and urged the formation of trade unions and the use ofstrikes so that conditions for creating a socialist society. 19 He argued that the conflicts of "the workers will unite in larger and larger masses.,,14 After the uprising of value associatedwith the sphere ofindividually organizedexperiencewere 1905 inwhichworkers withlittle directionfrom politicalleaders hadalmost manifestations of the divisions within society based on class, race, sex, succeeded in seizing power, he, along with a number ofother Bolsheviks­ language, nationality, workspecialization, andrelations ofdominationand including and Anatoly Lunacharsky-was strongly influ­ subordination ofall kinds. It was necessary to overcome these conflicts to enced by the ideas and practices of the anarcho-syndicalists.15 He was enable a new communal consciousness to emerge in which basic values particularlyinfluencedby GeorgesSorel(whosebookReflections on Violence could be agreed upon. But while Bogdanov accepted the idea that it was was translated into Russian in 1907), who argued thatwhatworkers needed important to transform class relations to achieve this goal, he argued that wa~ a myth to inspire them to action rather than a scientific analysis of this idea had been overemphasized by Marx. Other conflicts, including SOCiety. BogdanovsympathizedwithLunacharsky's efforts tojoinsocialism organizational relations andunequal relations between the sexes, also had with anarcho-syndicalism and his call for the subordination of political to be overcome. To achieve this, the proletariat needed to transcend organizations to a class syndicalist organization, a kind of "General bourgeois culture, which he argued could only be achieved by creating a Worker's Soviet." This led in 1908 to the split in the Bolsheviks between new culture to organize experience.20 Bogdanov extended his critique of Lenin andBogdanov andhis supporters, includingLunacharsky. Itwas this bourgeois culture to science. Anticipating later Marxist critiques of the split that precipitated Lenin's attack on the philosophy of his opponents science that emerged with capitalism, he saw the mechanical view of the among the Bolsheviks in Materialism and Empirio-criticism. In 1909, Bog­ world, the split between mind and matter, idealism and materialism, as danov wrote that "the working class as a social system does not exist unless expressions of the social practices of capitalist society, of the fetishism of the proletariat is organized into a party, syndicates, and so forth," as a commodities involvedinmarket relationships, and ofthe division between "living collective.,,16 Along with left Marxists of Western Europe such as the organizational and the executive functions in the labor process. Pannekoek an~ Gorter, Bogdanov extolled the work ofthe worker-philoso- Bogdanov called for a cultural regeneration based on developing the 116 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet Environmentalism; The Path Not Taken 117

modes of understanding appropriate for a society in which the divisions have to be relocated underground. The population is growing so rapidly in society, including the division between manual and mental labor, had that food shortages and even famines are predictedwithin several decades. been overcome. Natural resources, including the radioactive matter that is the main source The second stage of Bogdanov's intellectual career was devoted to of energy, are being exhausted. Forests are being destroyed. Most impor­ providing the key to these modes ofunderstanding. This was presented by tantly, socialist Mars has created a "Colonial Group" in its government and him in his three-volume work, Tektology: The Universal Oganizational Sci­ is preparing to create colonies on Earth or Venus to replenish Mars's ence,.21 published between 1913 and 1922, in which Bogdanov developed resources. The highlight ofRed Star is a debate between two Martians over the Ideas ofthe energeticists in a second direction-as a general theory of whether they should exterminate the Earthlings to get access to more organization. This newproletarian science was a precursor to, andpossibly naturalresources. Sterni takes the position that Earthlings aresohopelessly a superior version of, the systems theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy.22 malformedby their evolutionary past that even the Earth's socialist minor­ Tektology was designed to provide a harmonious unity between the itywould neverbe able towork togetheramicably with theirfellow socialists spiritual, the cultural, and the physical experiences ofthe "working collec­ on Mars. To prevent a long guerrilla war of resistance, Sterni argues that tive," in whose interest all science and activity were to be organized and the Earthlings should be wiped out in advance, painlessly, via death rays, for whom all past culture, including bourgeois science, were to be re­ so that the riches ofEarth can be used to build a more humane socialism worked. By uniting the most disparate phenomena under one conceptual on Mars. Netti, Sterni's opponent, reprimands him for proposing to scheme, tektology would allow human beings torn apart by strife to find a eliminate "an entire individual type of life, a type which we can never common language. Since the sources ofstrife were larger than the merely resurrect or replace."24 Sterni, according to Netti, "would drain forever this economic, the common language had to be larger than traditional Marx­ stormy but beautiful ocean of life." He does not recognize that "the ism, although Marxism would be included as a special case. According to Earthlings are not the same as we. Theyand their civilization are notsimply this philosophy, all objects are distinguishable as different degrees of lower and weaker than ours-they are different. ,,25 organization. The focus was not on what the world was made of, but on the nature oforganization. Organized complexes orsystems are composed of interrelated elements, conceived of as activities, such that the whole is THE PROLETKUL'T MOVEMENT greater than the sum of its parts. Living beings and automatic machines are dynamically structured complexes in which "bi-regulators" provide for The Proletkul't movement, inspired by Bogdanov and largely under his the maintenance oforder. Bogdanov argued that no matter how different direction, at its height boasted 400,000 members, was publishing twenty the various elements of the universe-whether electrons, atoms, things, journals, and had attracted the support of a wide spectrum of Russia's people, ideas, planets, or stars-and regardless of the considerable differ­ artists, musicians and writers.26 In 1919, Bogdanov also established a ences in their combinations, it is possible to establish a small number of proletarian university in with four hundred students. People in general methods by which any ofthese elementsjoins with another. part inspired by Proletkul't formed the "Worker's Opposition," which By conceiving humans as part of and within nature, as existing only opposed the bureaucratic tendencies of the new government, the "return through their capacity to obtain and process usable energy, Bogdanov to capitalism" of the (N.E.P.), and Trotsky'S call to brought the limitations of the natural environment into sharp focus. This militarize society. Instead, the Worker's Opposition called for worker concern was expressed in two novels written by Bogdanov to proselytize control ofindustry. This whole development, which resonated with devel­ his ideas: Red Star and Engineer Menni. 23 opments in Western Marxism, was attacked by Lenin, who saw it as a Both ofthese works were set on Mars, a planet where the communist syndicalist threat to his own political philosophy and the institutions he orderhad alreadybeen established and societywas governed by a "Council was building.27 Lenin, who conceivedhistoryindualist terms as a dialectical ofSyndicates." Red Star, written in 1908, is the story ofLeonid, a commu­ conflict between spontaneity and conscious direction, in which progress nist revolutionary who after the attempted revolution of 1905 is taken to is achieved through the control of spontaneity by consciousness,28 con­ Mars. There he is at first impressed by the harmony and fullness of life demned the syndicalist tendencies among Marxists as an "infantile disor­ brought aboutby the communistrevolution. Itsoon appears, however, that der.,,29 Bogdanov in particular came under attack. Lenin, as Robert Wil­ this harmony is superficial, and that Mars is suffering from the effects of liams has noted, "was well aware that behind the Aesopian language of its successes. Industries have become so dangerously polluting that many 'experience,' 'energy,' and 'collectivism' lay the syndicalist ofdirect ...... , liS TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet Environmentalism: The Path Not Taken li9

action,,,30 and republished his Materialism and Empirio-criticism to under­ lishment of specialized Institutes of Research, cultivating the support of mine Bogdanov's authority. In line with his philosophy of history and the largely anti-Marxist scientific establishment. Marxist appointees within political philosophy, this work affirmed a fundamental dualism between universities defended science as the ultimate product ofhuman conscious­ consciousness and the world, with knowledge being conceived as the true ness. Their views of science were essentially positivistic; science was seen representation ofthe world. Late in 1920, Lenin forced the subordination as superior to and independent ofphilosophy, and as mechanistic. Reduc­ of the hitherto freewheeling Proletkul't to the People's Commissariat of tionist theories, such as Pavlov's psychology, were defended, and it was Enlightenment or Education (Narkompros), and the former was soon argued by these Marxists (and by Trotsky) that the goal of science is to abolished altogether. By the time Tektology was completed in 1922, Bog­ explain the world in terms of chemistry and physics. However, these danov's prestige had been all-but destroyed. However, his works continued "mechanists" were soon opposedby a new intellectual movement. In 1918, to have aninfluence, particularly through the commissarofenlightenment, the communist government set up the Socialist Academy of the Social Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, Bogdanov's brother-in-law and a sup­ Sciences, renamed in 1923 as the Communist Academy, which rapidly porter ofhis philosophy.31 expanded its activities, becoming the guiding star in wide-ranging efforts Lunacharsky had become the commissar of enlightenment in 1917 to create new centers for the training offuture Marxist scholars. In 1921, and remained in this position until he resigned in September 1929. This the Academy setup the Institute ofthe RedProfessoriat to supplyinstitutes period is regarded as the Golden Age ofSoviet culture, largely due to the of higher learning with Marxist instructors in economics, sociology, and influence of the Commissariat for Enlightenment and the policies pro­ philosophy, thereby providing the conditions for the establishment of a moted by Lunacharsky. These achievements can be accounted for by the Marxist intellectual culture. In 1924, the Society of Militant Dialectical increased state support for education and other cultural actIvities, by the Materialists was founded; its leader, A. M. Deborin, based in the Commu­ pluralistic policies pursued by Lunacharsky, and also by the significance nist Academy and giving seminars at the Institute ofthe Red Professoriat, accorded to culture, and correspondingly, to the intense debates on was able to create a movement devoted to critically scrutinizing the fundamental issues ofculture. These debates progressively impingedupon philosophical assumptions of natural science.34 Bogdanov's idea of a the sciences. proletarian science was refurbished. While the mechanists claimed that the successes of reductionist science validated their position, the dialecticians were strengthened by the SOVIET SCIENCE publication in 1925 of Engels's Dialectics of Nature. The dialecticians rejectedboththe reductionism ofthe mechanists andthe organicanalogies Alexander Vucinich in his study ofthe Academy ofSciences of the Soviet ofWesternantimechanists. While rejectingBogdanov's philosophyas such, Union characterizedscientists ofthe 1920s as struggling to rebuildscience the dialecticians nonetheless argued that nature is essentially dynamic and after the chaos ofthe Great War and the Civil War, and to fend offMarxist creative, generating qualitatively new processes that cannotbe understood efforts to control science. He claimed that "duringthe first tenyears under in terms of the conditions of their emergence. Humans were seen as Soviet rule the Academy was involved in a gruelling struggle to regain the creative participants within nature, able to control their own destinies. growth momentum lost at the beginning ofWorld War I: it was not until From 1926 onward, the dialecticians not only criticized developments 1928 that its publication output reached the prewar level.,,32 For Vucinich, within science, but were able to influence the direction of scientific it was onlywith the Stalinization ofSoviet science, the reduction ofscience research. to an instrument of the economy, that science came to be Marxist. I wish Following Stalin's alliance with the supporters of the N.E.P. in 1928, to suggest that it was the developments in science that took place under one aim of which was to expel Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev from the the auspices ofLunacharsky's Commissariat ofEnlightenment that give us partyleadership, Stalin embraced the cause ofworkers who, disaffected by someideaofwhat a truesocialist science would belike. Laterdevelopments the contrast between the decline of their own living standards and the 33 are better characterized as revivals ofRussian nihilism. Developments in growing prosperity of the peasantry, regarded the N.E.P. as a betrayal of science in the 1920s were moving Soviet society toward a new relationship the revolution. Responding to the demands of these workers, he initiated to its naturalenvironment, and these developments were closely associated a cultural revolution to purge society of bourgeois forms of thought.35 with the conservation movement. Initially, this move put the Deborinites in a good position to exert their Initially, the Commissariat of Enlightenment promoted the estab- influence, which culminated in 1929 when they gained control of the ,

120 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet Environmentalism:The Path Not Taken 121

Communist Academy and other institutions. Entire fields ofscience were sound basis pristine natural communities should be studied; it was also then scrutinized for their philosophical assumptions. proposed that areas of nature be set aside as models (etaloni) within Stalin's main agenda, however, was to speed up economic growth. protected nature reserves (zapovedniki) against which cultivated land could Arguing that immediate industrialization was required to face the growing be compared. It was this third group that gained vigorous support after threat from Western Europe and that collectivization of the land was the revolution, first from Lunacharskywho commended the idea to Lenin, required to supply the growing number ofworkers with food, Stalin called and then by Lenin who did all he could to support the environmentalists. for a reassertion of conscious direction over spontaneity. Stalin was work­ Following Lenin's support for the first proposed zapovednik in 1919, ing to destroy the power of the remaining Bolshevik leaders36 and De­ responsibility for their creation and administration was granted by Lenin borin's ideas lost their support. Having breached the walls of the "bour­ to Lunacharsky's Commissariat ofEnlightenment to ensure independence geois professoriat," and having established the principle of direct political from short-term economic imperatives. By 1929, sixty-one zapovedniki had intervention in scientific institutions, Deborin and his followers were been established, with a total area ofalmost four million hectares, distrib­ attacked by former Deborinites, led by M. B. Mitin, for not serving the uted throughout the Soviet Union to provide the basis for developing a revolution. By the end of 1930, by which time Lunacharsky had resigned comprehensive understanding of the natural environment of the whole as commissar ofenlightenmentin protest against the rejection ofhis ideals country.39 After a number ofbattles with the Commissariatfor Agriculture ofhumanistic education and cultural pluralism, the Deborinites were out (Narkomzem) and the Commissariat for Trade (Narkomtorg), these 37 offavor. While "mechanists" had been knowledgeable about science, but zapovedniki were able to support a rapid expansion of ecology. Associated ignorant of philosophy, and the Deborinites had been knowledgeable with this development, ecology was increasingly included in the curricula aboutphilosophy, butignorant ofscience, Mitin andhis followers achieved of universities and schools, and in the later 1920s ecologists were able to a dialectical synthesis of the ignorance of each. However, there was more make a determined effort to influence state economic policy.40 to Mitin's views than ignorance. He revived the ideas ofthe nihilists ofthe Before the revolution, Russian ecology hadfocused almost exclusively 1860s and 1870s, in particular, the idea that science is nothing but an on plants and soils. With the provision of zapovedniki, Soviet ecologists instrument for the development of technology. It was Mitin's defense of began to appreciate therole offaunainshapingthe development ofnatural this view that endeared him to Stalin, who then dismissed the Deborinites communities, which were seen as complex systems of three interacting as "Menshevizing idealists," his ultimate term of abuse and dismissal. elements ofequal importance: vegetation, fauna, and the abiotic environ­ Thereafter proletarian science was no longer antimechanistic science, but ment. Within this framework, a diversity of theories were elaborated. By science in the service of the Five-Year Plans devoted to the domination of 1931, when Daniil Nikolaevich Kashkarov published his great survey nature. textbook ofcommunityecology, Environment and Community (laterpublish­ ed in English), it could be fairly argued that the Soviet Union led the world in ecology. To appreciate some of the ideas being developed by Soviet THE CAREER OF ECOLOGY ecologists, and how these developments were related to the communist revolution and to the ideas ofProletkul't, it is only necessary to look at the Prior to the revolution there had been a range of environmentalists in career ofthe man who had by 1931 become one ofthe foremost ecologists Russia roughly corresponding to the range found in Western Europe and in the Soviet Union, Vladimir Vladimirovich Stanchinskii. the .38 First, there were those who were concerned about Stanchinskii obtained his doctorate from Heidelberg University in environmental destructionfor purely utilitarianreasons, evaluatingnature 1906, then found that it was not recognized in Russia, and hence had to only as an economic resource. Second, there were those who extolled the pass external exams at Moscow University.41 Itwas only after the revolution, intrinsic value of nature, and called for a recognition of the rights of all in the new, intellectually freer environment created by the Commissariat living things to their existence, for example, Ivan Parfen'evichBorodin and of Enlightenment, that Stanchinskii was able to embark on a successful Andrei Petrovich Semenov-tian-shanskii. There was also a third group, a career. During the Civil War, he headed the local El'ninsk district branch scientific one based on the development of phytosociology, the study of of Narkompros (Commissariat ofEnlightenment) ofthe Russian Socialist vegetational communities. Thesepioneers ofplantecologylooked to virgin Federated Republic (RSFSR) in Smolensk Oblast, and was one of the nature as a model ofharmony, efficiency, and productivity that agricultu­ organizers ofthe new Smolensk University set up by Narkompros. Playing ralists should strive to emulate. It was argued that to put agriculture on a a major role in Smolensk intellectual life, he became a full professor at 122 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet Environmentalism:The Path Not Taken 123

Smolensk University and head of its Department of Zoology, while also education, and the establishment of new scientific institutions and of the serving as the president of the Smolensk Society ofPhysicians and Natu­ zapovedniki inaugurated by the communist government. It also appears ralists, which he founded. Having an exceptionally broad vision, he soon unlikely that the diversity of theoretical approaches to ecology developed gravitated to one of the leading theoretical problems in biology, the in the 1920s and early 1930s could have taken place in the rigid institutions mechanism ofspeciation. He then moved on to what had been defined in of prewar Russia. The cultural flowering of the 1920s, of which the the Soviet Union as the other great theoretical issue of the day: the nature development of ecology was a part, can only be accounted for by the of biological community. His guiding idea in this study, an idea clearly ferment created by the significance accorded to culture, particularly to resonating with Bogdanov's energistic philosophy, was that by virtue of science, and the Marxist challenges to the assumptions underlying the their being in a continual state of matter-and-energy exchange with their sciences. This seems particularly evident in the case ofStanchinskii's work. environment, and continually changing, destroying, and synthesizing sub­ Stanchinskii was inspired by Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii,42 a prominent stances within themselves, each species mustbe seen to have a very specific member of the Academy of Science who was unsympathetic to Marxism, biochemical and physicochemical role in the "economy of nature." Stan­ although sympathetic to the work of Podolinsky. Vernadskii's work on chinskii had visited the zapovednik at Askania-Nova in 1926 and thereafter geochemistry and biogeology, which ledhim to promote and elaborate the decided this was an ideal spot to relocate his investigations into biological concept of the biosphere, were entirely in accordance with Bogdanov's communities. In the spring of 1929, he assumed the posts of deputy tektology, and Proletkul't and the Commissariat of Enlightenment had director of the reserve and director ofits scientific sector, simultaneously created a sympathetic environmentfor suchideas. So while Vernadskii was gaining appointment as head of the Department ofVertebrate Zoology at I criticized by some Marxists, his concepts were accepted into the main­ Khar'kov University. I stream ofscience in the Soviet Union in a way that contrasts radically with Biological communities had previously been definedby their floristic the marginal place similar ideas have occupied in the West up to the composition, by certain structural features, or by a certain visual homoge­ I present.43 The favorable reception of Stanchinskii's ideas can also be neity. Stanchinskii investigated food webs to identify the boundaries of accounted for by the intellectual environment created by Bogdanov's communities within nature, tracing the transformation ofsolar energy by i philosophy and the Proletkul't movement. The high status accorded to vegetation and other autotrophes through myriad biotic pathways until all I science, and to ecology within science, particularly when ecology was the accumulated energy potential had been exhausted. He demonstrated formulated in terms ofenergetics, gave Stanchinskiia significance inSoviet how the biocenosis (biological community) was characterized by relative I society unmatched by ecologists in other countries. stability, a "dynamic equilibrium" in which relative numbers ofthe various This high status attracted the attention ofthe Deborinites. I. I. Bugaev component species remained surprisingly constant over long periods of of the Communist Academy, who was assigned the task of investigating time, despite their theoretical ability to propagate exponentially. Placing the ecologists, attacked those ideas that failed to allow for emergence, and each organism on a "trophic ladder," Stanchinskii showed how each thereby the irreducibility of humanity to biology. Pachoskii's attempt to successive rung of the ladder would have less energy in the form of food prove the necessity ofinequality in nature and to extend this to humanity than the next lower level, since each successive level was dependent on the was censured. But Stanchinskii was able to reformulate his ideas to accord previous one for its energy supply, and energy was dissipated at each level. with the strictures ofthe Deborinites, andarguably strengthenedhis theory He then constructed an ideal mathematical model to describe the annual and his research program in the process. He replaced the static-sounding energy budget of a simple theoretical biocenosis to guide his empirical notion ofthe equilibrium ofthebiocenosis with the notion of"proportion­ research, developinga methodologyandaninstrumentationfor measuring ality" and emphasized the continuous self-creation ofthebiocenosis, which the biomass ofthe various component species ofa biocenosis. he depicted as growing out of interactions among its components and What is significant about Stanchinskii's career is not simply the ideas between them and the abiotic environment, with the result that new he developed, which are now recognized to have been about ten years in syntheses were continually arising in the form ofsuccessional series.44 His advance of the work of American ecologists (whom he influenced), but work was then not only acceptable to the Deborinites, but could be taken the way in which his career was made possible by changes wrought by the by them as further corroboration of the dialectical nature ofthe world. communist government, and the status his ideas were accorded within the With the backing of his ecological theory, Stanchinskii was able to SovietUnion. It appears unlikely thatStanchinskii's careerwouldhave been argue for a role for ecology in economics. He argued that by studying the possible without the new opportunities opened by the expansion of energy flows in a whole range of biocenoses, humans would be able to -

124 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet Environmentalism: The PathNot Taken 125 calculate theproductivecapacities ofthesenaturalcommunities andwould CONCLUSION be able to structure their own economic activity in conformity with them. He also saw such a program ofbiocenotic research as an aid in achieving The story ofProletkul't, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, and the ecologists is the biotic protection ofcultivated croplands, thereby overcoming the need to story ofthe path not taken. But it was a path sufficiently ventured upon to use harmful pesticides. Stanchinskii played a major part at the First show what might have been if Leninism, followed by , had not All-Russian Congress for the Conservation of Nature, held in September triumphed. It is this untaken path, the path of cultural revolution on the 1929, where he argued that ecologists must playa major part in the basis ofa postdualist(andpostmechanist) conceptionofthe worldinwhich formulation ofthe Five-Year Plan, arguing that conservation organizations people are seen as active, conscious participants within nature rather than must be able to review plan targets and monitor plan fulfillment. The as standing over and above nature, conjoined with a struggle to transform congress accepted his arguments and resolved: the social order that engendered such dualism-the commodification of the world, the divisionbetweenintellectualandmanuallabor, andrelation­ The economic activity of man is always one form or another of the ships between people based on domination and subordination-which exploitation of natural resources. ... The distinction and tempo of modern environmentalists must now consider. economic growth can be correctly determined only after the detailed studyofthe environment andthe evaluation ofits production capacities with the aim ofits conservation, development and enrichment. This is NOTES what conservation is all about.45 1. A. D. Ursal, ed.,Philosophy and the Ecological Problems ofCivilisation, trans. However, withStalin's interventioninto the culturalsphere, insupport H. Cambell Creighton (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1983), 10fn. ofhis drive for industrialization, individuals and organizations not whole­ 2. Cited without reference in Alec Nove, The Economics ofFeasible Socialism heartedlybehind this drive were placedina precarious position. The whole (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983). science ofecology was affected by this. The ecologists failed in their effort 3. This is further argued in Arran E. Gare, Beyond European Civilization: to gain a place in within the Soviet Union. They Marxism, Process Philosophy, and the Environment (Bungendore, Australia: Eco-Iogi­ nevertheless became the most trenchant critics of the implementation of cal Press, 1993). 4. See Philip R. Pryde, Conservation in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cam­ the Five-Year Plan. They opposed the damming ofrivers without due care bridge University Press, 1972), and Environmental Management in the Soviet Union for the ecological effects; the collectivization and uniform mechanization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);joanDeBardeleben, The Environ­ of agriculture; the efforts to acclimatize exotic fauna; and interference in ment andMarxism-Leninism: The Soviet andEast German Experience (Boulder, Colo.: the life-styles oftraditional societies occupyingecologicallyfragile environ­ Westview Press, 1985); and Douglas R. Weiner, "The Changing Face of Soviet ments. But, they, in turn, drew a massive response from the Stalinists, who Conservation," in The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental condemned the conservationists as "organically alien to active youth and History, ed. Donald Worster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), in particular to Soviet Youth, seized ... with the enthusiasm of socialist 252-273. construction and reconstruction.,,46 V. L. Komarov argued in 1931 that all 5. Boris Komarov, The Destruction ofNature in the Soviet Union (London: reference to "plant communities" should be expunged from biology, a call Pluto Press, 1978). The author now lives in Israel. which foreshadowed a drive against ecology by 1. 1. Prezent, a colleague of 6. Ivan T. Frolov, "The Marxist-Leninist Conception of the Ecological Problem," in Ursal, ed., Philosophy; and I. T. Frolov and V. A. Los, "Filosofskie Lysenko, who was committed to the wholesale acclimatization of exotic osnovaniia sovremenio ekologii," Ekologischeskaia propaganda v SSSR (Moscow: species and creating a world in which "all living nature will live, thrive, and Nauka, 1984). This paper is discussed and partly translated by Douglas Weiner in die at none other than the will of man and according to his designs."47 "Prometheus Rechained: Ecology and Conservation in the Soviet Union," in Stanchinskii lost his job, the research station at Askania-Nova was closed Humanistic Dimensions ofScience and Technology in the Soviet Union, ed. Loren R. down, and in 1934he was arrested. The typesettingfor his bookwhichwas Graham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989). about to be published was destroyed. Although conservationists fought a 7. Douglas Weiner gave a paper he had written on Stanchinskii to Frolov rearguard action, this was eventually defeated, and the science ofecology in 1985 when Frolov spoke at Boston University. Frolov appeared to be unaware was virtually suspended for two decades. of the conservationists of the 1920s. 126 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM Soviet Environmentalism: The Path Not Taken 127

8. Douglas R. Weiner, Models ofNature: Ecology, Conservation, and Cultural 23. , Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia, ed. Loren R. Revolution in Soviet Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988),27. Graham and Richard Stites, trans. Charles Rougle (Bloomington: IndianaUniver­ 9. This has been described by SamuelHays inhis Conservation and the Gospel sity Press, 1984). ofEfficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: 24. Ibid., 116. Harvard University Press, 1959). 25. Ibid., 117. 10. Anton Pannekoek, Lenin as Philosopher (1932; reprint, London: Merlin 26. See Lynn Malley, Culture of the Future: On the Proletkult Movement in Press, 1975). Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 11. Seen in relation to the history oflogical positivism, their philosophies 1990). have been largely misrepresented. Paul Feyerabend on reading Mach has charac­ 27. had written to Lenin, predicting that "the syndicalist terized him as a "dialectical rationalist"; see "Mach's Theory of Research and Its movement ... will emerge as the great force over the next fifty years, leading to Relation to Einstein," in Farewell to Reason (London: Verso, 1987), 192-218. the creation of the communist stateless society" (cited by Robert C. Williams, 12. J. Martinez-Alier and J. M. Naredo, "A Marxist Precursor of Energy "Childhood Diseases: Lenin on 'Left' ," Sbornik, 8, 1982, without a Economics: Podolinsky," Joumal of Peasant Studies, 9, January, 1982; and Juan reference). In 1920, there had been an epidemic oftrade union unrest, anarchists Martinez-Alier, Ecological Economics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987). had bombed the Moscow party headquarters, and in the Ukraine the anarchist 13. On the early evolution ofBogdanov's political ideas, seeJames D. White, Makhnovites, flying the black flag, were attacking the Red armies as well as the "Bogdanov in Tula," Studies in Soviet Thought, 22, February, 1981. See also John White. Toward the end of 1920, anarchists organizations in Russia were crushed. Biggart, "Bogdanov and Lunacharskii in Vologda," Sbornik, 5, 1980. 28. The best analysis of Lenin's political philosophy is Neil Harding's, 14. Citedby Robert C. Williams, in "Collective Immortality: The Syndicalist Lenin's Political Thought (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1983). However it Origins of Proletarian Culture," Slavic Review, 39, September, 1980, 395, from is in Katarina Clark's, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago: University of Riadovoi [Bogdanov], 0 sotsializme (Geneva: 1904), 15, 17,21. Chicago Press, 1981) that the best analysis of the dialectic of spontaneity and 15. On the syndicalist influence on Bogdanov and other Marxists, see consciousness and the influence ofthis on Soviet culture are provided. Williams, "Collective Immortality," 389-402. However, none of the Marxists 29. V. I. Lenin, " 'Left-Wing' Communism-An Infantile Disorder" (April appear to have been influenced by the work ofPeter Kropotkin. 1920), in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Lenin Anthology (New York: Norton, 1975). 16. Cited from A. Bogdanov, "Filosofiia sovremennago estestvo ispytatelia," On Lenin's relation to left Marxists, see Williams, "Childhood Diseases." in Ocherki filosofi kollektivizma (St. Petersberg, 1909), 133, by White, "Bogdanov," 30. Williams, "Collective Immortality," 397. 397. 31. On Lunacharsky's policies and influence, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, The 17. Cited by D. A. Smart, Pannekoek and Gorter's Marxism (London: Pluto Commissariat ofEnlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Press, 1978), 18. 32. Alexander Vucinich, Empire ofReason (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni­ 18. See Kenneth Jensen, Beyond Marx and Mach: Aleksander Bogdanov's versity of California Press, 1984), 122. Philosophy ofLivingExperience (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1978). 33. That Stalinism was a conscious throwback to the nihilism of the 1860s 19. See Zenovia A. Sochor, Revolution and Culture: The Bogdanov-Lenin has been argued byJames H. Billington (The Icon and the Axe [New York: Vintage Controversy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1988). Books, 1970; originally published in 1966], 534fn.). The connection between 20. It appears that Gramsci's ideas ultimately derived from Bogdanov. See Stalinist biology and the biologists of the 1840s-1860s (extolled by the Nihilists) ZenoviaA. Sochor, "Was Bogdanov Russia's Answer to Gramsci?," Studies in Soviet has been pointed out by Douglas Weiner ("The Roots of 'Michurinism': Transfor­ Thought, 22, February, 1981. mist Biology and Academicitization as Currents in Russian Life Sciences," Annals 21. This has notbeen translated. However a good idea ofhis philosophy can ofScience, 42, 1985). be gainedfromEssays in Tektology: The General Science ofOrganization, trans. George 34. The conflict between the mechanists and the Deborinites has been Gorelik (Seaside, Calif.: Intersystems Publications, 1980). See also George Gorelik, describedbyDavidJoravsky, inSoviet Marxism andNaturalScience 1917-1932 (New "Bogdanov's Tektology: Its Basic Concepts andRelevance to ModernGeneralizing York: Columbia University Press, 1961). Sciences," Human Systems Management, 1, December, 1980. 35. See Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Cultural Revolution as Class War" and Moshe 22. On the relationship between tektology and systems theory, see Ilmari Lewin, "Society, State, and Ideology during the First Five-Year Plan," in Cultural Susiluoto, The Origins and Development of Systems Thinking in the Soviet Union: Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick (Bloomington: Indiana Political and Philosophical Controversies from Bogdanov and Bukharin to Present-Day University Press, 1978). Re-evaluations (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1982); and George Gorelik, 36. Stalin's main opponent was Bukharin, whose ideas were influenced by "Bogdanov's Tektology: Its Nature, Development, and Influence," Studies in Soviet Bogdanov's work. Had Bukharin survived and defeated Stalin, the position ofthe Thought, 26, July, 1983. conservationists would have been much more secure. On Bukharin, his relation 128 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MARXISM

to Bogdanov, his ideas an~ political career, and his struggle with Stalin, see Stephen F. Cohen, .Bukharzn and th~ Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938 (Oxford. Oxford Umversity Press, 1980). 37. See Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents ofMarxism, Vol. 3: The Breakdown, trans. P. S. Falla (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). Chapter 6 38. On the early history of Soviet ecology and conservation, see Weiner, Models ofNature. I am deeplyindebted to Professor Weiner for sharingwith me his vastknowledge ofRussian ecology and environmentalism, and indeedfor his help m my efforts to understand the dynamics ofRussian culture. 39. Ibid., 61. . ~O. On the rapid expansion of ecology in Russia in the 1920s, and the rapIdIty wIth which ecol~gy entered the curricula ofuniversities, see (apart from the work ofWemer)J. RIchard Carpenter, "Special Review: Recent Russian Work on Community Ecology,"Journal ofAnimal Ecology, 8, 1939. MARXISM AND ECOLOGY 41. Fordetails onthe life andcareer ofStanchinskii, seeWeiner, 1988,Models ofNature, 78-82 and passim. 42. On Stanchinskii's relation to Vernadskii, see ibid., 80. GUNNAR SKIRBEKK .43. See Lynn Margulis and Edward Goldsmith, "Discussion," in Gaia: The Th~s1S, the Mechanisms, and the Implications ed. Peter Bunyard and Edward Gold­ smIth (Camelford, u.K.: Wadebridge Ecological Society Centre, 1988), 166. 44. Douglas Weiner, "Community Ecology in Stalin's Russia" Isis 75 1984 684-696,692. '", 45. Douglas Weiner, The History ofthe Conservation Movement in Russia and the U.S.S.R from its Origin to the Stalin Period (Ph.D. thesis Columbia University 1983),348. " 46. Ibid., 275. Only recently has ecology become an object of study and concern, and 47. Ibid., 517. it has not yet made real inroads into politics, even if this winter's oil [1974-1975] crisis has begun to alert the public to ecology's significance. It must be said that the training of political leaders is more strongly grounded in philosophy and political science than in biology, and further­ more that the established interests hinder any serious political concern with ecology. The time has come to make politics and ecologyinteract. This is whatI wouldlike to attempt concerningMarxism, and I believe this effort will result in a mutual clarification of the two systems. As a preliminary, ecology has to be situatedin a long-term perspective. If it is only a matter of eliminating the pollution of the Seine within five years, the task is feasible; capitalism is capable ofresolving limited ecologi­ cal problems. But what really is at issue is a global and enduring challenge that neither capitalism nor Soviet socialism is prepared to face. I should point out that I do not believe in a planetary "ecocatastrophe," but rather in an "ecocrisis" that will affect various classes and countries in various forms atvarious times. Ifby "capitalism" we mean an economic system that seeks to increase profit in an open market, this system will become impossible as soon as, for ecological reasons, a future society demands political control ofthe economy. In the long-term perspective, the problem

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