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Beyond Marx and Mach: Aleksandr Bogdanov's Philosophy

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Beyond Marx and Mach: Aleksandr Bogdanov's Philosophy BEYOND MARX AND MACH SOVIETICA PUBLICATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS OF THE INSTITUTE OF EAST -EUROPEAN STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG/SWITZERLAND AND THE CENTER FOR EAST EUROPE, RUSSIA AND ASIA AT BOSTON COLLEGE AND THE SEMINAR FOR POLITICAL THEOR Y AND PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH Founded by J. M. BOCHENSKI (Fribourg) Edited by T. J. BLAKELEY (Boston), GUIDO KUNG (Fribourg),and NIKOLAUS LOBKOWICZ (Munich) Editorial Board Karl G. Ballestrem (Munich) Bernard Jeu (Lille) Helmut Dahm (Cologne) George L. Kline (Bryn Mawr) Richard T. DeGeorge (Kansas) T. R. Payne (Providence) Peter Ehlen (Munich) Friedrich Rapp (Berlin) Michael Gagern (Munich) Andries Sarlernijn (Eindhoven) Felix P. Ingold (St. Gall) James Scanlan (Columbus) Edward Swiderski (Fribourg) VOLUME 41 K. M. JENSEN University of Colorado BEYOND MARX AND MACH ALEKSANDR BOGDANOV'S Philosophy of Living Experience D. R:SIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT : HOLLAND / BOSTON: U.S.A. LONDON: ENGLAND Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jensen, Kenneth Martin, 1944- Beyond Marx and Mach. (Sovietica ; v. 41) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Malinovskil, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 1873-1928. Filosofiili zhivogo opyta. 2. Philosophy. 3. Dialectical materialism. 4. Experience. I. Title. II. Series. B4249.M33F5434 197'.2 78-12916 ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9881-0 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9879-7 ____-'0=-0=-:1: 10.1007/978-94-009-9879-7 Published by D. Reidel PubliShing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc. Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass. 02043, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1978 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1978 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner This book is dedicated to L. Boyd and Dorothy V. Jensen and to the memory of Lora H. Joseph T ABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix INTRODUCTION A. Aleksandr Bogdanov B. Toward a New Approach to Bogdanov and the Russian Machists 10 C. Studying Bogdanov 14 D. The Philosophy of Living Experience 17 CHAPTER I. THE CONTEMPORARY PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHY'S CAREER 22 A. Philosophy and Life 24 B. The Rise and Development of World views 33 C. "What is Materialism?" 41 D. Ancient and Modern Materialisms 50 CHAPTER II. EMPIRIOCRITICISM 67 A. Empiriocriticism Depicted 70 B. Empiriocriticism Criticized 75 C. The Social Roots of Empiriocriticism 81 CHAPTER Ill. DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM 87 A. Bogdanov's Dialectic 90 B. Dialectics Prior to Marx and the Meaning of the Idealist Dialectic 94 C. The Materialist Dialectic and Marx's Truly Active World- view 98 D. Joseph Dietzgen and the Russian Dialectical Materialists 106 E. The Real Dialectic and the Task of Philosophy III CHAPTER IV. EMPIRIOMONISM 115 A. "Labor Causality" 119 B. The Elements of Experience 123 vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS c. Objectivity 127 D. Sociomorphism 132 E. Substitution 134 F. The "Empiriomonistic" Worldpicture 138 CHAPTER V. THE SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 148 CONCLUSION 160 NOTES 173 BIBLIOGRAPHY 181 INDEX 187 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my appreciation to the following: Professor Thomas Blakeley, for encouraging me to submit this manuscript to Sovietica and for his handling of it thereafter; Professor Karl Ballestrem, for reading an earlier version of it and for providing criticisms; Professor Marc Raeff, for counseling me on the topic and approaches to it; Professor Aoyd Ratliff, for materials sent me on Ernst Mach and Bogdanov and for his moral support; and Professor Stephen Fischer-Galati, for taking up the burden of this work's supervision in its dissertation form. Although these individuals vouchsafed me considerable aid and good counsel, I am most deeply indebted to Pamela K. Jensen for support that was as much professional as it was wifely. Needless to say, none of the above share any responsibility for the contents of this work. K.M.J. ix INTRODUCTION A. ALEKSANDR BOGDANOV On April 7, 1928 the career of one of the most extraordinary figures of Russian and early Soviet intellectual life came to an abrupt and premature end. In the process of an experiment on blood transfusion, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovsky, better known as Bogdanov, had exchanged his blood with that of a critically ill malaria victim in hopes of saving both the patient and his blood. The outcome of this may be guessed: both doctor and patient died forthwith.! Although an extraordinary venture on Bogdanov's part, for it was part of a search for the means to immortality,2 the transfusion experiment was only one of a host of startling things he had done in his thirty years in Russian politics and public life. In actuality, the activities and achievement of his two years as director of the Soviet Union's first institute for the study of blood transfusion seem virtually insignificant beside the events of earlier years.3 It would be fair to say that Aleksandr Bogdanov stood in a singularly prominent position in the political and intellectual life of Russia from the turn of the century to 1930. Politically, he had been Lenin's only serious rival for leadership among the Bolsheviks before 1917. In the early years of the Soviet regime, Bogdanov stood head and shoulders above any other public figure operating outside the ranks of the Party. Only a handful of men, i.e., Plekhanov, Bukharin, Berdiaev and Solov'ev, can be compared to Bogdanov in the extent of their intellectual influence in those years. In no case was the intellectual career of any of these men so varied and so continually notable as that of Bogdanov. As we shall see in the biographical sketch which follows, the first three decades of the twentieth century found Bogdanov in positions of political, cultural, and intellectual leadership at every turn. Bogdanov, like Lenin the son of an educator, was born on August 10, 1873 in Tula. His gymnasium studies highly successful, he entered the natural science faculty of Moscow University around 1892 and pursued studies there and in Kharkov, where he received his degree in 1899 as a physician specializing in psychology.4 Bogdanov tells us in his autobiography that his 2 INTRODUCTION contempt for authority in educational institutions led him into radical politics in 1894. 5 As was usually the case with student radicals, he began his career as a populist but was soon converted to' Marxism (1896). Between 1894 and 1904, Bogdanov agitated and wrote propaganda in association with various worker, student and social-democratic groups in Moscow, Kharkov, Tula and Vologda. During this time, he developed numerous contacts and strong ties among the Russian working class in the social-democratic party and literary circles.6 Arrested numerous times between 1899 and 1901, he was fmally sent into three-years' exile in Vologda. In those years (1901- 1904), Bogdanov came into contact with many of the leading lights of Russian social-democracy through association with fellow-exiles in that city. In Vologda, he had the company of Berdiaev, then the leading figure among the Legal Marxists, V. Rudnev (pseudonym Bazarov), the co-translator of Marx's Kapital, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, the other translator, A. V. Lunacharsky, the future Commisar of Education and others.? In this context, Bogdanov the propagandist, organizer and theoretician rose to the ranks of the well known in Russian radicalism. In those years, he took the pseudonym Bogdanov most often, although he was known to use Maksimov, Rakhmetov, Reinert, Riadovoi and Verner as well.s While Maksimov stuck with him for a time, he became universally known as Bogdanov and retained the usage to the end of his life.9 The term of his exile expired, Bogdanov, who had been attracted to the Bolsheviks during the debates of 1903-1904, joined Lenin in Switzerland in the Summer of 1904. Almost immediately, he rose to the position of second­ in-command and became the faction's principal leader in Russia. Both Georges Haupt and Karl Ballestrem suggest that Bogdanov brought Lenin out of political isolation at a time when he was set off from the rest of the social-democratic movement by bringing him the contacts and talent to issue a Bolshevik paper. lO The contacts were apparently Bogdanov's very numerous political and intellectual associates in Russia. The talent was provided by Bogdanov himself and the three important figures he had brought into Bolshevism in 1904, Bazarov, Lunacharsky and Skvortsov-Stepanov.u From 1904 to 1908, Lenin and Bogdanov formed a firm bloc, with the latter acting as the former's man in Russia. Although occasionally at odds over the running of the Bolshevik committee in St. Petersburg and Bogdanov's experimentation in philosophy,12 the two scrupulously avoided open disputes. Although their partnership was continually reaffIrmed, Bogdanov came to be regarded by many Bolsheviks, and certainly by Lenin himself, as a rival for INTRODUCTION 3 leadership of the faction. Beginning in 1905, Bogdanov's activities in Russia greatly enhanced his importance. During the revolution of that year, he had been the chief Bolshevik in the St. Petersburg Soviet, where by all accounts he played an important role.13 In addition, he was twice elected to the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Party and, as the only Bolshevik on the Committee, was the most visible member of the faction in Russia. 14 During the period of the first two Dumas, Bogdanov functioned as the engineer of Bolshevik involvement and held control of all local Bolshevik committees in Russia by way of his editorship of their journal, Vpered.
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