UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Spectral Socialisms: Marxism-Leninism and the Future of Marxist Thought in Post-Socialist Bulgaria Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6j85900c Author Valiavicharska, Zhivka Venelinova Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Spectral Socialisms: Marxism-Leninism and the Future of Marxist Thought in Post-Socialist Bulgaria By Zhivka Venelinova Valiavicharska A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Wendy Brown, Chair Professor Samera Esmeir Professor David Cohen Professor Alexei Yurchak Fall 2011 Spectral Socialisms: Marxism-Leninism and the Future of Marxist Thought in Post-Socialist Bulgaria ©2011 Zhivka Valiavicharska Abstract Spectral Socialisms: Marxism-Leninism and the Future of Marxist Thought in Post-Socialist Bulgaria by Zhivka Venelinova Valiavicharska Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric University of California, Berkeley Professor Wendy Brown, Chair Asking what discursive conditions enabled the unchallenged reign of neoliberal capitalism in Eastern Europe after 1989, this dissertation argues that Stalinist philosophy leaves a silent yet powerful structuring legacy in post-socialist politics and intellectual discourse. Stalinist Marxism-Leninism has survived in the presumption that there is a necessary relationship between authoritarianism and politics on the left, and conversely, between democracy and free- market capitalism. Rejecting the premise that there is an inevitable, trans-historical relationship between socialism and authoritarianism, this project locates the historical juncture that sealed them together in the discursive production of Leninism and the doctrines of Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism during Stalinist Soviet Union. With a focus on socialist Bulgaria, the dissertation examines the political uses and material effects of the Stalinist ideologemes throughout the intellectual history of East-European Marxist thought. In addition, it retrieves Marxist humanist intellectual movements from the post-Stalinist 1960s and 1970s, which contested the legitimacy of the Stalinist doctrine. Challenging Marxism-Leninism’s claim to the historical inevitability of state authoritarianism, they imagined a “third way” for socialism’s future—a third way between liberal democracy and authoritarian socialism. In conclusion, the dissertation turns to the question of what possibility for politics on the left remains in the post-socialist historical conditions, a left that finds itself inevitably implicated in the histories of state socialisms. Redressing these foreclosures requires recovering the emancipatory ideas and practices out of the contradictory experiences of the socialist past and reformulating their critical potentials for the future. 1 Table of Contents ii Acknowledgments 1 Chapter One Socialist Past and Neoliberal Present in Eastern Europe: A View from the Bulgarian Experience 17 Chapter Two Lenin-Stalin: A Juncture in Disquiet 45 Chapter Three Stalinist Marxism-Leninism: The Apparitions of a Disavowed Paradigm 66 Chapter Four Holistically Developed Persons: Post-Stalinist Marxism and the Return of Human Agency 92 Chapter Five Totalitarianism and Utopia: Dissident Discourses during Late Socialism 120 Bibliography i Acknowledgments My deepest gratitude goes to Wendy Brown. My intellectual journey at Berkeley has been an extraordinary experience thanks to the gift of her brilliance and rigor. Living up to her generosity, trust, and support has been the hardest—and most rewarding—challenge. I thank Samera Esmeir for appreciating the ambitions of my project and for engaging thoroughly with its intricacies. With her feedback I have worked through some of what I consider the most interesting and difficult arguments. I thank Alexei Yurchak for his inspiring classes on socialism and postsocialism. To him I owe the turn of my interest to socialism, and in great part—the focus of this dissertation. Throughout the years, David Cohen kindly supported my intellectual meanderings and encouraged my independence. I am also grateful to Marianne Constable for her attention and care throughout graduate school and for her unforgettable introduction to the critical power of textual interpretation. I have benefited greatly from the critical feedback of colleagues in Wendy Brown’s dissertation seminar—I extend special thanks to Diana Anders, Matt Baxter, Mona Bower, George Ciccariello-Maher, and Yasmeen Daifallah. My dear friends and colleagues Amanda Armstrong, Robert Hurley, Satyel Larson, Zachary Levenson, Munira Lokhandwala, Caitlin Manning, Janet Sarson, and Susanne Wengle have read, commented on, and proofread various chapters in various stages. Praba Pilar has been a beautiful friend and a force of inspiration throughout the years, and Chris Chen, Fred Noland, Dennis O’Brien, Jay Rehm, and Anuj Vaidya have supported me in numerous ways. I also thank Robert Meister for supporting my intellectual pursuits and political work. During the last two years, I navigated my academic work and teaching while sharing with comrades the experiences of organizing and fighting against the privatization of the University of California. Both grueling and exhilarating, these experiences have likely left their imprint on this work. The Rhetoric Department provided me with a permissive space for intellectual exploration and an autonomy of sorts, yet my project wouldn’t have been possible without the critical approaches the department stands behind. Maxine Fredericksen’s care for the graduate students in the department continuously amazed me throughout the years. I have received long-term intellectual and financial support from the Berkeley Institute for Slavic, East-European, and Eurasian Studies and the Berkeley Program in Eurasian and East-European Studies. My research has also been funded by the Institute of European Studies, the EU Center of Excellence, and the Peter N. Kujachich Endowment in Serbian and Montenegrin Studies at Berkeley. Juan Garcia at Graduate Division contributed to the final stages of the process by helping me navigate the maze of paperwork and bureaucratic steps required for filing the dissertation . During my trips to Sofia and other parts of Southeastern Europe, countless friends, colleagues, and strangers have contributed to my research. I am indebted without limit to Momchil Hristov, who—in addition to reading a substantial part of the final draft—shared ideas, research materials, and the intellectual excitements and everyday frustrations of research. I thank Andrey Bundzhulov, Deyan Deyanov, Lilyana Deyanova, Petur Emil-Mitev, Emil Grigorov, Deyan Kyuranov, Miglena Nikolchina, and Andrey Raychev, among others, for sharing their time, experience, and personal archives. Their collaboration, support, insights, and disagreements ii helped me shape the contours of this project. I also owe to Snezhka Neshkova and Filka Litovoyska at the Plovdiv Public Library “Ivan Vazov” for enabling intellectual work through their extraordinary dedication to the public accessibility of resources. My special gratitude goes to Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva and Galina Dimitrova for taking great care of my well-being during my research trips. Countless other friends, both old and new, have helped with various aspects of the research process, including Petya Abrasheva, Polly Mukanova, Vessela Nozharova, and Vanya Petkova. In Belgrade, I thank Dusan Grlja and Ana Vilenica for their collaboration, hospitality, and for our fascinating and memorable conversations. I am also grateful to Milica Tomic and Branimir Stojanovic, who shared experiences and made useful suggestions. In Skopje, it was an honor and pleasure to work with Suzana Milevska. On both continents, I have been blessed with the intelligence, generosity, and unconditional support of my parents Elena and Venelin. Perhaps the most I owe to my sister Vessela who, in addition to always being next to me in difficult moments, has endured through reading, commenting, and proofreading countless versions of these chapters. My fondest memories, love, and admiration go to my great-aunt Nadezhda Katzarova who gave me all her love and care, and who passed away in my absence. iii c h a p t e r o n e Socialist Past and Neoliberal Present in Eastern Europe: A View from the Bulgarian Experience At the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the socialist states, the Bulgarian weekly newspaper Kultura asked Alexander Kiossev, a leading intellectual from the 1980s, to reflect on his experience before and after 1989. “During the early 1990s,” he says, I was writing a variety of things—they were related to the problem of truth. I was working on ideas coming from the circle Sintez; we argued that, generally speaking, in reality, socialism is a semiotic phenomenon, an ideological language that infiltrates all spheres of life and begins to replace their specific logic and languages. It ideologizes everything—from childhood to sports and science, to, for example, the economy. 1 Borrowing from Vaclav Havel’s famous work, “The Power of the Powerless,” he continues: In this total ideologization everyone was forced to communicate not via everyday ways of conveying facts, i.e. via truth-telling discourse, but through automated, cliched pathos statements, ideological