Abstract
The article discusses the original critical dialectical approach of the Soviet philosopher Valentin F. Asmus. His publications on the heritage of Western philosophical thought in the journal Pod znamenem marksizma are examples of this approach. In the 1920s and 1930s, Asmus published a number of articles analyzing a variety of the ideas developed by Western European philosophers: “An Advocate for Philosophical Intuition (Bergson and His Critique of the Intellect)” (1926); “The Alogism of William James” (1927); “The Dialectics of Necessity and Freedom in Spinoza’s Ethics” (1927); “Kant’s General and Transcendental Logic” (1928); “Cosmogony and Cosmology of Descartes” (1937); “Fichte and the Vocation of Scholar” (1937); “Nicholas of Cusa. Selected Philosophical Works” (1938); and “Tommaso Campanella” (1939). These articles differed from the journal’s usual rhetoric, which was shaped in accordance with the official Soviet state ideology. Asmus, through the thinkers he examined, showed the fundamental importance of philosophy for the human personality. This article argues that Asmus, despite his closeness to dialectical materialism, adapted the official terminology and issues in his historical and philosophical articles in a way that he advanced the human right to spirituality, creative activity, and individual freedom.
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Notes
In 1919, Asmus published in the journal Zhizn an article “The Great Captivity of Russian Culture”, in which he deliberately used the term captivity, drawing parallels with the Babylonian captivity and the Horde captivity of Russia. In the article, Asmus criticized the social-democratic intelligentsia in the spirit of the Vekhi authors.
The journal Pod znamenem marksizma was a significant printed organ of the Soviet period, reflecting the development of philosophical and political thought. It played a great role in the development of Marxist thought in the country. In the first issue of the journal Pod znamenem marksizma, Lev Trotsky defined the goals and objectives of the journal, and in the second issue, Vladimir Lenin, in his article ”On the Significance of Militant Materialism” explained the party’s demand for the development of Marxist philosophy in the country. Within the framework of the history of philosophy, the journal saw it as its task to consider the problems and prospects of dialectical materialism and to analyze the main historical and philosophical problems and concepts.
Probably, Asmus turned to the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa after the review of Nikolai Berdyaev on the book Essays on the History of Dialectics in New Philosophy (1929) written in 1931. In his review, Berdyaev noted that Asmus gave the impression of an accidental person in communism; he loved philosophy and developed his dialectical principle but not in a materialistic direction. Berdyaev also noted that Asmus could develop his ideas by referring to the works of Nicholas of Cusa.
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The article was supported by the Russian Science Foundation under grant No. 19-18-00100.
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Besschetnova, E.V. Valentin Asmus’s historico-philosophical articles in the journal “Pod znamenem marksizma”: between philosophy and ideology. Stud East Eur Thought 75, 589–597 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-023-09548-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-023-09548-8