In Russia, They Don’t Read Lenin Anymore

Armen Aramyan

Philosophy in Russian academia is really weird. Only a few departments teach it properly, and there is a lot of diversity between them, but the Higher School of Economics mainly focused on logic and analytical philosophy. Social and political philosophy was quite lacking. For example, we read the Communist Manifesto once and that was it — that was the only thing from the entire Marxist tradition we ever came across. It wasn’t even part of the main curriculum, but in an elective course.

The Soviet-era departments of Marxism-Leninism were closed in the 1990s and reestablished as political science or philosophy departments.

I heard that students in cultural studies read some critical theory, like Walter Benjamin and some Frankfurt School, but the philosophy program had been totally purged of radical thinkers. Critical schools of thought like postcolonial studies or gender studies are very rare. There are two or three gender studies programs, but they are under constant threat.

The Soviet-era departments of Marxism-Leninism were closed in the 1990s and reestablished as political science or philosophy departments. Many of the instructors simply switched to other theories, from [Joseph] Stalin to Ayn Rand, so to speak. This is understandable, because in the Soviet Union, ideology was reduced to the symbolic repetition of the same, state-approved theses. The critical aspect of Marxism became very marginal. Thus, a lot of people who developed intellectually in the 1990s and 2000s were allergic to this kind of discourse and were open to anything but Marxism. A number of obscure, peculiar theories grew popular in the social sciences in the 1990s and 2000s because people just didn’t care anymore.