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Abstract
The article shows the dialectic of the relationship of revolution and culture as two sides of creativity - social and art. In a dialogue with the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin, the authors reveal culture as the removal of alienation (disalienation) in the process of subject-subjective dialogue, in which a qualitatively new reality is created – Truth, Beauty, Good, a new person is born - a man-creator, and as such, culture is revolutionary. The second side of this connection - the revolution as a culture - is revealed by the authors on the example of the social creativity of revolutionary Russia, the poet of which was Vladimir Mayakovsky. The article gives a panorama of the historical practices of art and social creativity of the 1920s. The authors show that the counterpoint to these practices was the relationship of conformism, bureaucracy and other forms of social alienation which led the Soviet project to the dead end. The authors conclude that disalienation in the social and cultural spheres is possible only to the extent that the sociopolitical revolutionary changes are carried out in unity with the liberation of the cultural potential of the masses, and art creativity is interfaced (united) with social creativity.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the anonymous reviewers and to Andrey Kolganov for providing critical feedback and helpful suggestions, and to Olga Barashkova for help with preparing the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 See Bibler, M.M. Bakhtin, ili Poetika kul’tury; Averintsev et al. M.M. Bakhtin kak filosof; Emerson, First Hundred Years of M. Bachtin; Brandist and Tihanov, Materializing Bakhtin; Isupov, “Lessons of M.M. Bakhtin,” 7–44.
2 See Buzgalin, Bulavka, and Linke, Lenin Online; Budgen, Kouvelakis, and Žižek, Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth.
3 Executive Office of the President, “Markets versus Socialism.”
4 The Economist, “Rise of Millennial Socialism”; the Economist, “Millennial Socialism.”
5 Fukuyama, End of History and the Last Man.
6 Bakhtin, Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable.
7 It should be noted that in a number of cases Bakhtin is ranked among the forerunners of postmodernism. But the position of both Bakhtin and the authors differs from the postmodern discourse of deconstruction and desubjectivation, for we propose the logic of ‘construction’, co-creation and actions of the subjects. (For more on criticism of postmodernism, see Jameson, Postmodernism.)
8 Ilyenkov, Filosofiya i Kul’tura; Zlobin, Kul’tura i obshchestvennyy progress; Mezhuev, Kul’tura i istoriya; Batishchev, Vvedenie v dialektiku tvorchestva.
9 Ollman, Alienation.
10 Meszaros, Marx’s Theory of Alienation.
11 Schaff, Alienation as a Social Phenomenon.
12 Lukács, History and Class Consciousness.
13 See Marx, “Kapital. Kritika politicheskoy ekonomii,” 383–4, 391, 397; Marx, “Teorii pribavochnoy stoimosti,” 507, 513, 519, 529.
14 Musto, “Once Again about the Marxian Concept of Alienation.”
15 See eg Bulavka, “Practice of the USSR.”
16 See Bakhtin, Problems of Poetics of Dostoevskiy; Bibler, Myshlenie kak tvorchestvo; Batishchev, Vvedenie v dialektiku tvorchestva.
17 For more details see Buzgalin, “Creative Economy.”
18 Batishchev, “Objective and Discrimination.”
19 For more, see Buzgalin and Kolganov, “Global Capital,” vol. 2: 85–86, 93, 119–26.
20 For more details see Buzgalin and Kolganov, “Global Capital,” vol. 1: 102–4.
21 See Freeman, “Twilight of the Machinocratic Outlook.”
22 In the RSFSR Lenin was Chairperson of the Council of People’s Commissars, but there were other state leaders as well. The first Secretary of the Central Committee was J. V. Stalin.
23 Lenin, “Tasks of the Unions of Youth,” 305.
24 Lenin, “Luchshe men’she, da luchshe,” 391.
25 ‘In the future there will be no other history of humanity, apart from the history of culture’ (Karl Liebknecht, quoted in Zlobin, “Kommunizm kak kul’tura,” 2).
26 See Zlobin, “Kommunizm kak kul’tura,” 2–26. This thesis was also developed by Zlobin’s contemporary Professor Vadim Mezhuev (see Mezhuev, “Sotsializm kak prostranstvo kul’tury.”)
27 Mayakovskiy, “Vo ves’ golos. 1929–1930.”
28 Shoo. “Proletarskaya kul’tura,” 19.
29 See Blok, “Krushenie gumanizma,” 107.
30 Lenin, “O proletarskoy kul’ture,” 337.
31 For more details see Buzgalin, “Political Economy of Revolution.”
32 The USSR of the 1920s was characterised by a unique growth of both culture and revolutionary enthusiasm. Space limitations of the article do not allow us to give more examples here, but many such examples are analysed in Bulavka, Kul’tura. Vlast’. Socializm; Bulavka, Fenomen sovetskoj kul’tury.
33 Emerson, First Hundred Years of Mikhail Bakhtin.
34 ‘Little child, we all are all horses, a little bit,
Each of us, in some way, is a horse’.
Mayakovskiy, “Kindness to Horses,” 36.
35 See Lenin, “Zamechaniya na vtoroy proekt programmy Plekhanova,” 232.
36 Marx and Engels, “Manifest Kommunisticheskoy partii,” 447.
37 Slavin and Buzgalin, Vershina Velikoy revolyutsii.
38 For more details see Buzgalin et al., USSR: Optimistic Tragedy.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Aleksandr Buzgalin
Aleksandr Buzgalin is a professor in the Department of Political Economy and director of the Center for Modern Marxist Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. He is also the director of the Institute of Social Economy of Moscow University of Finance and Law (MFUA). Buzgalin is Editor in Chief of Questions of Political Economy (a Russian bilingual academic journal). His research focuses on methodological and fundamental aspects of Marxism, in particular contradictions of the late capitalism and nature of Russian economy.
Lyudmila Bulavka-Buzgalina
Lyudmila Bulavka-Buzgalina is a doctor of philosophical sciences, a professor at the Centre for Modern Marxist Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy at Lomonosov Moscow State University and a professor at Moscow University of Finance and Law (MFUA). Her scientific interests include social philosophy of culture, the problems of Soviet and post-Soviet culture and ways to overcome human alienation (disalienation).