Abram Moiseyevich Deborin (Ioffe) (russian: Абра́м Моисе́евич Дебо́рин Ио́ффе; ,

Upyna Upyna ( pl, Upina, Samogitian: ''Opīna'') is a small town in Šilalė district municipality, Tauragė County, in western Lithuania. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 375 people. History In 1941, 100 Jews were massacre ...

Kovno Governorate Kovno Governorate ( rus, Ковенская губеpния, r=Kovenskaya guberniya; lt, Kauno gubernija) or Governorate of Kaunas was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. Its capital was Kaunas (Kovno in Russian). It was forme ...

– 8 March 1963) was a Soviet Marxist philosopher and

academician An academician is a full member of an artistic, literary, engineering, or scientific academy. In many countries, it is an honorific title used to denote a full member of an academy that has a strong influence on national scientific life. In syst ...

of the

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

(1929). Deborin oscillated between The

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

and Menshevik factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, before settling with the Bolsheviks and enjoying a long career as a philosopher in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. Although this career suffered under

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

, he lived to see his works republished when the

was led by

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

Before the Russian Revolution

Entering the revolutionary movement by the end of the 1890s, Deborin joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903. By 1907, however, he switched to the Menshevik faction and became known as one of Georgi Plekhanov's disciples, both in politics and philosophy. In 1908, Deborin graduated from the philosophy department at Bern University ( L. I. Axelrod had received her doctorate there in 1900). He soon began publishing major books and articles on philosophy from a Marxist perspective. He then wrote "Filosofiia Makha" ( Machist Philosophy), published in '' Golos sotst'aldemokrata'', in April 1908. Here he characterized Bolshevism as a political manifestation of the 'subjectivism' and 'voluntarism' inherent in Machism, and that their "tacticians and practical people" were unwitting Machists and idealists. Lenin was one of the practical people who despite his rejection of "machism" had abided by a truce within the Bolshevik faction whereby they agreed not to politicize such philosophical issues.

After the Russian Revolution

Soon after the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...

of 1917, Deborin left the Mensheviks and began lecturing at the

Sverdlov Communist University The Sverdlov Communist University ( Russian: Коммунистический университет имени Я. М. Свердлова) was a school for Soviet activists in Moscow, founded in 1918 as the Central School for Soviet and Party Work ...

, the Institute of Red Professors and the Institute of Philosophy. He soon assumed editorial duties at the journal, ''

Under the Banner of Marxism ''Under the Banner of Marxism'' (russian: Под знаменем марксизма, german: Unter dem Banner des Marxismus) was a Soviet philosophical and socio-economic journal published in Moscow from 1922 to 1944. It was published monthly, e ...

'', which he headed from 1926-1931. Deborin joined the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

in 1928. Following the 1917

, Soviet philosophy found itself divided itself between two factions: the "dialecticians," headed up by Deborin, and "mechanists," whose leading figure was the philosopher Lyubov Axelrod (the then prominent Bolshevik leader Nikolai Bukharin was seen as an ally of the "mechanists," although he did not entirely agree with them).

Under Stalin

He was castigated for "''.''"
A Dictionary of Philosophy
' by Mark Rosenthal and

Pavel Yudin Pavel Fyodorovich Yudin (russian: Павел Фёдорович Юдин; – 10 April 1968) was a Soviet philosopher and communist party official specialising in the fields of culture and sociology, and later a diplomat. Biography Born in to a ...

(

Progress Publishers Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet publisher founded in 1931. Publishing program Progress Publishers published books in a variety of languages: Russian, English, and many other European and Asian languages. They issued many scientific b ...

, 1967) In 1931,

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

decided the issue of the debate between dialecticians and mechanists by publishing a decree which identified dialectical materialism as pertaining solely to

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various c ...

. He then codified it in
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
' (1938) by enumerating the "laws of dialectics", which are the grounds of particular disciplines and in particular of the science of history, and which guarantees their conformity to the "

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...

conception of the world". Thus, ''diamat'' was imposed on most Communist parties affiliated to the

Third International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

. Diamat became the official philosophy of the

and remained as such until its

dissolution Dissolution may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books * ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers * ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music * Dissolution, in mu ...

. When Stalin decided in favor of dialectical materialism, Deborin made a show of support for Stalin's position. For some years afterwards, Deborin kept a low profile, and most of his writings were suppressed. However, he lived long enough to see all of his works republished in the Soviet Union during the " thaw" under

References

External links

Deborin's Biography

Deborin's photo
– from the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across ...

Frederick Choate's website on Deborin

A. M. Deborin, "Hegel And Dialectical Materialism 1929"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deborin, Abram Moiseyevich 1881 births 1963 deaths 20th-century Lithuanian philosophers 20th-century Russian philosophers People from Rossiyensky Uyezd People from Šilalė District Municipality Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences University of Bern alumni Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Lithuanian Jews Materialists Mensheviks Soviet Jews Spinoza scholars Spinozist philosophers Russian Marxists Soviet Marxists Soviet philosophers Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery