Abram Moiseyevich Deborin (Ioffe) (; ,

Upyna Upyna (, Samogitian dialect, 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 ...

Kovno Governorate Kovno Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Kovno (Kaunas). It was formed on 18 December 1842 by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas I from the western part of Vilna Govern ...

– 8 March 1963,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

) was a Soviet

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

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. Accor ...

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. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (un ...

(1929). Deborin oscillated between The

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

and

Menshevik The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

factions of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

, before settling with the Bolsheviks and enjoying a long career as a philosopher in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Although this career suffered under

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, he lived to see his works republished when the

was led by

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

Before the Russian Revolution

Entering the revolutionary movement by the end of the 1890s, Deborin joined the Bolshevik faction of the

in 1903. By 1907, however, he switched to the Menshevik faction and became known as one of

Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov ( rus, Георгий Валентинович Плеханов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revolutionary, ...

's disciples, both in politics and philosophy. In 1908, Deborin graduated from the philosophy department at Bern University ( Lyubov 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, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

of 1917, Deborin left the Mensheviks and began lecturing at the Sverdlov Communist University, 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'' (, ) was a Soviet Union, Soviet philosophical and socio-economic journal published in Moscow from 1922 to 1944. It was published monthly, except for 1933–1935, when it was published bi-monthly. History In a lett ...

'', which he headed from 1926-1931. Deborin joined the Communist Party 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 Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (; rus, Николай Иванович Бухарин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ bʊˈxarʲɪn; – 15 March 1938) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and Marxist theorist. A prominent Bolshevik ...

was seen as an ally of the "mechanists," although he did not entirely agree with them).

Under Stalin

He was castigated for "

Menshevizing idealism Menshevizing idealism, also known as menshevistic idealism (), is a term that was widely used in Soviet Marxist literature and referred to the errors committed in philosophy by Abram Deborin’s group. The term was coined by Joseph Stalin in 1930. ...

".
A Dictionary of Philosophy
' by Mark Rosenthal and

Pavel Yudin Pavel Fyodorovich Yudin (; – 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 family of poor Russian peasants, Yudin work ...

(

Progress Publishers Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet Union, 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 ma ...

, 1967) In 1931,

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

decided the issue of the debate between dialecticians and mechanists by publishing a decree which identified

dialectical materialism Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of scien ...

as pertaining solely to

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...

. 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 possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philo ...

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

Third International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internation ...

. Diamat became the official

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

of the

and remained as such until its dissolution. 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

Abram Deborin Archive
at marxists.org
Deborin's Biography

Deborin's photo
– from the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

Frederick Choate's website on Deborin

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