PHIL AND SOPH: DIALOGUES ABOUT ETERNAL AND PERISHABLE. ON THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF KARL MARX: MARXISM,STATE IDEOLOGY AND ‘RUSSIAN SOCIALISM’

Abstract

The theoretical legacy of Karl Marx today raises increased interest throughout the world. In Russia, this interest is connected not only with economic issues, but mainly with a preferred political ideology. In series of our papers, we discuss the most acute socio-philosophical issues in the dialogic polemical form. In particularly, the subject matter of this paper is the relevance of socialist doctrines, and to clarify this, we use a conceptual, source, socio-philosophical and historical-philosophical analysis. Thus, we suppose that transformation of the political ideology into theomachic one was largely due to misinterpretation of idea of the Kingdom of God (that it, and, more importantly, society of justice embodies it, is only outside of history and has no relation to this life, which is solely the king suffering). Even the humanists of the Renaissance argued against these and other dogmatic extremes. However, the Church was so dogmatized that it could not adequately respond to challenges of the epoch. Therefore, social thought, and behind it, social consciousness evolved from transcendentism to pantheism and then to materialism and atheism. This new ideology as a promising one was adopted by not only revolutionaries, but also adventurers-fraudsters. At the same time, secularized ideologies are not the only ones: in Latin America an example of such religious social ideology is liberation theology, in Russia it is ‘Russian socialism’ in the spirit of Dostoevsky, Fedotov, Berdyaev, Frank, Stepun. In our article, we give a brief overview of the works of Russian philosophers on this social phenomenon. However, Marxism as an idea is not discredited itself, discredited itself is only social and political practice of its implementation. Meanwhile, it has already undergone significant changes, and now we should talk about its creative application based on the needs of today and the return of the ethical (and religious) component. Marxism does not necessarily have to lead to totalitarianism, unlike capitalism, which has already led to the construction of a totalitarian society, including the modern Western, judging by the information war, in which lies and pandering violence became the norm. This society turned out to be indistinguishable from the dictatorship of the proletariat, since there is always the dictatorship of someone or something in society: capital, capitalists, oligarchs, etc. And the dictatorship of the democratic majority can be much worse than the dictatorship of a single tyrant. The basis of Marxism, on the contrary, is the idea of human emancipation. Thar’s why we conclude that Marxism not only does not contradict the basic ideas of ‘Russian socialism’, but their synthesis can become the basis for the formation of a new productive ideology for the Russian state.

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