The Stalinization of Dialectics (1931-1938) - Freezing into Dogma
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume I, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The New Regime in Philosophy
After the Central Committee resolution of 1931, not only the philosophical line changed, but the entire character of philosophical work. The new generation - Mitin, Yudin, Adoratsky, and others - created a system in which philosophical work became the illustration of predetermined results.
The pattern was always the same: at the beginning stood quotations from Marx, Engels, Lenin, and - increasingly - Stalin. These quotations defined the “correct” position. Then opposing positions were reported - not in order to understand them, but in order to denounce them as “deviations.” Finally it was shown how the “correct” position triumphed over all opponents. Argumentation in the proper sense - the examination of reasons, the weighing of objections, the development of new insights - did not take place.
Mitin’s textbook Dialectical Materialism (1934) shows this pattern. It contains extensive “confrontations” with the Mechanists and the Menshevik idealists - but these confrontations consist of condemnation, not analysis. The philosophical positions are not developed, but labeled. The reader learns that the Deborinists “dragged Soviet philosophy from Marx and Lenin back to Hegel,” but does not learn why this was supposed to be wrong - except that the Central Committee had so decided.
The Four “Basic Features” of Dialectics
In this climate, dialectics was reduced to a schema that was easily memorized and easily applied. The Short Course (1938), to which we shall return shortly, codified four “basic features”:
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Universal connection: “In contrast to metaphysics, dialectics regards nature not as an accidental accumulation of things, of phenomena, unconnectedly, isolated from and independent of each other, but as a connected, integral whole, in which things, phenomena, are organically connected with each other, depend on each other and condition each other.”
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Constant movement and change: “Dialectics regards nature not as a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but as a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development.”
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Transformation of quantity into quality: “In contrast to metaphysics, dialectics regards the process of development not as a simple process of growth, in which quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open, fundamental changes, to qualitative changes.”
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Struggle of opposites: “Dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in objects and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides, their past and their future, their dying and their developing aspects; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between the dying and the newly arising, between the outlived and the developing, constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes.”[1]
What Was Lost
These four points were not simply “false” - they did contain elements of Hegelian dialectics. The problem lay in what was left out, and in the manner of application.
What was left out:
- The systematic development of the categories. In Hegel each category develops from the preceding one through immanent necessity. In the Short Course, the four points stand side by side, unconnected.
- The reflexive structure of thought. Hegel’s dialectic is essentially self-referential: thinking turns upon itself. Stalinist Diamat applied dialectics to everything except to itself.
- Conceptual mediation. In Hegel it is about the inner logic of concepts, their passing over into one another, their sublation. In Diamat, concepts became labels one attached to phenomena.
- The self-movement of the concept. Hegel’s central insight - that concepts develop out of themselves, not prompted from outside - vanished entirely.
The manner of application: The four “basic features” were treated as templates that could be laid over arbitrary phenomena. Every event “proved” the dialectic: the October Revolution demonstrated the transformation of quantity into quality. Collectivization demonstrated the struggle of opposites. Industrialization demonstrated development. The schema was so general that it “explained” everything - and therefore nothing.
The irony was that precisely the mechanistic application of dialectics prevailed, the very thing the Deborinists had fought against. Dialectics became a set of “laws” applied like natural laws - exactly what the Mechanists had wanted, only under a different name.
Philosophical Terror
Alongside the freezing of thought came the physical annihilation of those who thought. In the purges of 1936-1938, not only politicians and military men disappeared, but also philosophers, into the camps. Of the Deborinists, several were shot or perished in the Gulag. But even philosophers who had adapted to the new line were not safe - for the line itself changed constantly, and whoever was “correct” yesterday could be denounced as a “deviator” tomorrow.
Jan Sten, who had personally taught Stalin Hegel in the 1920s, was arrested in 1937 and executed. The article “Dialectical Materialism” that he had written for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia later appeared under the name of Mitin - the printer had only had to replace a single page.
This climate made serious philosophical work impossible. Whoever thought originally risked his life. Whoever commented on the “classics” risked holding a position that might be considered a “deviation” tomorrow. The safest strategy was the mere reproduction of authorized texts - and even that offered no safety.
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks). Short Course, Moscow 1938, Chapter IV, Section 2. German edition: Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1946. ↩︎