National aspects of Russian social thought of the second half of the 19th century in Soviet historiography (1920s-1980s)

The article shows how the transition to the Soviet period of historiography was accompanied by the assertion of one-sidedness in approaches to studying the history of Russia's social thought, the domination of a single class Marxist-Leninist paradigm. The author points to the obvious exaggeration in the Soviet historical science of the 1920s-1950s of the interpretation of the national question in the views of Russian Conservatives. Their ideas were of interest to researchers mainly as of predecessors of the Black-Hundred Movement, the differences with which disappeared. Soviet researchers of Slavophilism focused their attention on its assessment from the point of view of a class approach. The appeal to national problems was fragmentary, often limited to general statements about the Conservatives' desire to divert workers from social struggle by nationalist slogans. The article focuses attention on the two stages in the development of the socialist movement in Russia, identified by Soviet scientists: preparatory, when the ideological and theoretical search was underway and the organizational forms of the revolutionary movement were worked out, and since the 1880s and on, the actual stage of the preparation of the socialist revolution. If, at the first stage, the Narodniks represented the most advanced ideas, at the following stage they turned into the opponent of the proletarian revolutionary movement. Moreover, any scientific interest was lost to the reflection of the national question in the Narodniks' programs. The author emphasizes that in the 1960s-1980s works become more objective, although they remain within a class-ideological approach in assessing the liberal and conservative trends of social thought of the 19th century as ideological antagonists of revolutionary ideology. During this period, the traditional interpretation of the Slavophile views on national problems remained predominant. Attempts to differentiate the conservative wing of social thought and delimitate the positions of the Slavophiles from the security direction practically did not affect the national aspects. There are obvious positive changes in the study of the nineteenth-century Russian socialist movement. One of the most actively studied subjects in the history of the Russian socialist movement is its relations with Polish revolutionary organizations. The author comes to a conclusion that, as a whole, the Soviet period of the historiography of the problem is characterized by the progressive development of the research, the accumulation of knowledge about the national aspects of the ideas of various trends in Russia's public thought. The domination of Marxist ideology undoubtedly affected the one-sided approach, especially in the 1920s-1950s. At the same time, the article notes the appearance of professional and qualitative research in the 1960s-1980s, which made it possible to take a significant step forward in the study of the topic. But the study was conducted quite unevenly and fragmentarily, within the framework of certain currents of social thought and by personalities.

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