The concept of socialist civilization in the late Soviet political discourse. (Reflection on “Socialism as the formation of a new kind of civilization” by Miran Mchedlov)

Abstract

This article is not a classic review, it is more like an essay, better to say, a reflection on the book and on the era associated with it. The main topic of the article is the fate of the concept of “socialist civilization” in the Soviet era. This excursus will focus on Mi­ran Mchedlov’s book “Socialism – the formation of a new type of civilization” [14], that came out in 1980. This book, written by a Soviet scientist, presents in a concentrated form the experience of conceptualizing the category of “socialist civilization” in the Marxist interpretation. It also reveals the possibilities of representation, shows the potential for the theoretical development of this concept, which were characteristic of Soviet political thought. The main idea of Miran Mchedlov is socialist civilization it­self as the first stage of communist civilization. This idea in Soviet times was not seri­ously evaluated and developed sufficiently. It did not evoke a strong reaction in Soviet political discourse although it should have caused a reaction in the scientific world. This was caused by a decline in attention to the problems of socialist civilization, which was central to the book under review. Around the same time, when did this book come out, the process of gradually replacing the Marxist formational approach with a civilizational approach began. The new approach was opposed to the classical Marxist one, based on the theory of socio-economic formations. Radical changes took place in the Soviet pic­ture of the world, in the public mind of Soviet people. After these changes, not only the formational approach was called into question, but also the Marxist-Leninist doctrine as a whole. That is why the book by Miran Mchedlov is of great interest, as this is one of the last attempts to build the concept of socialist civilization within the framework of the Soviet Marxist picture of the world in the Soviet era.