JRL. - VLADISLAV BUGERA: PORTRAIT OF A POST-MARXIST THINKER

[Bugera]

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-204.cfm

JRL Research & Analytical Supplement - JRL Home
RAS Issue No. 44 • November 2008 • JRL 2008-204
Editor: Stephen D. Shenfield, sshenfield@verizon. net
RAS archive:
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/jrl-ras.cfm

The Research and Analytical Supplement (RAS) to Johnson’s Russia List is produced and edited by Stephen D. Shenfield. He is the author of all parts of the content that are not attributed to any other author.
CONTENTS
FEATURE:
VLADISLAV BUGERA: PORTRAIT OF A POST-MARXIST THINKER
1. Introduction
2. My interview with Bugera
3. Interview: The Rarity of Love
4. Interview: The Great Bluff
ECONOMY
5. Russia and the world financial crisis
6. Improving energy efficiency
POLITICS
7. Tandemocracy
8. Hostel evictions
HISTORY: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS UNDER LATE TSARISM
9. The Pale of Jewish Settlement
10. Rozanov on Judaism
FEATURE
VLADISLAV BUGERA: PORTRAIT OF A POST-MARXIST THINKER
1. INTRODUCTION
It was Mark Twain who first said: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” I have often been reminded of his sardonic remark upon hearing or reading categorical assertions that “no one in the Soviet Union (or Russia or the post-Soviet states) still really believes in communism/Marxism.” Why then did I keep running into such “true believers”? There have perhaps not been very many of them, at least since Khrushchev’s time, and perhaps their numbers declined over time, but they never disappeared.
I should emphasize that I am talking not about believers in the regime (truly an extremely rare phenomenon) but about believers in the ideas to which the regime formally adhered ­ often bitterly hostile to the regime, but in the name of those ideas.
To take a very important example, people of this kind upheld the ideal of socialist internationalism in preference to the official “Soviet patriotism,” which they perceived as a form of Russian nationalism. The conditions of the 1990s led people to associate the weakening of social provision with Western influence, thereby strengthening political forces that combined socialist slogans with nationalist or even fascist appeals (the so-called “red-brown” synthesis).
And yet the socialist internationalist tendency never disappeared. Conditions may now favor its resurgence, inasmuch as recent years have seen the rise to predominance of a “traditional” right wing that combines capitalist with nationalist values. So I think it is relevant to examine the experience and ideas of a representative of this tendency.
Vladislav Bugera, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, currently lectures at the Ufa State Oil University of Technology in Bashkortostan, although he began his intellectual and political career in Kiev during perestroika. (1) He is a prolific writer, with several books to his name (2) as well as numerous articles, reviews, interviews, etc. Hardly any of this work has been translated into other languages.
Why do I call Bugera a post-Marxist? He says that he is not a Marxist, and it is true that some aspects of his thought ­ notably, the primary emphasis that he gives to managerial power ­ are not recognizably Marxist. However, Marxism serves as his starting point and its influence on his work is clearly enormous. Thus “post-Marxist” seems reasonable to me.
I thought it might be most effective to introduce Bugera to the reader by presenting three of his interviews. I conducted the first one; the others appeared in Russian periodicals. All translations are mine.
NOTES
(1) He is also deputy chairman of the Bashkir Division of the Academic Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the Methodology of Artificial Intelligence.
(2) In the Fight Against Bourgeois Nationalism (with Marlen Insarov, 2002); Theory and Practice of Collectivism (with M.I., 2002); The Ideology of Collectivism (with M.I., 2003); Ownership and Management (2003); The Essence of Man (Moscow: Nauka, 2005); The Social Essence and Role of Nietzsche’s Philosophy (Moscow: KomKniga, 2005) [all in Russian; where publisher not indicated, self-published] .

[Rose marry]

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