Falsification of the Soviet System of Higher Education in American Sociology

D. I. Prikhodko

In the ideological context of contemporary American sociology, the analysis of social questions of the Soviet system of higher education appears as one of the constituent parts of anticommunism. In the broad sense of the word, anticommunism should be understood as bourgeois ideology as a whole as theoretical class self-consciousness. In the narrow sense of the word, anticommunism may be understood as that part of bourgeois ideology which directly wages a struggle against the ideas of scientific communism and the practice of socialist and communist construction. In our analysis we shall be dealing primarily with this part of bourgeois ideology, i.e., with anticommunism in the narrow sense of the word.

The necessity of ideological struggle in the most diverse spheres of society’s spiritual activity is widely recognized not only by Marxist social science, but also by many bourgeois sociologists. R. G. Monsen writes on this subject: “In the ideological war which the United States is waging against communism in the international arena, and especially in underdeveloped countries, there is probably embodied the main battle of our time”¹. Emphasizing the position

of “social research” in the ideological struggle, the American sociologist M. Cannings asserts that neutrality—any special “de-ideologized position”—is not only undesirable but also impossible. “Some people believe,” he writes, “that neutrality in this matter is desirable. The chief difficulty is that neutrality here is impossible”². In our view, the open acknowledgment by bourgeois social scientists not only of the necessity of ideological struggle, but also of the impossibility of avoiding it in the context of the social analysis of public phenomena, testifies to certain changes within bourgeois ideology itself.

First, it may be argued that the correct thesis about the necessity of conducting an ideological struggle and about the impossibility of taking a neutral position in this struggle has been partly adopted by bourgeois sociology under the influence of Marxist social science; it has been adopted as a thesis of enormous persuasive force, one that is impossible to ignore from a scientific point of view. The question comes down to the following: either to accept this thesis, or to renounce claims to the scientific character and objectivity of one’s research. Of course, what is at issue is only a peculiar prestige of claims to scientific character and objectivity, and not that the acceptance of this thesis automatically makes bourgeois ideology objective and scientific. The point, so to speak, is merely an attempt to raise the prestige of the fiction of the objectivity and scientific character of research. Bourgeois ideology, as a systematized theoretical expression of the interests of the ruling class, is objectively compelled to provide a distorted reflection of reality, a distorted understanding or a complete abstraction from history, the theoretical inadequacy of conceptual schemes and constructions; for it is precisely in such ideology, as a distorted reflection of the world, that the ruling class of capitalist society is interested. Of course, this does not mean that in bourgeois ideology, even in such a part of it as anti-communism in the narrow sense of the word, there is a complete absence of cognitive interest, a complete lack of interest on the part of the ideologist in establishing objective truths. In carrying out the social order of the ruling class, providing an overall distorted picture of Soviet social reality, the bourgeois sociologist cannot fail to establish and use in his analysis certain particular objective truths. In this connection V. I. Lenin emphasized that bourgeois sociologists are capable of “producing the most valuable works in the field of factual, specialized investigations,

although not a single one of them dares to speak openly in one word, without qualification, of a general theory³). In particular, while recognizing as the basic purpose of a social commission the distortion of the social significance of Soviet educational practice, the presentation of it as a nonhistorical, accidental phenomenon that profoundly contradicts the interests of the individual, American sociologists cannot fail to acknowledge the enormous achievements of Soviet education, the titanic energy of the Communist Party and the state in the development of education. And these, of course, are objective truths. But bourgeois sociologists needed the recognition of these truths not in order to give an objective analysis of the Soviet system of education as a whole, but rather to give a distorted representation of it, passing this representation off as the objective result of an analysis of objective social phenomena. The dialectic of this distortion is as follows: the recognition of particular objective truths for the distortion of general conclusions and generalizations.

Moreover, the open recognition of the need to wage an ideological struggle against the ideas of scientific communism, the open demand to take a strictly partisan position in this struggle, is clear evidence that a portion of bourgeois sociologists has openly recognized the connection of bourgeois social science with the political and ideological interests of the ruling class. In a number of cases the myth of the political independence of social science, of its “neutrality,” its “independence” with respect to the immediate ideological and political interests of the ruling class, has been entirely cast aside. Moreover, the sociologist sees his principal task in serving these interests; outside these interests he does not conceive the social role of his research and activity. In a well-known sense one may assert that anticommunism has become the principal value of bourgeois ideology. The theoretical organ of the Communist Party of Spain, the journal Nuestra Ideas, in one of its articles very subtly and profoundly noted precisely this point: “At the present stage anticommunism has become the basic factor of the politics, ideology, morality, and culture of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Serving it has become the main task of the enormous propaganda apparatus controlled by the monopolies and the states subordinate to them. Nothing escapes its influence: neither art, nor literature, nor science. Anticommunism is ‘refined,’ ‘enriched,’ and comprehensively developed as the most significant value of bourgeois culture and ideology. One may boldly say that anticommunism has become the highest principle, the ‘foundation of the foundations’ of the notorious ‘free world’.”⁴

³ V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 18, p. 363.
⁴ Cited from the collection From Socialism to Communism. Moscow, 1961, p. 713.

Third. Bourgeois sociology recognizes the necessity of ideological struggle, for it sees in it the possibility of replenishing the ideological arsenal of ideas. The objective basis of this possibility is that precisely in the struggle of ideologies the antagonist classes hone all their ideological weapons, strengthen their ideological potential. K. Marx, pointing to this feature, emphasized and wrote that “individuals form a class only insofar as they have to wage a common struggle against some other class”...¹ The subjective basis of this possibility is that bourgeois ideology, being a distorted representation of reality, as the scientific worldview develops, as the scientific Marxist theory is confirmed and verified by the entire development of the social movement, proves its scientific insolvency and experiences a peculiar “famine of ideas.” The late U.S. President John Kennedy, in the well-known work Strategy of Peace, wrote on this subject: “We, our nation, now experience a need greater than the need for atomic, air, financial, and even human power—this is the need for the power of ideas”². It is precisely in ideological struggle that bourgeois ideology sees an opportunity to satisfy the “famine of ideas,” to fill the ideological vacuum.

Fourth. The intensification of the ideological offensive against the ideas of scientific communism and, in particular, the role of American institutions of higher education in this offensive in recent years are connected with the tendency toward a gradual change in the balance of forces in the world arena in favor of the socialist system. As a result of the change in the balance of forces in the world arena, the majority of American ideologists do not consider world war with the countries of socialism an effective means of achieving global aims. Therefore a number of American ideologists regard ideological struggle and, in particular, the role of higher education in this struggle as the principal means of struggle against the ideas of scientific communism. Speaking of differences in the means of the global strategy of American imperialism, the brother of the former U.S. President, M. Eisenhower, emphasizes: “This difference consists in the fact that we can no longer use war to achieve our real aims.” And although M. Eisenhower in principle does not exclude the possibility of world war, he maintains that it is impossible by means of war to achieve broad ideological and moral goals. In this connection he draws a quite definite conclusion: “Education must now directly make its own

a substantial contribution to military affairs, economics, politics, and to the moral strength of our people, so that we may wage the struggle against the forces of communist imperialism more effectively”³. A judgment very close to this is expressed by another ideologue, the reactionary American philosopher R. Flusty: “In the physical sphere,” he writes, “the Soviets can oppose force with force, and the result will be general destruction. The competition will be decided in the sphere of the spirit. In light of these facts, we must examine whether we have taken sufficient account of the importance of moral and spiritual ideas in this struggle”⁴.

Analysis shows that the conceptual methodological schemes of American sociologists specializing in questions of the Soviet system of higher education do not go beyond the theoretical framework of the various currents of philosophical positivism and pragmatism. G. M. Andreeva rightly points to a number of basic principles through which positivism manifests itself in contemporary empirical sociology⁵. Of course, in the broad sense of the word the basic principles of the manifestation of philosophical positivism pertain, in essence, to all branches of contemporary bourgeois sociology—to the sociology of education, religion, the family, politics, and so forth. They also pertain to American sociology engaged in the analysis of the Soviet system of education. The manifestation of the basic principles of philosophical positivism in contemporary bourgeois sociology is as follows.

First. A formal rejection of any connection whatsoever between sociology and philosophy. It is assumed that the liberation of sociological research from any conceptual philosophical scheme, the rejection of basic methodological and worldview principles, will make it possible to achieve complete objectivity in sociological analysis, to free this analysis from the influence of biased judgments. In other words, what is at issue is the traditional claim of positivist philosophy to replace social knowledge about the phenomena of social reality, obtained by means of speculative theory, with so-called positive social knowledge obtained empirically. The classics of scientific sociology have shown quite profoundly the methodological untenability and ideological meaning of this claim. In this respect, toward the pre—

F. Engels’s words concerning natural scientists apply fully to representatives of bourgeois sociology as well. Moreover, let us note that F. Engels’s idea pertains to representatives of bourgeois social science to a much greater degree than to natural scientists, for the activity of the former is to an incomparably greater extent mediated by the dominant ideology and politics than the activity of the latter. “Whatever pose natural scientists may adopt,” wrote F. Engels, “philosophy rules over them. The question is only whether they wish to be ruled by some wretched fashionable philosophy, or whether they wish to be guided by a form of theoretical thought which is based on acquaintance with the history of thought and its achievements”⁶. If one leaves aside the untenability of the thesis concerning the independence of a particular social investigation from a definite theoretical-philosophical body of ideas—a thesis whose untenability was brilliantly exposed by the classics of scientific sociology and proved in detail by many Soviet researchers⁷—then the ideological and political meaning of this thesis consists in the following.

By rejecting any philosophical conception, the sociologist seeks to convince those around him that his research is purely objective and scientific in character, does not depend on any preconceived judgments, is based only on empirical facts, cannot fail to be absolutely demonstrative and convincing, and, consequently, his research should be regarded as objective knowledge about the essence of a given social phenomenon in a chronologically defined period.

Formally declaring his noninvolvement in a speculative scheme and persuading others of this, the sociologist obtains the possibility of formally concealing his actual worldview principles and, in essence, carrying out any ideologico-political conclusions, while formally remaining within the framework of empirical research and formally asserting his worldview neutrality. Emphasizing precisely this point in pragmatic philosophy, V. I. Lenin wrote: “Pragmatism ridicules metaphysics and materialism and idealism, extols experience and only experience, recognizes practice as the sole criterion..., and... safely draws out...”

from all this God in practical affairs, only for practice, without any metaphysics, without any going beyond the bounds of experience.”⁸ In this respect J. Dewey’s conception of education is highly characteristic. The American reactionary sociologist K. Dawson, analyzing this conception, sees its greatest merit in recognizing its religious ideal as fundamental. Moreover, the subtlety and depth of K. Dawson’s approach consists precisely in the fact that he examines this ideal in J. Dewey’s educational conception despite the latter’s assertion of the formal atheism and secularism of this conception, despite his official rejection of any religious-idealist philosophy. K. Dawson, in particular, writes on this matter: “Now Dewey, despite his secularism, had a conception of education that was almost purely religious. Education has no relation to intellectual values; its aim is not to transmit knowledge or to prepare scholars in the liberal sciences. It exists simply in order to serve democracy, and democracy is not a form of government; ‘it is a spiritual community, founded on the participation of every human being in the formation of spiritual values. Thus every child is a potential member of a democratic church, and it is the function of education to actualize his humanity and to broaden his powers.’ ‘It seems obvious to me,’ adds K. Dawson, ‘that here the conception of education is a religious conception, despite its secularism.’”⁹

Of course, it should be borne in mind that J. Dewey’s conception of education may be called religious not because of its formal affiliation (which J. Dewey himself denies) with some orthodox religious system—Orthodox, Catholic, Evangelical, Methodist, Quaker, and so on—but because, in gnoseological and methodological respects, it is, in the final analysis, connected with a religious-idealist philosophical system and, above all, with the system of philosophical pragmatism. American sociologists concerned with the problems of analyzing and criticizing the Soviet system of education also deny their connection with any speculative philosophical conception; nevertheless, their approach to certain basic problems of Soviet educational practice—in particular, to such matters as the aims of education, the relationship between the state and education, the individual and education, the precise—

Thus, positions from which they analyze, interpret, and evaluate these problems are assessed, in principle, as close to the conception of J. Dewey.

Second. Bourgeois sociology specializing in questions of the Soviet system of education formally rejects the value-based approach to phenomena of social reality. It formally rejects the value orientation that in the methodological respect would be an expression of definite worldview principles. Of course, this by no means signifies that bourgeois sociologists in reality lack a value orientation in their assessments of the social phenomena of Soviet life. The problem is to establish the connection of the value approach with certain worldview principles, with some definite philosophical conception; this is rather difficult. All the more so because, in the formal respect, bourgeois sociologists prefer to deny this connection. Quite rightly, pravomernо, it should be asserted that the value orientation of bourgeois sociology proceeds in its projections onto the phenomena of social life from the entire aggregate of socio-economic and ideological relations and values of capitalist society, regarded as a natural, unsurpassable, true, and humane model of society. Professor D. I. Chesnokov is profoundly right in this respect. He writes: “Whether bourgeois sociologists speak about the relations of people and of certain groups to one another, whether they examine the structure of society and the functions of its organs, whether they deal with questions of social psychology or of the sociology of knowledge, they always stand on the soil of contemporary capitalist society—not as an object of cognition (here sociologists willingly go deep into the ages), but as a self-evident foundation chosen for the understanding of all social phenomena. In all its aspects, bourgeois sociology serves the justification and defense of capitalism, its apologetics, the defense of the interests of the capitalist bourgeoisie”¹. Generally speaking, it is precisely from the standpoint of such a model, from the standpoint of value orientations constructed on the basis of this model, that bourgeois sociology analyzes and evaluates the social phenomena of Soviet reality.

Third. The generalizations with which contemporary bourgeois empirical sociology operates—including that part of it which deals with the problems of Soviet education—do not rise to

...to the disclosure of the essence of a social phenomenon, to the disclosure of its regularities. In the course of such generalization the sociologist does not reveal the cause-and-effect connection of one or several social phenomena, considers it entirely unnecessary to uncover the regularities of social change. The sociologist formally pretends that, in his broad generalization, he proceeds only from a definite group of social factors and phenomena, does not connect this generalization—either in terms of methodology, or in terms of a value approach—with any principles of any social theory or philosophy, and thus seeks to create the impression of the complete objectivity of his conclusions and generalizations. In reality, however, the refusal to reveal the cause-and-effect connections of a phenomenon, the refusal to analyze the spatio-temporal status of a definite social phenomenon, and finally the formal refusal of methodological and value attitudes lead, on the one hand, to the sociologist’s proving unable to disclose the essence of the social phenomenon, and, on the other, to his acquiring broad scope for an ideological-political interpretation of his generalizations.

Formally, indeed, it is very difficult to establish a connection between this kind of generalization by bourgeois sociologists and some definite philosophical-value orientation. But perhaps the more difficult it is to establish such a connection, the more opportunities the bourgeois sociologist obtains for an ideological-political interpretation of his conclusions and judgments, and the greater the possibility of creating the illusion of the objectivity of these conclusions. Such a character of generalizations is inherent in many bourgeois sociologists specializing in the study of the Soviet system of education. There are quite a few such generalizations in the works of N. DeWitt, D. Counts, M. Shore, D. Burg, D. Shimkin, S. Rosen, and others. Perhaps especially prominent in this respect is D. Burg, who published a number of shamelessly slanderous articles about Soviet higher education and about Soviet youth in certain openly anti-communist and anti-Soviet publications. Generalizing that foreign students, especially those from African countries, quickly become disillusioned with the ideals of communism and with the social characteristics of the Soviet Union, D. Burg writes: “Students viewed the Soviet Union as a utopia that had escaped the social and racial inequality of the non-communist world. Such exaggerated expectations are revealed in articles and documents written by former foreign students whose experience in Moscow disappointed them in communism”¹⁰. How, then, does the author substantiate this con—

that is, reveals cause-and-effect relations between social phenomena, shows their historical and social features, etc.; in other words, why this conclusion can be presented as true and not false. This question, in the case of the anti-communist sociologist, does not concern him, and D. Burg, instead of proving his thesis, provides an illustration of it by means of a single particular fact of the following kind. “Theophilus Okoń, a Nigerian student who studied in Moscow for two years and seven months, openly admitted that he came here as a pro-communist. In an interview with the author of this article,” D. Burg continues, “he said: ‘I realized that not everything was as I had imagined. Russian students began to ask me questions that showed their perverted notion of foreign countries and their desire to learn the truth, which was obviously inaccessible to them’”¹¹. It is quite possible that this fact occurred and that the interview taken by D. Burg from Theophilus Okoń did indeed take precisely this form. But what relation does this fact have to D. Burg’s conclusion that “utopia was thus (!) dispelled and replaced by a feeling of bitter disappointment, which could never have been received by others who had not studied in Moscow either neutrally or inimically disposed toward communism”¹².

First, even if one allows that the given opinion of a Nigerian student has the significance of a generalized sociological fact, then even in that case, taken by itself, it is an insufficient basis for D. Burg’s sufficiently broad ideological conclusion. In fact, the semantic basis of the phrase “I realized that not everything was as I had imagined” is not only not synonymous (as it is for Burg), but not even a sufficient basis for a “feeling of severe and bitter disappointment.”

Second, and this is the main point, the given opinion of the student is not a fact of broad sociological importance and generality. It is a subjective assessment by an individual person, which is rather a factor of a psychological order.

Third, in order to draw a conclusion of ideological generalization on the basis of a factor of a psychological order, it is at the very least necessary to give this fact a sociological modification, to make it a fact of the sociological order. (For this it would be necessary to clarify the social status of the Nigerian student, to clarify his relations with various formal and informal organizations, the degree of his political maturity, his political sympathies, the degree of his intellectual maturity, and

capacity for independent thinking, some directly related motives that prompted him to express this consideration, etc. In other words, to show the causal connection and interaction of various variables of a social and psychological order that conditioned such an opinion on the part of the non-British student. In D. Burg’s case this assessment of the psychological plane, while in the context of his work essentially a particular illustration, acquires in his interpretation the significance of a methodological generalization of the broadest kind. We find an analogous model in the generalizations of other anti-communist sociologists. As one of the principal factors proving the existence of contradictions between “fathers and sons” in Soviet society and the weakening of the influence of revolutionary traditions among student youth, the well-known anti-communist sociologist G. Sherman cites a conversation with one of the Leningrad students (the student’s name is not given). The content of this conversation, as reported by G. Sherman, is as follows: “A student in Leningrad,” he writes, “told about what happened when their Komsomol organization in the dormitory decided to arrange a ‘voluntary subbotnik.’ These days are used to popularize the ‘twenties’ and ‘thirties,’ when people devoted their free time to public work and Sunday work days. ‘Times have changed,’ said the student.—We proposed holding a Sunday work day. ‘Do you know how many students turned up,’ he asked rhetorically and laughed, ‘two out of three hundred—the organizer of the Sunday work day and the secretary of the Komsomol organization!’”^18) It is possible that this event, even in Sherman’s interpretation, did take place. But in itself this fact is no more than a particular illustration and by no means constitutes sufficient grounds for broad sociological and ideological generalizations. Here we shall not substantiate in detail the methodological unsoundness of Sherman’s generalization; our arguments in this regard, concerning the methodological unsoundness of D. Burg’s sociological and ideological generalizations, apply fully to the character of G. Sherman’s generalizations as well. Here it may only be noted that the latter, in his article “Soviet Youth: Myth and Reality,” literally builds all his ideological and political constructions and conclusions on the basis of similar facts—this, too, is a conversation with a mythical—

^18) D. Sherman. Soviet Youth: Myth and Reality. Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Winter, 1962, vol. 91, No. 1, p. 233 (in English).

with the book Sociologist-Anti-Communist “Roy” on the beach, and discussions about V. I. Lenin and about the party of “some Soviet man” in a Moscow restaurant, and so on.

A similar device of bourgeois sociologists—the device of manipulation and play with isolated facts and little facts and the construction on their basis of broad ideological and political conclusions—was branded by V. I. Lenin as scientifically untenable, as having nothing in common with genuine sociological science, as a device testifying to the degeneration of bourgeois social science. Manipulation with isolated facts V. I. Lenin called a “game of examples,” a game that can yield nothing for genuine theoretical generalization¹³.

Obviously, in the present case it is also meaningful to speak of such a manifestation of the positivist orientation in contemporary bourgeois sociology as the extremely broadly understood principle of psychologism. If G. M. Andreeva quite rightly notes this principle in the reduction by bourgeois sociologists of social phenomena to psychological ones (emotions, desires, moods, etc.)¹⁴, then in the present case we observe the reverse process—the reduction, for the most part, of psychological phenomena to social ones and the construction on the basis of the latter of broad ideological and political conclusions and generalizations. In our view, in principle, within certain limits and within the framework of a definite methodology and procedure, both the “psychologization” of social phenomena and the “sociologization” of psychological phenomena are entirely permissible. But such reduction by no means presupposes the simply “self-evident” mutual substitution of phenomena of one order by phenomena of another order, as D. Burg and G. Sherman do in the present case. If, within certain limits, some phenomena may be mutually “psychologized” and “sociologized,” then such an operation requires, above all, deep and comprehensive analysis and the disclosure of the essence of the given social and psychological phenomenon. Only the disclosure of the essence of the phenomenon will allow the sociologist to answer the question of whether a particular social phenomenon may or may not be “psychologized,” and, if it may, to what degree, and whether it makes sense in the context of the given analysis at all to “psychologize” a social phenomenon for the purpose of a deeper and more comprehensive disclosure of the content of that phenomenon.

1. D. Chesnokov, Historical Materialism and Contemporary Bourgeois Sociology (Afterword to the book by H. Becker and A. Boskoff, Modern Sociological Theory in Its Continuity and Change. Moscow, 1961, p. 848). ↩↩↩

2. J. Kennedy. Strategy of Peace. New York, 1960, p. 164 (in English). ↩↩

3. M. S. Eisenhower, Education as a Means of International Understanding. Prospects and Goals in Higher Education. Washington, 1960, pp. 20, 21 (in English). ↩

4. “Personalist,” Winter, 1956, pp. 11–12 (in English). ↩

5. G. M. Andreeva, Contemporary Bourgeois Empirical Sociology. Moscow, 1965, p. 184. ↩

6. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 20, ed. 2, p. 525. ↩

7. See, for example, G. M. Andreeva, Contemporary Bourgeois Empirical Sociology. Moscow, 1965; D. Chesnokov, Afterword to the collection edited by A. Boskoff and G. Becker, Contemporary Sociological Theory; B. A. Chagin, The Fourth International Sociological Congress and Certain Questions of Contemporary Bourgeois Sociology, in the collection Questions of Marxist Sociology. Moscow, 1965, and others. ↩

8. V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch. [Complete Collected Works], vol. 18, p. 363 (note). ↩

9. K. Dawson, The Crisis of Western Education. New York, 1961, p. 63 (in English). ↩

10. D. Burg, “University of Friendship of Peoples,” Problems of Communism, vol. X, No. 6, November–December 1961, p. 51 (in English). ↩

11. Ibid. ↩

12. Ibid. ↩

13. See Lenin Miscellany, vol. XXX, p. 303. ↩

14. G. M. Andreeva, Contemporary Bourgeois Empirical Sociology, pp. 190–195. ↩