Source: http://cdclv.unlv.edu/archives/articles/shalin_nationalsoc.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 23:09:41+00:00

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This paper examines the controversy over the meaning of patriotic social science, the legitimacy of a multiparadigmatic approach, and the resistance toward pragmatism as a philosophical and cultural phenomenon in Russian culture. The argument is made that the fissure splitting the Russian sociological community over the issue of paradigm pluralism has its counterpart in the West, that it reflects the struggle for power in contemporary Russia, that theoretical monism advocated by nationalist sociologists is incompatible with a scientific ethos, and that Russian intellectuals need to explore how the nationalist right and the illiberal left thwarted democracy in 20th century Europe, or risk “stepping on the same rake” all over again.
The controversy over the proliferation of paradigms in sociology and the threat it poses to the theoretical unity of the discipline is an old one. According to Robert Merton (1975: 39-40), the “debate between theoretical pluralism and theoretical monism” reemerges at strategic junctions in the discipline’s history when sociologists committed to “an overarching theoretical system” clash with those favoring “a multiplicity of occasionally consolidated paradigms.” Russian sociologists appear to have reached such a juncture.
The current controversy follows the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a traumatic experience that provoked soul-searching among Russian intellectuals and engendered heated debates about advocacy, policy engagement, and scholars’ ties to the state. While all sides in the current controversy agree on the urgent need to aid their country in the time of trouble, they part company on what exactly a national sociology agenda entails. Sociologists committed to the notion that Russia has unique historical destiny mistrust paradigm pluralism and insists on developing distinctively Russian theories and social remedies. Skeptical about Western paradigms, they press for a “national sociology” that realigns social science with the state (Dobrenkov 2007; Malinkin 2005, 2006, Osipov 2004, 2006, 2007; Osipov and Kuznetsov 2005; Zhukov 2002).
Sociologists with liberal credentials endorse the idea of a policy-relevant sociology but are weary of too close an association with the state and decry any loyalty test aimed to establish social scientists’ patriotic credentials. They also oppose theoretical monism and the notion of Russia’s unique historical destiny. Social scientists committed to a liberal program believe that scholars espousing diverse theoretical views can effectively safeguard national interests (Yadov 2003, 2006, 2007; Zaslavskaya 1997, 1999; Kravchenko 2004).
Other participants in this debate stake a middle ground, endorsing the legitimacy of the multi-paradigmatic approach and policy-oriented studies while encouraging the search for a sociological theory informed by the Russian cultural tradition (Filippov 1997; Zdravomyslov 2006, 2007).
Although the debate under review reflects Russia’s struggle to put behind its Soviet past, the issues at stake—advocacy, policy relevance, and the national agenda for social science—have their counterpart in the West. In his 2004 presidential address before the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy urged his colleagues to shun their discipline’s hegemonic pretensions and articulate a distinctly national agenda: “We, therefore, have a special responsibility to provincialize our own sociology, to bring it down from the pedestal of universality and recognize its distinctive character and national power. We have to develop a dialogue, once again, with other national sociologies, recognizing their local traditions or their aspirations to indigenize sociology” (Burawoy 2005: 22).
This paper reviews the current controversy in Russian sociology—its origins, historical context, and political alignments in each camp. It also addresses the animosity that Russian intellectuals on the right and on the left have shown toward pragmatism as a philosophical teaching and a sociological perspective. “The polyparadigmatic approach is grounded in the ideological and philosophical principles of liberalism and pragmatism,” asserts Aleksandr Malinkin, an opponent of paradigm pluralism, and “pragmatist philosophy is fruitless and unproductive as a theoretical and methodological foundation of sociology” (Malinkin 2006, 2005).1 Coming from a completely different perspective, a public intellectual critical of the Putin regime warns his countrymen that “[p]ragmatism is only a polite name for the utter lack of principles” (Bukovsky 2006). The enmity toward pragmatism crosses political fault lines in today’s Russia, animating conservative thinkers as well as their opponents, especially those on the traditional Left, and it offers an important gloss on the difficulties Russia faces in transitioning to democracy. The controversy under review illuminates a delicate balance between scholarship and advocacy in emerging democracies, the plight of public intellectuals in countries where social scientists are held accountable for policy advice they offer to the authorities.
My discussion starts with the historical context of the current controversy and the role of public intellectuals in the late Soviet era, after which I examine the nascent patriotic strand in Russian social thought and its opposition to paradigm pluralism. Next, I focus on the political affinities of the sociologists committed to the nationalist and liberal agendas, examine their institutional resources and relationship with the government, and connect their stance to the views that sociologists from each camp espoused under Soviet rule. After that, I discuss Russian intellectuals’ attitude toward pragmatism and place the debate about advocacy and national sociology in a comparative perspective, focusing in particular on the situation in American sociology and the work of C. Wright Mills. I conclude by making the case that American sociologists need to pay closer attention to the nascent trends in Russian sociology.
Soviet sociology has had a long and troubled history. It began with a fitful start after the Bolsheviks took power, went extinct in Stalin’s years, reemerged as an empirical field during the Khrushchev “Thaw,” took painful hits in the Brezhnev era, then gradually positioned itself as a scientific discipline affiliated with, yet autonomous from, its philosophical counterpart—historical materialism (Batygin 1999; Beliaev and Butorin, 1982; Doktorov 2007; Firsov 2001, 2003; Greenfeld 1988; Osipov 1979; Osipov and Kuznetsov 2005; Shalin 1978, 1990; Shlapentokh 1987; Weinberg, 2004; Yadov and Grathoff 1994; Zdravomyslov 2006, 2007). Internationalism has always been a hallmark of Marxist thought which styled itself as a universal doctrine that encompasses humanity at large and foretells the emergence of a global communist community. Nationalism was castigated as a vestige of the past, an obstacle in the path of the proletariat coming to terms with its world-historical mission. Bolsheviks saw themselves as Westernizers leading the fight for world revolution. Lenin in particular was determined to deliver Russia from its backwardness, to thrust his country in the forefront of the international communist movement.
Consistent with this stance was the perception of Western theories as muddled and ideologically biased. Soviet scholars cast the diversity of theoretical schemes and methodological approaches as a sign of inferiority, gleefully contrasting paradigm pluralism in the West to the united front Marxist social scientists forged in their pursuit of monistic sociological doctrine. This is how Gennady Osipov, a prominent Soviet sociologist and an acknowledged leader in today’s patriotic camp, expressed his opposition to the paradigm pluralism: “The diversity of approaches and schools in bourgeois sociology ... reflects the contradictory and unstable character of contemporary capitalism, the absence of a truly scientific worldview, and it is a consequence of the anti-historical and anticommunist stance of contemporary bourgeois sociology, as well as a proof of its ideological crisis” (Osipov 1979: 64).
It is not that Soviet sociologists had nothing to learn from their Western counterparts. They all had their conceptual favorites and borrowed freely methodological tools from abroad, but Soviet scholars had to be careful in doling out praise to foreigners, lest their ideological vigilance come under suspicion. The critique of “bourgeois sociology” called for a balancing act where positive comments were punctuated by stern dressing-downs of ideological adversaries. An article reviewing Western authors or theories usually included а mandatory statement that ran something like this: “In our time of deepening ideological struggle, it is especially important to distinguish between certain positive scientific elements found in the works of bourgeois thinkers and the reactionary essence of their overall views. [A telling example] is the neo-Kantian movement that nourishes all sorts of revisionist concepts” (Malinkin 1983: 131). Bred into the Soviet sociologist’s bones was the notion that Marxist scholarship was politically engaged and policy-bound, that “the party spirit of Marxist-Leninist sociology is at the same time the best guarantee of its scientific character. The Marxist-Leninist class analysis embodies the unity of partisanship and scholarship.... Nonpartisanship and neutrality in sociology is nothing but a myth, a thin veil disguising an allegiance to a particular class” (Osipov 1979: 137, 142).
The ambivalence toward the national and international dimensions in sociological thought was palpable in the way Soviet sociologists treated parochial developments in Western social thought. Soviet scholars welcomed national diversity in bourgeois sociology, treating it as something progressive insofar as local intellectuals sought to distance themselves from American patronage. The expectation was that national sociological currents would be eventually absorbed into the triumphant Marxist teaching. A sophisticated treatment of the subject can be found in Igor Golosenko’s 1981 article titled “The Universal and the National in Non-Marxist Sociology.” “Doubts about the universal validity of American sociological theories and methods are evident to sociologists all over the world, as they have discovered that many of these concepts are not applicable outside the USA. The logical conclusion was that national sociology must be grounded in the national scientific tradition, reflecting the country’s heritage. In Western Europe the recent apologists of American methods have finally come to realize that the American theories of stratification, of the education crisis, and so on, do not apply to their own societies” (Golosenko 1981: 76). Hence it is entirely appropriate to “talk about ‘German sociology,’ ‘English social anthropology,’ ‘American social psychology,’” continued the author, provided nationally-minded sociologists remember that “imposing national specificity as a standard is a dangerous thing, for this specifics is historical in nature, and ignoring its historical dimension obscures the true nature of the national” (Golosenko 1981: 78). Soviet scholars welcomed the fact that sociologists around the world had grown weary of American dominance, not only in world politics but also in scholarly discourse, and they sought to encourage this trend without ceding ground to ultranationalists or discarding the internationalist agenda.
At home or abroad, Soviet scholars upheld an activist vision of sociology as a discipline engaged in practice-oriented research and setting up progressive policies. Communist Party membership was not officially a prerequisite for becoming a sociologist, but almost all leading Soviet sociologists were party members duty bound to deploy their professional expertise in the service of building communist society. Reform minded sociologists exercised their critical judgment, both in professional and general circulation publications, but they had to avoid challenging the communist authorities head-on. When in 1983 Tatyana Zaslavskaya circulated a policy paper calling for “the fundamental perestroika of our economic governance,” her “Novosibirsk Manifesto,” as her pamphlet became known in the West, provoked heavy criticism. She and her boss received official party reprimands. However, the term “perestroika” that appeared eight times in Zaslvaskaya’s document had caught the eye of Mikhail Gorbachev, a new generation party leader rapidly advancing through the party hierarchy, and when Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he adopted the term and the program articulated by Novosibirsk sociologists as a tool for reforming an unwieldy Soviet economy and society.
With the clarion call for perestroika and glasnost, sociology in Russia began to undergo momentous changes. In June of 1988, the Communist Party Politburo passed a resolution “On Strengthening the Role of Marxist-Leninist Sociology in Solving Key Problems of Soviet Society.” Soon after the Ministry of Higher Education moved to establish sociology departments in flagship universities in Leningrad and Moscow. With the new trends came a more relaxed attitude toward Marxist orthodoxy and paradigm pluralism. In 1988 Soviet scholars adopted the “Professional Code of Sociologists” that struck a balance between the old and new. The preamble reiterated the familiar thesis about the “clear class position” expected from Soviet sociologists, but it also encouraged social scientists “to defend their ideas and concepts regardless of the established views” and show “moral courage and willingness to take on established opinions” (Professionalnyi kodeks 1988: 95). Vladimir Yadov, a leading Soviet sociologist, amplified this position in his programmatic article where he acknowledged that “our sociology is directly linked to dialectical materialism, to Marxist philosophy, and as such, it deserves to be called Marxist-Leninist,” but in the same breath he warned his colleagues that it would be wrong to “brag about its exclusivity,” for Marxist sociology had to overcome its “isolation from sociological scholarship in the rest of the world” (Yadov 1990: 6, 15-16).
Andrey Zdravomyslov (2006, 2007) concurred with Yadov on the value of paradigm pluralism but urged his colleagues to revive the national sociological tradition. Post-Soviet sociology in Russia exhibits “the polyparadigmatic orientation” marked by the competition between “French, German, American, and English sociological enclaves within Russian social thought,” observed Zdravomyslov; this competition should be seen as “the intense creative process aimed at the appropriation and transformation of the world sociological perspectives so that they become relevant for the analysis of Russian social reality” (Zdravomyslov 2007).
With the winds of perestroika sweeping through Russian society, Soviet sociologists assumed greater role in articulating the national agenda. Their traditional commitment to professionalism and applied social research was now supplemented by the increasingly critical stance toward the state and the willingness to engage as public intellectuals in the civic process on both national and local levels. Tatyana Zaslvaskaya took over as head of the National Opinion Research Center (Russian acronym—VTSIOM) where she oversaw opinion polling on vital issues of the day, supplied the polling data to the government, and offered expert policy advice. Yuri Levada, one of the most respected academic sociologists in Russia who succeeded Zaslavskaya as head of VTSIOM, accepted the invitation to join Boris Yeltsin’s presidential council. Galina Starovoitova, a prominent student of ethnic relations, became a member of the Russian parliament. Nikolai Girenko, an expert ethnographer, was elected to the Leningrad City Council, while Igor Kon, the nation’s preeminent authority on the issues of diversity, offered expert advice to a coalition of sexual minorities seeking to repel the nation’s antigay laws. The spirit of public service that permeated post-Soviet sociology had survived perestroika, engendering a lively debate about advocacy, national sociology, and scientists’ responsibility to the state. At the start of the twenty-first century, these issues emerged as a major divide within the Russian sociological community.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, so did state funding for sciences and the humanities. Left to their own devices, Russian social scientists searched for ways to legitimize their enterprise and find new sources of income. A few were commissioned to do polling for the emerging political parties and private enterprises, some managed to subsist on scholarly grants administered by international foundations, many more had to take additional jobs just to get by, and still others left academia or the country altogether. Paradigm pluralism flourished after perestroika as Russian sociologists translated Western treatises and published long suppressed works of Russian thinkers. No theoretical or methodological strand emerged as a clear favorite. With the confusion and mounting economic hardship of the 1990s, voices began to be heard inside the academic community about the need to establish a national agenda for Russian sociology. Policy advice that perestroika intellectuals offered the government came under criticism, and so did paradigm pluralism, as self-styled patriots accused their liberal colleagues of promoting ideas alien to Russian culture and detrimental to the nation’s welfare. Once perestroika leaders were pushed aside, nationalist sociologists made a move to align themselves with the increasingly nationalist, anti-Western political establishment in the Russian Federation. The sorry conditions of Russian economy and general social malaise gave the nationalists ammunition for their critique.
Among the first to sound the alarm about the epistemological chaos in post-Soviet sociology was A. F. Filippov. He contended that history does not know successful efforts to “transplant foreign concepts in their original form, and Russia cannot be an exception” (Filippov 1997: 11). There are many theories in today’s Russian sociology, Filippov claimed, but no “theoretical sociology.” A practical solution to the current disarray is the “creation of our own theoretical sociology as a series of ambitious concepts” (Filippov 1997: 16).
Aleksandr Malinkin is probably the most articulate opponent of paradigm pluralism who also aligns himself with Russian national sociology. What grates him the most is that “many middle-aged and most young sociologists in Russia are becoming converts to faddish Western teachings”—a trend that only exacerbates “the noncompetitive character of home-grown theories.” He is appalled by reigning eclecticism, by the “unbridled hybridization of ideas” and “theoretical kasha in the heads of many Russian sociologists.” “The polyparadigmatic approach makes virtue out of necessity,” Malinkin contends, as it surreptitiously “translates the values of liberalism into the conceptual apparatus and methodology of sociological science” (Malinkin 2005: 113, 115). Malinkin is skeptical about the value neutrality espoused by the proponents of paradigm pluralism. The “deideologization forced upon us merely signifies that the reigning ideology is being supplanted by another one. ... The Russian Federation has shed its ideological garments to a dangerous point where it exposed itself to anarchy and became vulnerable to the ideological manipulation from abroad” (Malinkin 2006: 116). The fact that Russia is moving away from its past does not justify the break with theoretical monism, nor should it blind sociologists to the achievement of the bygone era. “In their opposition to the ‘dark,’ allegedly totalitarian Soviet past, those embracing the logic of rapture promise the ‘bright’ democratic future. ... We are led to believe that Russia cannot escape the Euro-American style modernization. Such ‘catching-on’ modernization means colonization for Russia [and it] leads to the annihilation of Russian national culture along with the bulk of its population” (Malinkin 2006: 119).
A high-flying member of the academic establishment affiliated with the nationalist paradigm in sociology is Vladimir Dobrenikov, dean of the School of Sociology at Moscow State University.
Dobrenkov is concerned about the tendency to undervalue the native sociological tradition in the existing sociology programs. He denounced what he perceives to be “the extremely worrisome processes in the Russian educational and scientific establishment [reflecting] the aggressive actions of foreign-based educational and scientific centers, as well as Russian organizations financed from abroad. Such organizations undermine the indigenous educational and research establishments and serve as a conduit for Western positivist perspectives and methods alien to the Russian tradition” (Dobrenkov 2007). The dean of the sociology faculty contrasted the native sociological thought dedicated to social justice and equality with the orientation that stresses pluralism in its political, economic, and cultural manifestations incompatible with the Russian tradition. According to Dobrenkov, liberal sociologists serve as purveyors of the “political technologies [that] are deployed with the purpose to mobilize extremist moods and pseudo-revolutionary movements among students” and feed “the ‘color revolution’ [the reference is to the Ukrainian democracy movement] spreading among Russian students” (Dobrenkov 2007). Among the key proponents of the pro-Western orientation Dobrenkov singled out “Yadov, Zaslvaskaya, and Zdravomylsov who contrive to purge Russian sociology of its Russianness” (Dobrenkov 2007).
Gennady Osipov, head of the Institute of Socio-Political Studies, is perhaps the best known figure in the patriotic sociology movement. His strong suit is Eurasianism, an intellectual current called upon to combat “the pernicious conceptual framework offered as a strategic blueprint for Russia’s development where Russia is drawn into the linear, Western-centric schema of socio-historical process” (Osipov 2006). An alternative model proposed by Osipov advocates “the multipolar world and acknowledges the civilizational polarities in contemporary society. Russia asserts itself here as the core of self-sufficient Eurasian civilization whose existence and development provide the necessary conditions for stability in the world order” (Osipov 2006).
The quest for “genuinely Russian” theories has intensified in the last decade, as nationalist sociologists looked for a conceptual framework to ground their claims about Russia’s unique historical profile and destiny. Among the names most often mentioned in this connection is Pitirim Sorokin, a distinguished sociologist of Russian birth in whose reflections on civilizational dynamics patriotic sociologists discern the blueprint for a sociology steeped in Eurasian values. Emblematic in this respect is Osipov’s (2000) riff on a 1922 statement where Sorokin celebrated “the heroic achievements that demonstrate the strength, creative abilities, resourcefulness of Russians and other people residing in Russia, their willingness to sacrifice themselves and forgo their wellbeing in order to salvage freedom, dignity and other great national values.” A national symposium commemorating Sorokin’s 120th birthday took place on March 25, 2009.2 Sponsored by the Russian Academy of Science and organized by Osipov’s colleagues, this event is indicative of what nationalist sociologists have in mind when they call for “the creation of genuinely Russian theories, concepts, and doctrines” (Malinkin 2006: 121). “We can call them ‘Russian’ (regardless of the percentage of the borrowed material in them) not so much because they are formulated by Russians, but because they are rooted in the national cultural and social realities, because they have emerged in response to the challenges facing Russian society and in line with the interests of Russian people, society, and the state. National rootedness of sociological theory presupposes a certain cultural-historical continuity, a positive connection with the heritage of Russia’s imperial and Soviet past” (Malinkin 2006: 121).
As we ponder the divergent agendas informing contemporary Russian sociology, we need to take a closer look at their historical trajectories and examine how major players have arrived at their current positions. Much relevant information is supplied by the International Biography Initiative (2005), an online project that collects documents and biographical materials about leading Russian sociologists.3 Particularly instructive for the task at hand is the life histories of two sociologists, Vladimir Yadov and Gennady Osipov, who have come to embody the divergent intellectual currents in contemporary Russian sociology.
Yadov’s path toward sociology began at the School of Philosophy, Leningrad State University, where he enrolled in the undergraduate program a few years after World War II. As a student Yadov was active in the Young Communist League, reaching a leadership position in the organization. He joined the CPSU in his second year of studies and appeared to be on his way to a promissing career, possibly within the party hierarchy, when his advancement abruptly halted after he was charged with concealing his father’s membership in an anti-party bloc (Yadov 2005). Purged from the Communist Party and the university, Yadov took up an apprentice job at an industrial plant. He resumed his education and restored his party membership after Stalin’ death. Already as an undergraduate Yadov grew disillusioned with philosophical abstractions and turned his attention toward more empirical subjects, eventually drifting toward social sciences and writing a dissertation on the interfaces between ideology and politics.
In 1960 Yadov was appointed head of the Sociological Laboratory at the Leningrad State University where he lead a major study published under the title Man and His Work (Yadov, Zdravomyslov and Rozhin 1967) that explored Soviet workers’ attitudes toward their work. This publication, which subtly undercut the Marxist prediction about the diminishing alienation in a nationalized economy, established his reputation at home and abroad as one of the country’s leading sociologists. Around this time Yadov moved to the Academy of Sciences Institute of Concrete Social Research where he assumed directorship of its Leningrad branch, remaining in this position until the Institute merged with several other research divisions into a new organization reporting to the local party authorities. In the late Soviet era Yadov came under attack for his lack of ideological vigilance, lost control over his research division, and had to step down from his position as president of the Leningrad Sociological Association. It was not until perestroika that his contribution to the discipline was recognized once again. With Gorbachev’s reforms gathering speed, Yadov was appointed director of the Institute of Sociology and elected president of the Soviet Sociological Association.
Looking back at his career, Yadov is quick to acknowledge his communist past. “At the time, I was a veritable shock trooper and happily accepted the invitation to join the party. [When] our Leader and Teacher died, I sincerely wept on that occasion” (Yadov 2005). When the tide turned and sociologists felt free to speak their mind, Yadov did not rush to disown his old views or hide his early political sympathies: “I definitely was a Marxist and in no way feel embarrassed about it today. I write a lot about the polyparadigmatic character of contemporary sociology in which Marx occupies a prominent place alongside Weber. Marx is a great thinker. His works are discussed in all Western sociology textbooks. Just his notion of alienated labor (proletariat) rivals the Weberian concept of social action” (Yadov 2005). Today, Yadov defends the view that sociology thrives in an environment conducive to political and theoretical diversity. He sees sociology as engaged in civil society and committed to social justice. While physicists tracking planets do not cause stellar objects to change their trajectories, sociological research inevitably impacts social objects under observation insofar as this research addresses social problems and informs policy. Sociologists ought to be mindful of this impact and consciously “try to alter the movement of social planets” (Yadov 2005). Yadov’s commitment to the national cause is of a piece with his policy preferences: “If Russia is to find its rightful place in the world community while remaining itself, it must take into account its cultural tradition and derive a proper lesson from the seventy years of Soviet rule. We have no viable ideological alternative besides building a just society. Fighting the corruption, empowering the independent judiciary, establishing fair progressive taxes, and much more—that is what our people demand” (Yadov 2005).
Gennady Osipov’s professional career began at the Moscow Institute of International Relations. After graduating in 1952, he enrolled in the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Philosophy where he wrote a dissertation on the problems of labor, science, and technology. In 1960 he was appointed head of a sociology division at the institute, the first of its kind in Moscow, as well as president of the Soviet Sociological Association, a position he held for the next twelve years. Osipov’s presentation accentuating the role of sociology as a research tool in the party’s hands paved the way to the creation of the Institute of Concrete Social Research, with Osipov designated as a deputy director in the newly founded organization. When sociology fell on hard times, Osipov was pushed aside by Mikhail Rutkevich, the new Institute director hired to reinstall the Marxist orthodoxy, but retained his job at the Institute, weathering the ideological storm without much damage to his scholarly or political credentials. With Gorbachev’s call to glasnost, Osipov cast himself as a champion of perestroika, trumpeting the role sociology is destined to play in democratic reforms. In time, he secured a coveted position as a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and received an appointment as head of Institute of Social and Political Studies.
Osipov’s achievements as a scholar do not match his organizational talents. The published corpus he accumulated during the Soviet era is vast, but much of it is filled with impersonal verbiage replete with statements whose obsequiousness exceeded the demands of the time. There may be a simple explanation for the dubious quality of the man’s scholarship: many publications bearing Osipov’s signature are believed to be ghost written.4 When recently asked what he thought about scholars appropriating other people’s works, Osipov replied: “My attitude toward that is strictly negative. If you appropriate someone else’s work, that means you have no opinion of your own, you have no place in science” (Demina 2007). This stance is consistent with the Professional Code of Russian sociologists: “Plagiarism and appropriation in any form or shape of ideas that belong to other people are unacceptable and incompatible with the professional code of sociologists” (Professionalnyi kodeks 1988: 95). But then Osipov never tried to explain why, after Sociology Today was translated into Russian, Robert Merton’s introduction to this milestone volume had mysteriously vanished and in its place appeared Osipov’s foreword containing several pages taken from Merton’s original text.
Gennady Osipov’s commitment to democratic reform did not survive perestroika. When Gorbachev’ successor Boris Yeltsin lost public support and the opposition began to pose a real threat to his administration, Osipov reinvented himself once again, this time as a patriotic sociologist inspired by the nationalist agenda. Now he rails against “the warped spirituality and egoistic individualism of the West,” extols “Russia’s cultural uniqueness” (Osipov 2004), demands to reinstate the tsarist formula “Orthodoxy, autocracy, and the folk spirit” (1997), and spearheads a successful campaign to induct Metropolitan Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, into the Russian Academy of Social and Humanitarian Sciences (2002).
Several things stand out in these two divergent scholarly trajectories. While both sociologists stress the continuity between their old and new selves, endorse activist social science, and look for ways to aid the nation in distress, they follow different strategies of owning up to their communist past. Yadov acknowledges his old beliefs while straining to infuse Marxism with democratic values and insuring the discipline’s theoretical diversity and organizational pluralism. Osipov obscures his credentials as a stalwart communist, exaggerates his exploits as an opponent of the communist regime, and glosses over his perennial willingness to align himself with the latest power swing in a bid to advance his career. Yadov aligns himself with the likes of Zaslavskaya, Shubkin, Levada, Kon—scholars whose scientific credentials are recognized at home and abroad and whose commitment to democratic ideals is beyond reproach. Osipov throws his lot with Dobrenkov, Zhukov, Glaziev and their ideological kin who often hail from Communist party affiliated institutions and whose xenophobic proclivities make it unlikely that they would be willing to settle for peaceful coexistence with their opponents. Each camp builds its program around divergent theoretical and political commitments.
Yadov and his colleagues reject the thesis advanced by patriotically minded theoretical monists according to which paradigm pluralism spells out subjectivism. The polyparadigmatic approach acknowledges local cultures without glossing over the transformation they continuously undergo. “If the world itself is constantly changing, why should sociological theory that aspires to explain the world stay the same?” asks Yadov. “Russian sociology needs no ‘nationally-specific’ social theory. ... If you wonder who needs today national Russian sociology, the answer is obvious—the ideologists of Russian exclusivity” (Yadov 2003; 2007). Seen from this vantage point, Russia’s future is supposed to be shaped by the forces of “globalization, internet networking, the emergence of the worldwide information space, cooperation with the NATO alliance, integration into the world economy, and so on” (Yadov 2003). Policy recommendations advanced by Zasvlavskaya, Yadov, Levada and other liberal sociologists favored the radical democratization in politics, privatization of state controlled monopolies, and state protection for cultural diversity.
Gennady Osipov and his colleagues espouse a different agenda that weds methodological monism to the notion of national exclusivity and favors preserving the dominant role of the state in the political, economic, and cultural spheres. Starting with the proposition that “scientific ideas gestate in the depth of history and culture, reflect the tradition and the mentality, as well as the economic, social, and political foundations of a given state and people” (Osipov 2003a), nationalists push this thesis to an extreme, calling for a Russian social science that rejects the values of universalism. The nationalist theories and policy suggestions are grounded in the vision of Russia as a country whose cultural heritage precludes the alliance with its democratic neighbors: “The thesis about the integration of Russia into the Western civilization, which nowadays undergoes a systemic crisis, is not only historically spurious but also practically pernicious, for it destroys the singularity of Russian culture, tradition, and customs” (Osipov 2004). In the area of policy, nationalists want to reconsider the results of the privatization campaign, reintroduce the top-heavy management style, and purge civic society of the NGOs receiving foreign funding. The most pressing task confronting patriotic sociologists is to consolidate the nation around core Russian values and centralize control over sociological institutions in the country.
While the issues in the present debate about national sociology and policy engagement have an important theoretical dimension, they are hardly academic. As the participants in the ongoing debate vie for institutional resources, they draw the Russian political establishment into the debate and invite the nonacademic authorities to assume the role of an arbiter in scholarly disputes. We should note that Russian sociology today is home to diverse theoretical and methodological currents irreducible to the nationalist-liberal split (Gudkov 2006, 2009; Osipov 1997; Radaev 2009; Ryvkina 1997). However, the theoretical and organizational diversity of post-Soviet social sciences is endangered by the sociologists touting their patriotic credentials and seeking to enlist the state in settling professional disputes.
One influential sociology center that emerged in the post-Soviet era is the Institute of Sociology (IS), a research and graduate studies division within the Russian Academy of Sciences. Aligned with IS is the Russian Society of Sociologists, the successor of the Soviet Sociological Association, which serves as a national umbrella organization for regional sociological societies in the country. Initially appointed by the government, Vladimir Yadov was subsequently confirmed as IS director by a secret ballot of fellow sociologists. At Yadov’s initiative, the Institute of Sociology established an open project policy allowing institute members to submit theoretical and policy-oriented proposals and compete for leadership positions, as well as seek funding through international organizations. On the issue of theoretical pluralism, the IS staff adopted Yadov’s stance that acknowledged the legitimacy of articulating general sociological theory but disavowed the nationalist quest for a Russian paradigm in sociology. “Should Russia produce its own macrotheorist of note, the way we produce a recognized world champion in sports—all the better. That would be a truly national achievement. But if all we do is put on a pedestal yet another inventor of our unique (Russian) theory that is ignored by anyone but ‘local’ admirers, this will not be a contribution to sociology as much as to ideology” (Yadov 2007).
In the mid-90s Yadov was succeeded in his directorship by Leokadyia Drobizheva, who kept Yadov’s policies and priorities in place. This situation changed after Vladimir Putin took over as Russia’s president in 2000 and the new political currents began to sweep through the academia which made it harder for Russian scholars to communicate with their Western counterparts, seek foreign funding, and set up a research agenda. In 2005 the presidium of Russian Academy of Science appointed as IS director Mikhail Gorshkov. This was a leader with a different professional trajectory, whose resume included a stint as deputy director of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism and the top level position at the CPSU Central Committee department of science and education. Academic life at the Institute of Sociology did not undergo immediate change, but beginning in 2006, the new leadership began to align itself with the initiatives championed by Gennady Osipov and nationalist sociologists who moved to set up a rival national association for Russian sociologists.
A stronghold of nationalist sociology in today’s Russia is the Institute of Socio-Political Studies (Russian acronym—ISPI). Gennady Osipov, ISPI director, traces his institution’s program to the Gorbachev era when “the two distinct concepts of perestroika and Russian reform had been formulated,” one articulated by Zaslavskaya, Yadov, and their ideological kin, the other by Osipov and his colleagues.6 Nationalist sociologists billed their policy recommendations as focused on the “wellbeing of a real human being” in contrast to the policy agenda of the perestroika intellectuals who advocate “the forced destruction [of the old order] detrimental to society, the state, and its citizens” (Osipov 2006). “We believe that the population decline, growth of prostitution, drug abuse, homicide, and suicide are objective consequences of [liberal] reform” (Osipov 2002). Gorbachev’s and Yeltsin’s liberal policies had left millions of Russian citizens stranded amidst economic and political disarray, the nationalist platform asserts, and to the extent that Zaslvaskaya, Yadov and their colleagues endorsed those policies, they bear responsibilities for the outcome.
A milestone in the ISPI’s history was a gathering convened in 2007 under the heading “On the Methods of Solving the ‘Russian Question.’” The meeting produced a programmatic document detailing an alternative agenda for post-Soviet sociology. Those who signed on this program endorsed a rationale for a patriotic sociology aligned with the government policies (Dobrenkov 2007; Osipov 2006; Osipov and Kuznetsov 2005; Zhukov 2002). As a step toward the consolidation of patriotic sociologists, Osipov and Dobrenkov called for a “national congress of sociologists of Russia” (Dobrenkov 2007). Preparations for this meeting were shrouded in secrecy, liberal scholars were kept out, and preparatory work was coordinated with the federal agency overseeing educational institutions in the country. The congress of patriotic sociologists was convened on June 27, 2007, with an invitation-only audience comprised by sociologists close to the ISPI. The congress set up a new national organization—the Union of Sociologists of Russia (the Russian acronym—SSR), passed the organization’s bylaws (Ustav 2007), and elected V. Zhukov and M. Gorshkov (present director of the Institute of Sociology) as, respectively, SSR president and vice-president.
Addressing the congress delegates, Vasily Zhukov (2007), rector of the Russian State Social University, criticized his liberal colleagues for uncritical acceptance of Western ideas, while Gennady Osipov advocated the “incorporation of Russian sociology into the system of state governance” (Demina 2007). According to Zhukov, “Russian sociology has reached a point when (1) the need for consolidation of the sociological community is fully understood, and (2) when the conditions for such consolidation are in place. The Union of Sociologists of Russia aims to unite all those who respect the history of sociology in our country, who critically appropriate its heritage, and who are ready to assume the responsibility for sociological knowledge and bear themselves with dignity as professional and moral human beings” (Zhukov 2007). The nation’s top legislative and government officials hailed the creation of the new professional organization. Chairman of the Federal Council endorsed the SSR agenda, as did the deputy chair of the State Duma, all representing the ruling party “United Russia” (Demina 2007).
These developments dovetail with the program championed by nationalist sociologists (Den Zakrytykh Dverei 2008; Otchisleny iz MGU 2008), the program that goads SSR activists to move from debates to actions in centralizing education in the country and nationalizing sociological curriculum. According to the SSR platform, time has come to drop “passive resistance [and heed] President Putin’s demand spelled out in his letter to the Federal Parliament [where he called] to go on the offensive and expose the mendacious, anti-humanist and Russophobic slogans and programs” (Osipov 2007; Demina 2007). To realize its potential, the national sociology movement must utilize “all the state resources fit to advance the strategic task of moving Russia ahead according to its national interests and the traditions of its people” (Osipov 2006).
The patriotic sociology agenda got a boost after V. Dobrenkov was appointed to lead the ministerial council charged with the responsibility of selecting sociology department chairs in the Russian Federation, which gave him and his allies an opportunity to reinforce “the vertical of power” (Putin) in the nation’s academic institutions. Among the top priorities of the newly established sociological association was the fight against paradigm pluralism and nonindigenous sociological theories, including those inspired by pragmatism.
Pragmatism and its derivatives are among the most popular terms of abuse in the culture wars sweeping through Russia these days. Put into the Russian internet search engine expressions like “cynical pragmatism,” “crass pragmatism,” “cold pragmatism,” and you will get hundreds of hits conveying an abiding contempt for everything that reeks of pragmatism in contemporary Russia. This aversion to things pragmatic is evident not only on the political right. Soviet-style communists who cast themselves as the left-wing opponents of the present political regime also show a distaste for pragmatism. Even liberals are not immune to this sentiment.
“The foundations of humanism are eroded in today’s world,” asserts Beliaev (2006), “in fashion these days are conformism, pragmatism, hedonism, and a complete lack of principles.” “No national ideas, naked pragmatism,” agrees Kolesnikov (2008). “Pragmatism is a rejection of conscience and morality” (Veller 2008). “Pragmatism is the ideology of scoundrels. ‘Pragmatism’ is a creed of burgers, arrogant and self-satisfied. A burger-pragmatist is a conduit of evil” (Vetrochet, 2004). “Where naked pragmatism and utilitarianism reign, the soul expires, and what is the Russian folk without a soul? Without its soul, the Russian people could not have survived under the harsh historical conditions, nor would they be able to create the treasures that have enriched the world culture” (Saveliev, 2003).
More often than not, the term “pragmatism” appears in these philippics in its non-technical sense as an all-purpose label disparaging apolitical, uncultured, money-driven, overly competitive attitudes widespread in post-Soviet Russia. It would be a mistake to assign the term’s popularity as a negative reference frame to this idiosyncratic usage. Pragmatism is well known in Russian intellectual circles for its broader political and philosophical connotations, and the opposition to it closely mirrors the anti-pragmatist animus in twentieth-century European discourse. The term assumes an expressly political meaning among nationalist writers who equate pragmatism with pluralism—political, theoretical, and especially moral, in which case it signifies the utter “lack of scruples” (Osipov 1997). To grasp the ideological burden and sociological significance that the term carries in Russia’s nationalistic academic circles we must turn again to Aleksandr Malinkin, the theoretician of patriotic sociology and champion of theoretical monism in social science (Malinkin 1999, 2005, 2006).
As many in Russia’s nationalist circles these days, Malinkin takes his cue from I. A. Il’in, an early twentieth-century Russian philosopher who linked the nation’s genius to its ethnic roots.8 Coupled with Il’in’s hyper-nationalist sentiment is the concept of “ressentiment” that Russian nationalists borrowed from Nietzsche and Max Scheler. What attracts Malinkin to Scheler (whom he used to denounce in his Soviet-era writings) is the concept of ressentiment with its jaundiced view of humanism as “a universal movement whose love for humanity masks not the craving for positive values buta protestant sentiment, a negative impulse—that is, hatred, envy, vengefulness, and so on—directed against the dominant minority that harbors positive values” (Malinkin 1999). In that reckoning, pragmatism is an expression of ressentiment, its commitment to liberal values and theoretical pluralism to be taken as a symptom of the soul that has lost its cultural moorings. “Behind liberalism as an ideological movement and an empty humanistic creed stands philosophical pragmatism [and] polyparadigmatism” (Malinkin 2005). The spirit of pragmatism and the invidious stirrings of ressentiment, the author claims, have polluted the cosmopolitan intelligentsia in post-Soviet Russia: “In the early 1990s, the majority of academic sociologists adopted a shortsighted, ethically warped stance. Their pragmatism is designed to curry favor with economic and political elites, to secure generous grants from the foreign donors.... The first casualty of this pragmatist indifference turns out to be truth. Philosophical pragmatism begets extreme subjectivism, relativism, and eclecticism” (Malinkin 2005).
The animosity toward pragmatism widespread in today’s Russia is by no means unique to this country. It has a direct counterpart in the West, notably in the works of Max Scheler (1926), who was among the first to advance the thesis that pragmatism exemplifies positivism and the democratic spirit inimical to European culture. Scheler’s writings inspired a generation of critics on the left and the right who defined themselves in opposition to American positivism and liberal leanings. An admirer of Scheler, Martin Heidegger (1977: 231, 200) built on his ideas, condemning “humanism” and “the blindness and arbitrariness of what is ... known under the heading of ‘pragmatism.’” What Heidegger’s nationalistic anti-humanism meant pragmatically became evident after the Nazis swept into power. Heidegger embraced fascism with a vengeance. Grounding his commitment in nativist rhetoric, he celebrated “the forces that are rooted in the soil and blood of a Volk,” “the honor and the destiny of the nation,” “our will to national self-responsibility,” “the new German reality embodied in the National Socialist State” (Heidegger, 1991: 31, 33, 38, 48). “The Führer alone is the present and future German reality and its law,” Heidegger declaimed, while he denounced the “much-praised academic freedom [which] is being banished from the German university; for this freedom was false, because it was only negative” (Heidegger, 1991: 47, 34). Under the spell of ultranationalism, Heidegger took to writing secret letters to Nazi authorities denouncing his colleagues from “that liberal-democratic circle of intellectuals around Max Weber ... closely tied to the Jew Frankel” (Heidegger, quoted in Safranski, 1998: 273).
It took a new generation of European scholars like Apel (1981) and Habermas (1985, 1987) to shatter the old preconceptions about pragmatist philosophy and embrace its commitment to liberal values as an antidote to the authoritarian tradition of European social thought. Jürgen Habermas played a critical role in this transformation. With force and eloquence he argued that “the old Frankfurt School never took bourgeois democracy very seriously,” that it “is only in Western nations that the precarious and continually threatened achievements of bourgeois emancipation and the worker’s movement are guaranteed to any extent worth mentioning.... And we know just how important bourgeois freedoms are. For when things go wrong it is those on the Left who become the first victims.... I have for a long time identified myself with that radical democratic mentality which is present in the best American traditions and articulated in American pragmatism” (Habermas, 1986: 98, 42; 1985: 198; see also Shalin 1991).
While pragmatist ideas are feeding important currents in European social thought, most notably Habermas’s theory of communicative action (Bernstein 1991; Joas 1993; Halton 1986; Shalin 1992), they are still largely misunderstood in Russia where intellectuals appear to be well behind the curve in their animosity toward pragmatism. This prejudice exposes Russian intellectuals to the dangers that befell the European nationalists and illiberal thinkers who failed to harness the pragmatist spirit of experimentation. Patriotic discourse that found a niche in Russian sociology is replete with statements of principle and declarations of good faith whose ominous implications invite pragmatist scrutiny. What Malinkin, Osipov, and like-minded scholars fail to appreciate is that pragmatism is first and foremost a method of establishing what and how we mean. Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, looked for ways to make our ideas clear by aligning abstractions with the earthy particulars for which they stand, methodically linking conceptual entities to social actions that nudge them into being. The pragmatist agenda calls for identifying the somatic, affective, and behavioral indicators that signal the concept’s meaningful occurrence (Peirce 1991; Joas 1993; Shalin 2007).
Take Joseph Stalin’s constitution, for instance. On paper it promised Soviet citizens many of the rights found in the United States constitution—freedom of speech and conscience, the right to assemble and form parties, the inviolability of private homes. Yet just as this document pledged basic liberties to Russian citizens, the Soviet Union had plunged into a terror campaign of 1937 that claimed over a million lives and that belied the communists’ political declarations. Or consider the current appeals to Russian values and patriotism flooding the Russian intellectual circuits. Nationalists lament “the deficit of nationally-minded intelligentsia in Russia” (Malinkin 2006: 120) but remain exceedingly vague on who merits the label “patriotic.” Bring Peirce’s maxim to bear on the issue, and you will discover that patriotism may refer to what Samuel Johnson called “the last refuge of a scoundrel” just as it can signify the last stance of a dissident. Patriotic sentiments goad skinheads to attack foreigners and move citizens to shield a neighbor from a pogrom. Patriotism compels a soldier to sacrifice himself on a battlefield and furnishes an excuse to a Soviet general ordering his soldiers to clear a minefield with their bodies. We cannot be sure which patriotism is in play until we examine the pesky particulars hiding behind the lofty universals.
The nationalists’ take on pragmatist sociology reveals an ominous, growing influence of Russian Orthodox Church on scholarly debate. An example is a recently published monograph on George Herbert Mead where the author takes this notable pragmatist to task for his failure to reconcile his scientific evolutionism with Christian creationism (Kravchenko 2006; a review of this book can be found in Shalin 2008). The nationalist attack on pragmatism and sociology it inspired exposes the nationalist critics as ill-informed. “[T]he tainted Thomas theorem paraphrases the ancient motto according to which ‘things are just as they seem to you’. It serves to justify pragmatically the idea that social reality is infinitely malleable and constructed,” writes Malinkin (2006: 118) about the Chicago school of sociology built on pragmatist principles. Contrary to this claim, pragmatist philosophers and sociologists do not equate social reality with subjective whim. What they say is that reality is objective and meaningful insofar as it becomes an object of collective activity steeped in time-bound semiotic frames, that convictions we act upon and bring to bear on reality may come true as self-fulfilling prophesies—particularly when competing beliefs are ignored or suppressed. Nor are nationalists credible when, with the help of context-severed quotes from Sorokin, they extol “the Russian national ethics and communicative culture marked by kind-heartedness, longing for justice, catholicism, nonutilitarianism, hard work, and hospitality” (Malinkin 1999). Do they really mean to say that Russian culture is immune to sloth, cruelty, and corruption? By the same token, when nationalists slam “universal values” and “the historically obsolete idea that by nature humans are equal,” they overlook that the sacredness of human life is a very much universal value.
Pragmatist inquiry also reveal the shortsightedness of liberal and left-leaning Russian reformers who juxtapose pragmatic considerations to the principled and moral stance. Andrey Sakharov believed that “pragmatic criteria are often useless, what is left are moral criteria (Sakharov, quoted in Alekseev 2005:79). Rosalina Ryvkina decries “pragmatism and indifferentism of the masses” in today’s Russia (Ryvkina 2006). This gloomy picture ignores hopeful signs in post-Soviet society—a willingness to start a private enterprise, to join forces in a voluntary association, to respect privacy and tolerate odd tastes. Liberals need to be careful when they join the nationalist chorus that equates pragmatism with “the utter lack of principles” (Bukovsky 2006), for such sweeping condemnation do no justice to historical pragmatism and effectively forestall the judicious examination of the national agenda and viable policy alternatives.9 The problem for pragmatists is not the lack of principles but their abundance. Competing rationales vie for our attention, with the values we espouse often working at cross purpose, necessitating a compromise. Push liberal economic agenda too far, and you will end up with inequality, press for equality, and you will undermine individual freedom. Hence, the pragmatist willingness to triangulate and look for middle ground.
Swearing by principles means little unless we are willing to track policy outcomes, to juxtapose discursive-symbolic, somatic-affective, and behavioral-performative signs which clue us onto the practical significance of our cherished precepts and pet projects. The penchant for disembodied abstractions has deep roots in European culture, and so is the ethic of ultimate ends that goes with it (Etkind, 1996; Kon 1996; Paramonov 1996; Shalin 2004b; Weber 1946). Such tendencies need to be countered by the ethics of responsibility—the ethics of means — whose pragmatic spirit makes room for patriotism and advocadcy without pandering to xenophobia and encouraging theoretical hegemony.
We need to exercise an abundance of caution drawing parallels between the social sciences in a country lacking in the democratic tradition and activist sociology practiced in a nation with a robust civil society. Arthur Schlesinger and Henry Kissinger worked for the U.S. government, and their executive stints did not seem to compromise their standing as public intellectuals, nor did their performance in government cast a shadow on their scholarly fields. But what about Jay Bybee, a legal scholar who signed the Bush administration’s infamous “torture memo”? It surely damaged his intellectual reputation and provoked a bitter debate among his colleagues. For all its peculiarities, the case study under review raises the pertinent question of how far we should press advocacy in social science.
Alvin Gouldner had sound reasons to question value neutrality, but those sympathetic with his stance need to make sure there is always room for the honest difference of opinion about the right values and policy decisions. Irving Louis Horowitz saw worrisome signs of capitalism spinning out of control, yet one has to be cautious about those social scientists who pronounced it obsolete. When Michael Burawoy invites his colleagues to think nationally, we should inquire which hat social scientists put on while articulating a national agenda and telling fellow citizens what is to be done.
I would like to suggest that the pragmatist ethos offers a useful perspective on mixing advocacy and scholarship in social science.
As we can gather from Mills’s Ph.D. thesis on American pragmatism, he had misgivings about this intellectual current. The problem with pragmatism, as Mills (1967) saw it, was that its proponents preferred to tinker with social ills in the spirit of social work where radical social change is called for. Mills tempered his criticism in the postscript to his thesis and subsequent writings. He had not come out swinging for pragmatism the way Habermas did, but he acknowledged pragmatism’s critical, even radical, potential. “As method, pragmatism is overstuffed with imprecise social value; as a social-political orientation, it undoubtedly has a tendency toward opportunism. It is really not opportunist, because in the very statement of method there lies the assumption of the Jeffersonian social world. It is quite firmly anchored. But in lesser hands than Dewey’s, many things may happen” (Mills  1967: 167; 1966: 464-467). What Mills came to realize was that pragmatism’s radical stance lies in its experimentalist method rather than in its substantive creed, that it works best as self-correcting inquiry and ongoing social criticism. The fact that pragmatism positions itself as a methodology for exploration and experimentation does not mean that its proponents eschew values, shy away from taking a stance, or bow to the status quo. “In order to endure under present conditions,” professed John Dewey (1946: 132), “liberalism must become radical in the sense that, instead of using social power to ameliorate the evil consequences of the existing system, it shall use social power to change the system.” For all its critical sensibilities, pragmatism is leery of self-righteous intellectualism. No theoretical cogency or scientific demonstration can anoint a political platform or vouchsafe a policy alternative. We owe our values to our membership in civil society, and whenever we bring those values to bear, we should acknowledge their provenance, join issues with those inhabiting different value niches, track the consequences of our policy commitments, and keep reviewing our commitments and policies in line with changing social practice. In this reckoning, we would be too hasty dumping value neutrality in a whole-sale fashion. Value neutrality does not mean that knowledge is devoid of values—any statement of fact necessarily involves value judgment, according to Weber. When he called on scientists to assume a neutral stance, he simply cautioned them against positing a particular set of values or a political platform as scientifically grounded, fordoing so confuses the role of scholar with that of citizen.
Pragmatists see in scholars and public intellectuals more than experts called upon to solve social problems. According to the pragmatist theory of social reform (Mead 1915: 35; Shalin 1988), “The university is not an office of experts to which the problems of the community are sent to be solved; it is a part of the community within which the community problems appear as its own.” Scholars wrapping themselves in the mantle of professional expertise while advocating a policy invite public backlash. They can also make their voice less effective in policy debates. From the pragmatist vantage point, scholars venturing into the public arena are first and foremost citizens. Scientific findings they introduce into policy debate must inform the discussion but can hardly settle it. The fact that the meritocratic system in higher education favors applicants with ample social capital does not forestall the debate about the unanticipated consequences of affirmative action any more than the scientific data on when a fetus can survive outside the uterus resolves the issue of late-term abortion.
Pragmatists recognize that all knowledge has political implications, that “ideas are worthless except as they pass into actions which rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it little or large, the world in which we live” (Dewey  1960: 138). At the same time, they are not inclined to exaggerate the extent to which social practice can furnish unambiguous feedback to professional sociologists. Grounding theory preferences in societal practice raises as many questions as deducing policy commitments from theoretical considerations. Given many intervening variables affecting the outcomes of a given policy, the implications of social practice for social theory will always be problematic. The solution to this conundrum is not to privilege scientific knowledge but leave public debate wide open to conflicting value perspectives—religious, cultural, political, scientific.
The pragmatist willingness, indeed eagerness, to work in local venues is admirable. Pragmatist intellectuals have always gravitated to a community-wide dialogue in an effort to promote “a more balanced, a more equal, even, and equitable system of human liberties” (Dewey, 1946: 113). As the progressive era experience showed, local initiatives and state level reforms often pave the way to national policy enactments. Getting the various publics involved is crucial for achieving lasting social change. “If only it becomes possible to focus public sentiment upon an issue in the delicate organism of the modern community, it is as effective as if the mandate came from legislative halls, and frequently more so” (Mead 1899: 368). Those who subscribe to the pragmatist ethos will know, however, that the effectiveness in public venues taxes our affective skills and emotional intelligence as much as our intellectual savvy. Injecting scientific data into public debate will get us only that far if we fail to communicate effectively, connect with the parties involved, and show that we can sign in the flesh what we profess in theory. The Obama administration’s avowedly pragmatic approach has given us clear indication of how important the capacity for rhetorical articulation and appealing to multiple values. Taking the value perspective of the other can guard us from the excesses of value partisanship and help us unite scholarship with advocacy in the pragmatist spirit of value tolerance (Shalin 1979; 1986).
Any attempt to analogize the situation in Russian and American sociology is bound to mislead unless we understand crucial differences in the political, cultural, and organizational contexts underlying the disciplinary developments in both nations. Once these historical differences are taken into account, however, we can examine with profit how the issues of advocacy, nationalism, and theoretical pluralism have played out in each country. Such an examination seems all the more appropriate that American sociologists have taken keen interests in the work of their Marxist colleagues. The plight of Russian sociology has figured prominently in the American debate about advocacy and national sociologies.
From the start, sociologists billed their discipline as a guide to reform and appealed to practice as the touchstone for their conclusions. August Comte, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, George Herbert Mead — sociologically minded thinkers confronted head-on the forces of modernization whose unanticipated consequences they sought to theorize, to expose, and to tame. Activist internationalism did not efface the local traditions from which the discipline of sociology sprang in a particular country, but nationalism remained muted in early sociological thought, subordinated, as it were, to a search for scientific solutions to the problems confronting industrial civilization (Freund 1978; Martindale 1981; Zeitlin 1981; Albrow and King 1990; Ritzer 2000). It was only after sociology firmly established itself as an academic discipline that its practitioners felt comfortable to claim ideological autonomy. The mantra of “value neutrality” came into vogue as practitioners focused on sociology as an academic field of study with a strong scientific agenda. About the same time sociologists began to clamor for a general sociological theory.
This transition did not dampen sociologists’ commitment to applied research. Policy-oriented studies retained a strong scholarly agenda, while their critical dimension remained muted, as we can gather from William Ogburn’s Recent Social Trends in the United States and Samuel Stouffer’s American Soldiers. The emphasis on academism and ideological autonomy carried into the post-world war period, but sometime in the late-1950s a younger generation of American scholars rebelled against “the liberal conservatism of the earlier postwar sociology” (Burawoy 2005: 262). C. Wright Mills (1959), Irving Louis Horowitz (1964), and Alvin Gouldner (1973) were among the prominent sociologists who criticized the discipline’s status quo bias and pushed for alternative programs variously identified as “radical sociology,” “new sociology,” and “reflexive sociology.” The issues of professionalism and social criticism moved to the center stage of sociological debate in the 1960s. The shift toward reflexive social thought coincided with the rise of Soviet sociology whose plight attracted much attention in the West.
Alvin Gouldner was among the American sociologists who took a keen interest in the institutionalization of sociology in the Soviet Union and used it to clarify the national agenda for American sociology. He was particularly intrigued by the split within academic Soviet sociology between those who cast their discipline “as a technological aid in administration and management, and those, on the other hand, for whom Academic Sociology is rooted in their own liberal impulses and who want to see it developed because they believe it will contribute to a more humanistic culture.” Gouldner went on to acknowledge that “[t]his is a tension by no means peculiar to Academic Sociology in the Soviet Union, for it is found throughout Europe, East and West, and in the United States as well” (Gouldner 1970: 474).
Irving Louis Horowitz was also struck by the parallels between the Soviet Union and United States. “When Khrushchev speaks of Soviet scientific achievements, it grates; it offends the American scientific mind. Rightfully one does not connect nationalism with science. But in the name of ‘American’ sociology there are those who would perpetuate the same nationalistic myth” (Horowitz 1964: 35). American sociologists could be as unreflexive and subservient to the state as their Soviet counterparts, Horowitz pointed out, citing Project Camelot to make his case. According to Horowitz, “Sociology has an obligation, first and foremost, to reflect upon the problems dealt with at the level they occur, and to provide the information and the theory for solutions to human problems. Problems of capitalism and socialism, underdevelopment and overdevelopment, or anomie, alienation, and anxiety, have to be met head on” (Horowitz 1964: 21).
The tendency to link the Soviet and American establishments is also evident in C. Wright Mills. “In several basic trends and official actions, the United States and the Soviet Union are becoming increasingly alike,” observed Mills ( 1967: 227-228). “The classic conditions of democratic institutions do not flourish in the power structure of the United States and the Soviet Union.” This position bore more than a fleeting resemblance to sentiments widespread among Frankfurt School intellectuals, with some of whom Mills had close personal relationships (Horowitz 1966: 23). The ambivalent attitude toward pragmatism adopted by Mills echoed the sentiment of European critical theorists (Mills, 1966).
Calls for critical reflection and warnings about the coming crisis in Western sociology evoked a mixed reaction among sociology professionals. The older generation of sociologists reminded the Young Turks that their critical agenda threatened to undermine the discipline’s hard-won ideological autonomy. “The generation which obtained its Ph.D. in the 1960s consisted of young people for whom the problem of sociology versus ideology did not have the same crucial importance as for their predecessors,” pointed out Joseph Ben-David. “Lacking the experience of liberation from ideology, they could find in sociology few past achievements or great intellectual opportunities to command their loyalty to, and the unshaken belief in, sociology of the latter. Therefore, questioning the very possibility of a scientific sociology, and considering the possibility that the demarcation line between sociology and ideology drawn in the 1950s may not have been final, does not have for them the same meaning of totalitarian threat as for the older generation” (Ben-David 1973, quoted in Merton 1975: 27). Robert Merton, who cites Ben-David approvingly, weighed in on the debate. He looked skeptically at his junior colleagues in whose stance he discerned the grand theoretical and political ambitions inconsistent with scientific modesty. In a 1961 article, Merton defended American sociology “[which is] periodically subjected to violent attacks from within, as in a formidable book by Sorokin, Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology, and in the recent little book by C. Wright Mills [Sociological Imagination] which, without the same comprehensive and detailed citation of seeming cases in point, follows much the same line of arguments as those advanced by Sorokin” (Merton 1973: 55). Merton took issue with Gouldner’s thesis about the crisis looming over sociology on the ground that “the chronic crisis of sociology, with its diversity, competition and clash of doctrine, seems preferable to the therapy sometimes proposed for handling the acute crisis, namely the prescription of a single theoretical perspective that promises to provide full and exclusive access to the sociological truth. ... [I]t is not so much the plurality of paradigms as the collective acceptance by practicing sociologists of a single paradigm proposed as a panacea that would constitute a deep crisis with ensuing stasis” (Merton 1975: 28). Characteristically, Merton drew different lessons from Soviet science whose excessive ideological involvement, he insisted, threatened the ethos of science with its “institutional imperatives [of] universalism, communism, disinterestedness, organized skepticism” (Merton 1973: 270).
Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and you will find the issues of advocacy, professionalism, and national sociologies at the heart of American sociology’s agenda. Those favoring activist sociology argue nowadays that the discipline must renew its critical agenda, address the needs of diverse publics, and commit itself to a robust dialogue with scholars representing different national traditions (Barlow 2007; Burawoy 2005; Clawson 2007; Nichols 2007).
Whatever their ideological differences, we can be certain that sociologists in this country will reject the noxious strand of nationalism in Russian sociology, as they will the old Soviet mantra that the “Marxist-Leninist class analysis embodies the unity of partisanship and scholarship,” that “[n]onpartisanship and neutrality in sociology is nothing but a myth, a thin veil disguising an allegiance to a particular class” (Osipov 1979: 137, 142). Wittingly or unwittingly, today’s Russian ultra-patriots reproduce the infamous 1948 editorial that spurred the campaign against cosmopolitanism in Soviet Russia: “The notion that democracy and science are twins, that they share an origin, that science needs democracy as much as democracy needs science, that science cannot tolerate the dictate and hegemony of one paradigm, theory, or idea—all such views fall short upon closer examination” (Malinkin 2005: 115).
For all their differences, sociologists schooled in the democratic ethos are likely to agree with Merton (1973: 269) that “science is afforded opportunity for development in a democratic order which is integrated with the ethos of democracy.” We can see that clearly in Burawoy’s presidential address where he points out that public sociology is “the complement and not the negation of professional sociology,” as well as in his observation that the renaissance of sociology in Russia is “intimately connected to the eruption of civil society,” that “[u]nder the stalwart leadership of Tatyana Zaslavskaya, Perestroika brought sociologists out in force” (Burawoy 2005: 21, 5). The consensus among American observers breaks down, however, when it comes to the wisdom of assuming a definitive political posture and aligning the discipline with a particular national agenda. The plight of perestroika intellectuals gives ammunition to those weary of the hyperpolitical stance.
Looking back at the bond Russian scientists forged with the state and society during the perestroika era and the years that followed, we find outstanding examples of sociology in action and public intellectuals’ activism. Neighborhood associations, voters’ clubs, national forums, scholarly think tanks, government task forces—there was hardly a civic venue sociologists ignored, a public they did not try to connect with, a state-sponsored policy institution they would refuse to join. Some sociologists took executive positions in government (Egor Gaidar even served as acting prime minister in the Yeltsin administration). But when the perestroika movement began to falter, it generated a backlash which exacted a heavy price from the public intellectuals aligned with reform and, arguably, set back sociology as a profession.
Anatoly Chubais, a scholar enlisted to oversee the nation’s privatization campaign, became public enemy number one for many Russians when the voucher privatization program he oversaw bogged down in excesses, disproportionately benefiting those in power and leaving millions with worthless certificates. Galina Starovoitova was murdered in 1998, her legislation proposing to limit the former party and KGB officials’ access to politics being cited among possible reasons for her assassination. Nikolai Girenko was killed in 2004 after numerous death threats occasioned by his work as a monitor of skinhead activities. Igor Kon, who had his face smashed with a cake during a public lecture, had to keep a low profile because of the smear campaign against him orchestrated by the religious right. Perestroika intellectuals would be quick to point out that their policy agenda was not necessarily the culprit, that the half-hearted manner in which politicians implemented those policies was largely to blame for reform failures. The cause-effect chains are indeed hard to trace in the social world, but one conclusion we can draw from this case study is that committed scholarship can backfire. In a fledgling democracy, if not in its mature counterpart, politically active scholars face public hostility and their discipline may be set back when the policies it sponsors produce unintended consequences. Not surprisingly, sociologists in the Russian Federation are taking a second look at the proper way to mix advocacy and scholarship.
Already in the days of perestroika some questioned whether it was wise for a sociologist “to plunge headlong into politics” (Saganenko  2008: 15). Professing sociology is one thing, putting its prestige behind a policy is another, carrying out the reforms is something else altogether. According to Galina Saganenko, Vladimir Yadov’s associate, “the sociology’s function is not to engage in political games but to educate society, to spread the sociological way of thinking” (Saganenko  2008: 15). Yuri Levada moved in a similar direction, his experience as member of the presidential council playing a part in his growing skepticism about the scholars’ involvement with politics. “The illusion of practical utility hovered over the early sociological formulations of A. Comte and other thinkers; later on the relationship between sociology and social practice was judged to be considerably more complex. The situation repeated itself when sociology reemerged in the 1960s and the efforts to legitimize the sociological science [in the USSR] were buttressed by the promise of ‘scientific management of society’. No ‘scientific management’ turned out to be possible under the conditions of decaying socialism—nor did such claims fare any better in developed countries” (Levada 2000: 559). In his last interview, Yuri Levada, who died in 2006, took a cautious stance toward mixing scholarship and politics. “I want to distance myself” from immediate political pressures, he intimated; the role I choose is that of “an observer—a skeptic” (Levada 1995).
We need to exercise an abundance of caution drawing parallels between the social sciences in a country lacking in the democratic tradition and activist sociology practiced in a nation with a robust civil society. Arthur Schlesinger and Henry Kissinger worked for the U.S. government, and their executive stints did not seem to compromise their standing as public intellectuals, nor did their performance in government cast a shadow on their scholarly fields. But what about Jay Bybee, a legal scholar who signed the Bush administration’s infamous “torture memo”? It surely damaged his intellectual reputation and provoked a bitter debate among his colleagues.10 For all its peculiarities, the case study under review raises the pertinent question of how far we should press advocacy in social science.
This study has examined the tangled relationship between advocacy and scholarship in Russian sociology. It drew attention to the virulent brand of patriotic social science that threatens to reduce the discipline to the subservient role it played in the Soviet Union. The discussion aimed to show that the tension between political engagement and scientific autonomy is endemic to the sociological enterprise, that political advocacy and professional autonomy have equal claims on our allegiance, and that the pragmatist ethos may clue us to practical ways of integrating various dimensions of sociological enterprise—professional-academic, critical-reflexive, policy-centered, and publicly-responsive.
I want to close this inquiry with an appeal to my colleagues to pay attention to what is happening in Russian sociology. As the above discussion demonstrated, ultra-nationalists are on the ascent in this part of the world. So far, the authorities have allowed both rival sociological associations to function, but the current trends do not bode well for their peaceful coexistence. In 2008, the Russian government asserted its control over the Association of Russian Journalists by purging its independently-minded representatives and bringing to power a more pliant leadership. In 2009, the federal court in Moscow invalidated the election results in the Russian Cinema Workers’ Union, sanctioning the new election that transferred power to the nationalist leaders supported by the Kremlin. Similar developments hobbled attempts to set up independent labor unions in the Russian Federation. It may be just a matter of time before the Russian government moves to curtail the work of the Russian Sociological Association and enshrines the patriotic Union of Russian Sociologists as the sole representative of professional sociologists in the country.
In early March of 2009, Dr. Igor Kon went to Berlin to testify before the European Parliament’s Commission on Human Rights about the mounting attacks on gays and lesbians and the general deterioration of the human rights situation in Russia. Given the tragic death of his publicly engaged colleagues and the prior attacks on Kon, this was a daring act by a committed public intellectual. After his testimony, Kon returned to Moscow where he faced the displeasure of the authorities and the anger of numerous fringe groups which had sprung to life in recent years. Igor Kon could surely use a word of solidarity from his Western colleagues, and so would other embattled social scientists and public intellectuals in Russia who remain committed to liberalism, paradigm pluralism, and unfettered scientific inquiry.
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1. Some of the materials cited in this paper exist only in the electronic form, in which case the source is identified by the URL. Where both printed and digital versions are available but the article appears in a limited circulation outlet, the information about the print publication source is supplemented by the URL directing the reader to the electronic version of the source.
2. Liberal sociologists are by no mean ready to cede Sorokin’s legacy to their nationalist colleagues. They are keenly aware of Sorokin’s prodigious, contradictory output, seeking to appropriate what they find congenial in his writings. One indicator of the growing interest in and controversy over Sorokin’s legacy is the interview with Robert Merton published in a Russian sociology journal where 3. Merton remembers his mentor (Pokrovsky 1992). To best of my knowledge, this interview has not been published in English.
3. Besides documenting the history of Russian sociology, this open source, web-based project illuminates the narrative strategies that major Russian scholars have deployed to reconcile their communist selves with their post-Soviet incarnations (Doktorov 2007, 2007b; Doktorov and Kozlova 2007; Mazlyumyanova and Doktorov, 2007; Shalin 2006).
4.“In order to emerge as author of numerous books and articles, Osipov did not have to rely on the ‘copy and paste’ method which, according to expert analysis, V. Dobrenkov and A. Kravchenko used in their work. Rather, he preferred the ‘power play’. Witnesses report that, during his tenure as a deputy director of IKSI, Osipov repeatedly leaned on doctoral students or even an experienced scholar with the order-request: ‘Do you wish to defend your thesis? Write this for me. Do you want something else? Here is what you need to do for me’” (Demina 2007).
5. It is not just that Osipov occupied high positions in the Soviet academic hierarchy and used his party connections to promote his career. Yuri Levada was also an elected party official at the Institute of Concrete Social Research, but each man used his perch to achieve different ends. As Levada (1990) recalls in his Harvard interview, “I did not feel badly because I had occupied a party leadership position in those days, because this restrained people like Osipov and helped us do our work.” When Levada came under attack in the early 1970s for ideological infractions, Gennady Osipov proposed that “Y. A. Levada ought to be relieved from his duties as the Institute party secretary and member of the politburo” (Batying 1999; Shalin 2008). In a book published a few years later, Osipov brought up Levada’s writings to emphasize his disagreement with the disgraced colleague, even though Osipov knew that Levada was in no position to reply to his critics at the time (Osipov 1979: 176).
6.“The first approach stressed the need to destroy everything build under the Communist Party, risking to undermine the stability and social order.... The second concept stemmed from the premise that the most important indicator of reform was the real human being, that the reforms must take into account the human dimension and aid rather than devastate the individual, whose needs were the main reasons for reform. ... In line with these two concepts, the Scientific Council of the Institute of Sociology received and reviewed two programs of scholarly development, with V. Yadov and G. Osipov serving as heads of the rival scholarly collectives. Following the narrow group interests, the new—Yadov’s—Scientific Council created the climate which rendered impossible the coexistence of two programs within the confines of one institute. The ensuing conflict [lead to] the creation of two academic sociological institutes, each one pursuing a different vision of Russian reality and different schools of sociology. ... Unfortunately, the assessments and constructive recommendations offered by [the Osipov group] were not taken seriously by the country’s democratic leadership. Worse than that, scholars stressing the growing negative tendencies were dismissed as ‘catastrophists’” (Osipov 2006).
7. After the public outcry, the St. Petersburg administration agreed to reopen the foreign-grant-funded European University that had been closed on account of its failure to meet the fire code, but its long-term prospects appear uncertain. Students expelled from the Moscow State University were not reinstalled. Some were admitted to other educational centers in the country, others are exploring the prospects for continued education abroad. Scholars who lost their jobs at the Institute of Sociology appealed the decision, but with one exception, their appeal was denied.
8.“A person who can create something that is beautiful in the eyes of all the people must first and foremost engross himself in the creative act of his own people. ‘A world genius’ is always and invariably a national genus. Efforts to create something ‘great’ out of internationalism and its effusions will produce either dubious, ephemeral ‘celebrities’ or planetary evildoers. True greatness is nativist. True genius is national” (Il’in 1990). We should note that this precept has a long pedigree, especially in German culture, which exerted a tangible influence on Russian intellectuals in the last two centuries (Shalin 1996).
9. Sergei Averintsev (1996) offers an intriguing explanation for this cultural characteristic, tracing it to Platonism permeating Russian culture and the underestimation of the Aristotelian tradition (Averintsev 1996). “Peripatetic pragmatism” of Aristotle, as Averintsev (1973: 73) aptly calls it, shares several key characteristics with the modern pragmatist tradition, including the willingness to measure ideal forms with their mundane manifestations, to conduct an empirical inquiry, to make room for emotions in political discourse, to acknowledge unforeseen circumstances which may scuttle our best-laid plans (Shalin 2005).
10. Bybee still retains his tenure at the Boyd School of Law where he teaches a class once a year, but the heated debate his work on behalf of the U.S. government provoked among his colleagues at the University of Nevada shows that mixing scholarly expertise with state imperatives can be costly. (See Coolican 2009).

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