[OPE] Vladislav Bugera: Portrait of a Post-Marxist Thinker

----- Original Message -----
From: Antonio Pagliarone
Sent:
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 9:40 AM
Subject: VLADISLAV BUGERA

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

The Research and Analytical Supplement (RAS) to Johnson's Russia
List is produced and edited by Stephen D. Shenfield. He is the author of
all parts of the content that are not attributed to any other author.
CONTENTS

FEATURE:
VLADISLAV BUGERA: PORTRAIT OF A
POST-MARXIST THINKER
1. Introduction
2. My interview with
Bugera
3. Interview: The Rarity of Love
4. Interview: The
Great Bluff
ECONOMY
5. Russia and the world financial crisis

6. Improving energy efficiency
POLITICS
7. Tandemocracy

8. Hostel evictions
HISTORY: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS UNDER LATE
TSARISM
9. The Pale of Jewish Settlement
10. Rozanov on
Judaism

FEATURE

VLADISLAV BUGERA:
PORTRAIT OF A POST-MARXIST THINKER

1. INTRODUCTION

It was Mark Twain who first said: "The report of my death was an
exaggeration." I have often been reminded of his sardonic remark upon
hearing or reading categorical assertions that "no one in the Soviet
Union (or Russia or the post-Soviet states) still really believes in
communism/Marxism." Why then did I keep running into such "true
believers"? There have perhaps not been very many of them, at least
since Khrushchev's time, and perhaps their numbers declined over time, but
they never disappeared.

I should emphasize that I am talking
not about believers in the regime (truly an extremely rare phenomenon) but
about believers in the ideas to which the regime formally adhered ­
often bitterly hostile to the regime, but in the name of those ideas.

To take a very important example, people of this kind upheld the
ideal of socialist internationalism in preference to the official
"Soviet patriotism," which they perceived as a form of Russian
nationalism. The conditions of the 1990s led people to associate the
weakening of social provision with Western influence, thereby
strengthening political forces that combined socialist slogans with
nationalist or even fascist appeals (the so-called "red-brown"
synthesis).

And yet the socialist internationalist tendency
never disappeared. Conditions may now favor its resurgence, inasmuch as
recent years have seen the rise to predominance of a
"traditional" right wing that combines capitalist with
nationalist values. So I think it is relevant to examine the experience
and ideas of a representative of this tendency.

Vladislav
Bugera, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, currently lectures at the Ufa
State Oil University of Technology in Bashkortostan, although he began his
intellectual and political career in Kiev during perestroika. (1) He is a
prolific writer, with several books to his name (2) as well as numerous
articles, reviews, interviews, etc. Hardly any of this work has been
translated into other languages.

Why do I call Bugera a
post-Marxist? He says that he is not a Marxist, and it is true that some
aspects of his thought ­ notably, the primary emphasis that he gives
to managerial power ­ are not recognizably Marxist. However, Marxism
serves as his starting point and its influence on his work is clearly
enormous. Thus "post-Marxist" seems reasonable to me.

I thought it might be most effective to introduce Bugera to the reader
by presenting three of his interviews. I conducted the first one; the
others appeared in Russian periodicals. All translations are mine.

NOTES

(1) He is also deputy chairman of the Bashkir
Division of the Academic Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the
Methodology of Artificial Intelligence.

(2) In the Fight
Against Bourgeois Nationalism (with Marlen Insarov, 2002); Theory and
Practice of Collectivism (with M.I., 2002); The Ideology of Collectivism
(with M.I., 2003); Ownership and Management (2003); The Essence of Man
(Moscow: Nauka, 2005); The Social Essence and Role of Nietzsche's
Philosophy (Moscow: KomKniga, 2005) [all in Russian; where publisher not
indicated, self-published].

_______________________________________________
ope mailing list
ope@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
Received on Wed Nov 12 06:25:02 2008