“Soviet” by Sergey Nikolsky

Abstract

The paper is a reflection on the first part of duology (two inextricably linked parts of one work) entitled “Soviet” by the Russian social philosopher Sergei Nikolsky. In the second part of duology, Nikolsky offers a philosophical analysis of Soviet literature, or rather a philosophical and literary analysis of the idea of the “Soviet”. The first part is devoted to the historiosophy of the “Soviet”. Therefore, the author of the review, to illuminate the author’s intention, focuses on the first volume and mainly writes about the preconditions of the “Soviet” that Sergei Nikolsky discovers in Russian history. The uniqueness of the “So­viet” consists primarily in the unexpected vitality of the idea, the originality of the social practice corresponding to it and the specific creative totality. “So­viet” is not only Leninism and Stalinism, but a socio-political adaptation of Marxism to a special historically determined context, the “Russian soil”. This is also a political and philosophical project to reform personal social conscious­ness, to create a new person and to build a new world. The source of the “So­viet” were the leaders and the state apparatus, but it appeared first in the heads of Marxist-oriented intellectuals, and then produced by the people as a whole and existed thanks to them and deeply-rooted tradition. Sergei Nikolsky admits that the “Soviet” had both the humanistic and liberating potential of the philoso­phy of Karl Marx. Thus, the “Soviet” is the idea of the comprehensive develop­ment of man, the construction of a future brotherhood, as well as the heroism shown by the people during the Great War. The author of the paper also writes on the special tonality of the “Soviet”, finding it successful