T H O M A S J. B L A K E L E Y

CURRENT

S O V I E T V I E W S ON E X I S T E N T I A L I S M

In line with the general evolution of contemporary Soviet philosophers into what they used to disdainfully call 'bourgeois objectivism' some of the more recent Soviet writings on existentialism take a remarkably honest and objective approach. What is more, these recent Soviet works show that the Soviets are well acquainted with the works of the philosophers they are criticising. In fact, in many instances we find less a criticism than a reasonably objective reporting on what is going on in existentialism. This does not mean that the Soviets have dropped their militant approach or their claim to a monopoly on philosophical truth. Evidence thereto is to be found in I.S. Narski's 'The Crisis of Bourgeois Philosophy in the Present Stage of History and the Problems of Criticising it'. 1 Narski admits that some good work is being done in contemporary bourgeois philosophy but he measures progress by the proximity of bourgeois philosophers to dialectical materialism. Narski also takes cognizance of the fact that more and more bourgeois philosophers are interested in dialogue with Marxism. However, he interprets this interest in two rather peculiar directions. On the one hand, he finds that some bourgeois philosophers are studying Marxism-Leninism only in order to be better able to attack it. On the other hand, he accuses all bourgeois philosophers - citing existentialists, positivists and Thomists by name - of desiring dialogue for the sake of 'converting' the Marxist-Leninists. What is poignant is that Narski turns right around and calls on contemporary Soviet philosophers with precisely the same goal in mind; i.e., to convert bourgeois philosophers to Marxism-Leninism. Ultimately, however, Narski's article does show some progress in the matter since he invites Soviet philosophers to pay less attention to broad doctrinal issues and more attention to dealing with specific problems. One of the most interesting of recent articles on existentialism is V.V. Lazarev's 'The Existentialist Conception of Man in the U.S.A.'. 2 Lazarev begins by affirming that existentialism is not just another 333

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philosophical fad in the U.S. Existentialism is the appropriate philosophy for the decadent U.S.A. American existentialists are interested mainly in the anthropological question. One would wonder where Lazarev would hope to find a non-anthropological existentialism! Lazarev's article is in essence a review-article dealing with five figures on the existentialist scene in contemporary America. Lazarev reviews, in order: W.A. Luijpen's Existential Phenomenology (Pittsburgh 1963), C.J. Glicksberg's The Self in Modern Literature (Penn. U.P. 1963), Winkler's Man: Bridge Between two Worlds (no bibliographical data provided), F.H. Parker's 'The Temporal Being of Western Man' (Review of Metaphysics 18 (1965) 629-646), and L. Duprr's 'The Philosophical Stages of Self-Discovery' (Thought 39 (1964), No. 154, 411--428). All of these are presented in a substantially accurate manner. Lazarev takes issue with the authors only when he senses that they are touching points which are or could be dangerous for Marxism-Leninism. For example, Lazarev has little objection to Luijpen's description of the dialectic between man and the world. However, Lazarev cannot allow that this enables one to abandon the standard Marxist-Leninist dichotomy of materialism and idealism. Lazarev is also quick to object to Luijpen's indictment of Marx' definition of man as a 'working animal'. It is somewhat difficult to see exactly what is at issue in Lazarev's response to Luijpen. According to Lazarev, Luijpen himself holds that man 'realizes' himself in active work but that there are forms of work which are 'objectifying' rather than 'humanizing'. Stated in this way, it is hard to see how this conflicts with Marxism-Leninism's notion of work under capitalism. Lazarev goes on to say that Luijpen makes the same mistake as other existentialists: he does not see that the heart of the matter in reference to alienation is man's relationship to his work: he sees the elimination of alienation not in the restructuring of work in society but in will-acts and self-discipline. Again, it is hard to see the essential difference between this and 'socialist work-discipline' which is so highly recommended in the context of Soviet scientific socialism. Lazarev is much kinder in dealing with Glicksberg. One has the impression that Lazarev feels a bit sorry for this errant author who has put his finger on the problem but shows no signs of even coming close to the answer. As Lazarev sees it, Glieksberg has pertinently exposed the dilemma of the individual in contemporary bourgeois society: he is 334

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unable to communicate with others and must, therefore, solve all in terms of his own personal interiority. Glicksberg's answer is literature: to see it is - for Lazarev - to see how inadequate it is as a solution. In dealing with Winkler's book Lazarev is content to outline its main themes. This may be due to the fact that Lazarev does not have any real argument with the author. However, he does point out that Winkler belabors science for leaving the soul out of its domain of study, on the one hand, and maintains that science is not competent to deal with the problem, on the other. The articles by Parker and Dupr6 are introduced by Lazarev to show that American existentialism is not completely locked into step with its European forebears who dwell on alienation, suicide, pure subjectivity, etc. Parker's article presents a novel approach to the history of Western philosophy: there has been a triadic development, the thesis of which was ancient concentration on nature, the antithesis mediaeval concentration on God, and the synthesis yet to come out of the present transition, where neither nature nor God but only man can serve to justify man's existence. There is very little in this which conflicts to any serious extent with Marxism-Leninism's view. Similarly, Lazarev goes out of his way to stress Duprr's kindly evaluation of Marx' philosophy: nor does he have any too serious objections to Duprr's evaluation of the increasing importance of the subject in the course of the history of philosophy. Tolerance on the latter point may be due to the fact that Dupr6 stresses that, after Hegel, the subject-object dialectic can no longer be exorcised from Western philosophy. This is a basic tenet of Marxist-Leninist epistemology. The conclusion of Lazarev's article is worth quoting in full: "The idealistic and even religious tendencies in the philosophy of American existentialists - as well as their sometimes unkindly attacks on Marxism should not be allowed to hide the fact that they ask some important and vital questions which should be taken by Soviet Marxists not just as subjects of polemics but also as matters of serious philosophical concern." Those who are familiar with the usual Soviet affirmations on contemporary bourgeois philosophy will immediately notice the anomaly. Instead of "incorrigibly idealistic and slavishly [to Wall Street and the Vatican] religious", we find an almost off-hand reference to "idealistic and religious tendencies". Instead of "their slanderous and viciously false attacks on Marxism", we find that they are merely "unkindly attacks". Stunning is 335

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the admission that contemporary bourgeois philosophers are bringing up important and vital questions. Hitherto, all that bourgeois philosophers could do was to turn in circles of decadent despair, impotent to remedy their own sorry plight. Finally, one is amazed to hear a Soviet philosopher suggest that Soviet philosophers in general treat with bourgeois philosophy on the level of problems, i.e., in total or relative abstraction from the ideological class-conflict. We see an almost contrary point of view in a pair of articles, both entitled 'Existentialism '8, by E.Ju. Solov'ev. This is not to say that Solov'ev reverts to the old Soviet trick of pasting labels, shouting slogans, and paying no attention to the real content of the philosophy being discussed. He sticks to old conceptual models in a much more sophisticated way. In fact, he tries to do what has to be done if the basic principles of Soviet historiography of philosophy are ever to be verified or disproved. Solov'ev tries to show the tight interdependence between existentialism as a philosophy and the social-historical milieu which both contributed to the birth of existentialism and is sustained, in its turn, by this doctrine. Solov'ev's main thesis is that existentialism came to be when the general catastrophe of World War I showed the baselessness of the optimistic models of history which had dominated the previous century. Existentialism, in essence, is stoical anti-historicism, in which the individual has no one but himself and is, consequently, incapable of dealing with history in any form whatsoever. With this general description as his point of departure, Solov'ev sets out to show that existentialism contributed to and fed on a series of historical situations, the inevitability of which can be shown to be a pseudo-inevitability engendered precisely by the pessimistic and ahistorical nature of existentialism. Thus, Jaspers was able in 1931 to point out how fascism would eventually dominate. This was far-sighted on his part. However, what his subjectivism and lack of historical perspective prevent him from seeing is that in 1931, when he had his premonitions, this domination was not historically inevitable: those who then fought against this tide were not hopeless adventurers. History has proved that pessimists like Jaspers were the real adventurers, utterly failing to see historical reality. By 1941 the center of the existentialist movement had shifted to oc336

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cupied France. There the Nazi occupation seemed to have created the epitome of the 'limit situation' so central to existentialism. All tended to prove that Nazism was historically inevitable and that capitulation and collaboration were historically ordained fates. Sartre's Being and Nothing represents the philosophical expression of the refusal to capitulate to this inhuman fate. Solov'ev takes Sartre to task, however, for inspiring the French Resistance not with the historically necessary mission of resisting the ahistorical phenomenon of Nazism but with that spontaneous 'action without hope of success' which was both the glory and the tragedy of the Resistance. This took its toll in the post-war world. The post-war world was marked by new stresses and strains. Gone was the hopelessness of the occupation: gone was the existentialist's peculiar privilege of being the only one to have a coherent theory of tragedy and absurdity. According to Solov'ev the post-war existentialists went shopping for a new 'total menace' to take the place of the perfect 'limit situation' which the Allied victory had destroyed. They found it in Communism and promptly became anti-Communists. Solov'ev holds that the myth of the Communist menace was destroyed when the XXth Congress of the CPSU showed that there was a new mode for the peaceful solution of international conflicts. This even brought Sartre around somewhat. But - complains Solov'ev - it is difficult to criticise Sartre because he has come up with the right answer to the question of values, but has done this for the wrong reasons. In his Critique of Dialectical Reason Sartre comes up with Marxism as the answer: however, he is here taking Marxism as the means of satisfying existentialism's need for a new myth. This, for Solov'ev, is not genuine Marxism. There is no denying that Solov'ev's attempt to correlate existentialism with the social-economic milieu in which it was born and on which it fed is interesting. And, as we mentioned above, this is a work that has to be done if Marxist-Leninist historiography is to become meaningful. However, it is quite clear that Solov'ev had better back up and try again or leave the work to someone else. When one is dealing with a philosophy as history-conscious as existentialism, one can hardly expect to establish that the major figures in this school are almost totally unconscious of the real historical position that they themselves occupy. In other words, either Sartre is saying something meaningful and he himself is aware of its relevance as a social-historically conditioned phenomenon, or Sartre is a bab337

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bler, unworthy of being mentioned. What Solov'ev seems to forget is that a denial of historical relevance is itself necessarily historically relevant. A less interesting and quite contradictory attempt at explaining existentialism through the milieu is to be found in B.V. Pospelov's 'Existentialism and the Problem of Alienation in Contemporary Bourgeois Philosophy in Japan'. 4 Perhaps it is less interesting precisely because it seems so confused and contradictory. After having bluntly stated that existentialism in Japan is not at all original, that the Japanese limit themselves to copying and commenting on European existentialists, Pospelov goes on to describe the ideas of Tasuku Hara in some detail. Hara's notions may not be completely original but they are far enough away from the usual European existentialism to be recognised as something sui generis. Although Pospelov is fairly objective in his presentation of contemporary existentialism in Japan, it is evident that he cannot come to grips with the basic fact that existentialism is on the increase in both the Middle East and the Far East. And this is where a peculiarly Sovietstyle contradiction comes to light. For Pospelov, the fact that existentialism is spreading in Lebanon, Egypt, etc., just as in Japan, has no effect on the fact that existentialism is a philosophy of decadence which is currently in the middle of a serious crisis. V.A. Karpugin's 'Albert Camus' Conception of the Person' a is the most agreeable and least philosophical of the recent Soviet works on existentialism. Karpu~in spends little time on ideological considerations. He merely indicates that bourgeois consciousness' refusal to accept the laws governing contemporary society has forced it to regard absurdity as the basic philosophical category. Otherwise, Karpugin's article is a rather pleasant excursion into the absurd world of Albert Camus. In Karpugin's eyes, Camus failed because, being untrained in philosophy, he operated with a faulty epistemology. Camus thought that all that falls outside the confines of formal logic is irrational: Camus was familiar neither with dialectical logic nor with the epistemological function of practice. However, there is more than this faulty epistemology plaguing Camus. Camus takes individualism as his basic postulate. But, of course, this is in flagrant contradiction with contemporary reality, where socialism is the required mode. This is why Camus arrives at the conclusion that alienation is invincible. It is invincible as long as one tries to force individualism in a non-individualistic social structure. 338

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Camus' answer to all problems is revolt. This is too bad, since he merely needed a clear view of history to show him how alienation can be overcome through historical materialism. Ultimately, Camus' faulty epistemology and errant individualism made his views so unstable that he was able to convert from anti-fascism to anti-Communism. Karpu~in is critical but not nasty. Like Lazarev, he is being broadminded about the whole matter. This is both surprising and heartening. It is surprising since it marks a clear de-escalation of partiinost'. It is heartening because, if this state of affairs lasts and spreads, the chances for fruitful East-West dialogue will be enormously improved. Other recent Soviet works on existentialism will have to be examined to see if this relaxation of partijnost' is a generalized phenomenon. And recent Marxist-Leninist writings on other contemporary bourgeois philosophies should be examined from the same point of view. REFERENCES

1 'Krizis bur£uaznoj filosofii na sovremennom etape istorii i problemy ee kritiki', FN 1967,1, 3-14. 2 'Ekzistencialisti6eskaja koncepcija 6eloveka v SEA', VF 1967,3, 160-169. 3 'Ekzistencializm', VF 1966,12, 76-88; and 1967,1,126-139. a 'Ekzistencializrn i problema ot6u~denija v sovremennoj bur~uaznoj filosofii Japonii', FN 1967,2, 88-97. 5 'Koncepcija li~nosti u Al'bera Kamju', VF 1967,2, 128-136.

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