The Philosophical and cultural heritage of E.V. Ilyenkov in the context of the "Theoretical testament" of I.V. Stalin

Bylevskiy Pavel Gennadievich ORCID: 0000-0002-0453-526X PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor, Department of Information Culture of Digital Transformation, Department of International Information Security, Moscow State Linguistic University 36 Ostozhenka str., office 106, Moscow, 119034, Russia pr-911@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

Modern global science, including uncritically translated into Russian research, is characterized by a narrow, deeply detailed specialization of disciplines, neglect of aspects of their organic interrelations and internal unity. In particular, in the humanitarian sphere, there is a strict distinction between economics, politics, philosophy, culture, pedagogy, etc. As a result, it is difficult to find significant results of breakthrough theoretical research and scientific and practical developments in the field of labor productivity, aimed not at external subjects, but at the "production of the person himself": from socio-cultural, pedagogical and journalistic activities to family relations and increasing fertility.

Overcoming the one-sidedness of a highly specialized approach can be facilitated by a return at the modern level to the integrated approach presented in the history of the national philosophy of culture. The increasing complexity and dynamics of socio-cultural processes since 2022 has actualized the importance of rethinking the philosophical and cultural significance of the theoretical heritage of E.V. Ilyenkov, based on the results of research on the dialectic of ascent from the abstract to the concrete in the Logic of K. Marx's "Capital". E.V. Ilyenkov's application of the developed methodology to the problems of culture and pedagogy correlates with the "theoretical testament" of I.V. Stalin — the formulation of the "basic economic law of socialism". The relevance of the study of this correlation is due to the modern problems of socio-cultural development in the context of the growing crisis of global capitalism, the needs of researching the prospects for the formation of a post-capitalist society and man.

1. The Philosopher's Stone of "commodity fetishism"

A correct understanding of the significance of E.V. Ilyenkov's legacy is hardly possible without taking into account the broader historical context: the transition from the construction of communism to the preparation and implementation of the restoration of capitalism. The causes and circumstances of the dramatic, tragic zigzags of the fate of himself and his written works are clarified in the context of the revision of Marxism in the USSR, the rebirth of socialism into state capitalism, and then the restoration of the peripheral colonial version of global imperialism^[1],[2]. From this point of view, E.V. Ilyenkov appears to be an "authentic Marxist" to a much greater extent than a "quiet dissident", which some "Ilyenkov scholars" sometimes try to present him to. E.V. Ilyenkov's "Philosophical Pasternak" can be called in the truest sense, but the opposite of what the author of this comparison had in mind^[3].

E.V. Ilyenkov's study of the dialectical-materialistic method of cognition was of crucial importance at the turn of the 1950s - 1960s: the previous successes of socialist construction made it possible to raise the question of the construction of communism. The background was the widespread belief at that time that it was only necessary to understand the method of cognition with which K. Marx created "Capital" and creatively apply it to the creation of a political and economic theory of building a communist society. The main work of E.V. Ilyenkov "Dialectics of the abstract and concrete in Marx's Capital", published in 1960^[4], lies in line with such research topics from 1930 to 1950 (works by D.I. Rosenberg^{[5],[6],[7],[8]}, M.M. Rosenthal^[9], PhD thesis of A.A. Zinoviev in 1954^[10] and many others).

At the same time, the methodology of dialectical logic developed in the course of these studies was subsequently applied by E.V. Ilyenkov not in political economy, but mainly in the history of philosophy, culture and pedagogy. The political economy of socialism as the first, lowest stage of communism can be attributed only to certain judgments summarized in a private correspondence in 1968 with Yu.A. Zhdanov. The paradox from the point of view of political economy in its narrow professional understanding can be resolved through the same dialectical-materialistic method formulated by E.V. Ilyenkov on the basis of the analysis of K. Marx's "Capital".

The reduction of political economy to the study of the laws of capitalism in order to increase profits ("explanation, not change of the world") has been characteristic of this science since the very beginning of its formation in the XVIII — XIX centuries. E.V. Ilyenkov emphasized the phenomenon of commodity fetishism outlined by K. Marx, inherent in political economy. The essence of which is that the bourgeois worldview perceives people's social relations, historically transient, as "natural", "natural", "eternal" properties of the objects themselves^[11]. For bourgeois political economy, value, if not an arbitrary psychological assessment, is as inherent in objects as length and weight, and the labor of a worker can be likened to the action of soil fertility, the "work" of draft cattle or a windmill.

Bourgeois political economy cannot go beyond capitalism in understanding production, exchange, distribution and consumption. Bourgeois political economists consider exclusively through the prism of "commodity fetishism", categories of developed commodity production, all other, qualitatively, fundamentally different types of social structure, economic systems and their scientific theories. On the contrary, in Capital K. Marx pointed out to capitalism its historically transitory place: both the emergence from the development of commodity exchange and the need to replace it with a communist method of production. E.V. Ilyenkov noted the solution of K. Marx's "commodity fetishism" as a "philosopher's stone" not only for bourgeois political economy. The projection of bourgeois social relations on nature in order to justify them as "natural" and "eternal" is present in many sciences about society and nature, including the biologizing reductionism of "molecular genetics" and the modern "synthetic theory of evolution".

2. Applying the Logic of "Capital" to the political economy of socialism

The research, interpretation and creative application of K. Marx's scientific heritage, including the peculiarities of logic^[12],[13] was of great importance for the development of the political economy of socialism. The correctness of the scientific theory largely determined the successes and failures of the construction of socialism in the USSR in the conditions of changing forms and exacerbations of the class struggle. Soviet political economists were supposed to be pioneers in solving the most difficult task of formulating the laws of the socialist economy, building and establishing a communist society. The long—term discussion of the 1930s - 1950s on the textbook of political economy showed that one of the constant threats was the revisionist tendencies to broadcast bourgeois interpretations of K. Marx's Capital^[14]. In such cases, social relations, laws and categories of capitalism were literally, mechanically, only with cosmetic reservations, projected onto the political economy of socialism.

The struggle between two trends in the political economy of socialism, orthodox communist and revisionist, was a manifestation of the specifics of socialist construction in a country that was historically a "weak link" in a hostile imperialist environment. The development of social studies in the pioneer country was complicated by internal class struggle and the incessant external pressure of capitalist countries, technologically more developed and richer. In the USSR, including in economics, two trends were opposed: orthodox communist and revisionism, leading to the restoration of peripheral capitalism.

The orthodox communist trend in Soviet political economy can be attributed to the work of I.V. Stalin "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR", which summed up a twenty-year discussion about the textbook of political economy. E.V. Ilyenkov's academic study of the scientific methodology and Logic of K. Marx's "Capital" should be attributed to a few successful, highly effective attempts to fulfill I.V. Stalin's "political testament" to develop social theory. The theoretical revolution accomplished by I.V. Stalin was succinctly expressed in the formulation of the basic economic law of socialism.

The highest goal of the socialist economy was designated "to ensure maximum satisfaction of the constantly growing material and cultural needs of society through continuous growth and improvement of socialist production based on higher technology"^{[15, p.40]}. The means to achieve this goal are the cultural growth of society, which provides all its members with the comprehensive development of physical and mental abilities, opportunities to get an education that allows them to become active participants in social development; such a division of labor that provides everyone with free choice and change of occupation, so as not to be chained to one profession for life.

The most important difference between the communist mode of production and its "economy" and capitalism is in the purpose of production, the object and nature of labor. The goal of capitalism is maximum profit and the volume of material wealth and goods. The main object of labor and the result of production under capitalism are of a material nature: these are raw materials and intermediate semi-finished products, finished goods and their cost expressions. Labor is alienated — hired, abstract-universal in nature, realizing a social character retroactively, only in the case of selling a product on the market.

On the contrary, for the communist mode of production, the main goal is the development of a person, the comprehensive harmonious expansion of his creative abilities, and the improvement of social relations. The leading indicators, a superstructure over the satisfaction of basic life needs in food, housing, clothing, etc., are the development of human abilities, the formation of a key need for creative socially important and highly appreciated work. Work acquires a direct social character, turns into self-activity, joint work on oneself and on oneself. The associated "creatively working man" acts simultaneously as the subject, the main productive force, and the object of communist labor.

3. The creative socio-cultural specificity of concrete social work

The specificity of the concrete social nature of the work of associated workers under the communist mode of production is systemic in nature, qualitatively opposed to abstract universal labor under capitalism. Under communism, the main goal of production and labor is not material wealth, but the people themselves. The main target production indicators are radical population growth, an increase in average life expectancy and work longevity, the improvement of each individual, and the expanding improvement of the world as a result of the development of human creative capabilities. Science, culture, art, and education are turning into leading industries; the work of a scientist, artist, educator, and health promotion specialist acquires a directly productive character. The means of production of real products for industrial and household consumption are left with an official, auxiliary value ^[16].

Such characteristics of the political economy of socialism could be formulated on the basis of the evolution of ideas of bourgeois political economists studied by K. Marx about which branches of the economy and types of labor should be recognized as productive. Physiocrats recognized agriculture as the main industry, monetarists recognized monetary circulation. At first, agricultural labor and the extraction of raw materials were classified as productive types of labor, then financial speculation. Only the classic political economists A. Smith and D. Ricardo, analyzing the already established large-scale machine production, recognized the labor of industrial workers as a source of value as such.

E.V. Ilyenkov's analysis of Capital and the preparatory economic and philosophical manuscripts of K. Marx, the practice of socialist construction in the USSR allowed for a new understanding of the realities of the political economy of socialism. E.V. Ilyenkov's research in the field of culture and pedagogy^[17], including "the ability to think", directly relates to the solution of the tasks set by I.V. Stalin for the formation of the communist mode of production. The methodology developed and applied by E.V. Ilyenkov does not contradict, but is fully consistent with the formulation of the basic law of socialism by I.V. Stalin and the then "social order" for the study of dialectical logic based on the analysis of K. Marx's "Capital".

However, from the point of view of the bourgeois and revisionist, such works by E.V. Ilyenkov go beyond the limits of political economy, because they are not directly related to increasing profits and volumes of material wealth. Since the second half of the 1960s, the official science of the USSR has been rejecting the results of E.V. Ilyenkov's research as a result of the strengthening of revisionist, "market" tendencies in the leadership of the CPSU and the state, the reduction of K. Marx's theory to bourgeois political economy. The additional XV volume of the collected works of G.V.-Fr. Hegel, prepared with the participation of E.V. Ilyenkov, in continuation of the previous 14 volumes published in 1929-1959, was not printed in the conditions of the growing "revelations of the cult of personality" ^[18].

The third Program of the CPSU, adopted in 1961, declared "building communism" and "creating a new man" already under the current generation, but the control targets were the industrial level and consumer standards of the United States. The growing transformation into state capitalism was marked by the liquidation of machine and tractor stations, which ruined collective farms, the destruction of household farms, the powerful artel sector of light industry and the service sector, then the market economic reform of N.A. Kosygin - E.G. Lieberman in 1965, and in 1987 — 1991 the "perestroika" catastrophic destruction of planned economy and public property^[19],[20].

For bourgeois and revisionist political economy, the main ones are cost indicators and profit, natural indicators of the production of "material wealth" — metal, oil, electricity, consumer goods. A person is just a "commodity, labor force" and variable capital, the "human" factor of self—growth of value. Culture, pedagogy, education, and art are only means of labor reproduction and profitable business. For the revisionist version of the political economy of socialism, the main goal is the profit of state—owned enterprises, and culture and art, pedagogy and education, as well as social security, are side costs, expenditure items financed "on a residual basis." In the new conditions, E.V. Ilyenkov's developments turned out to be unclaimed for a while: the main reason was the "creeping", but increasingly extensive and deep market transformation of the USSR. It increasingly hindered socio-cultural development aimed at the mass formation of harmonious, comprehensively developed, creative personalities of workers and at increasing the wealth of comradely social relations.

4. The "unprofitability" of post-capitalist improvement of nature, society and man

The development of the political economy of socialism and the building of a communist society presupposed overcoming the law of value and profitability as the main goal of production. The central goal of social production was self-development, the improvement of human workers and the improvement of the human "habitat" — society and nature. The works of E.V. Ilyenkov represent a philosophical, methodological justification for solving this problem^[21],[22]. In fact, fulfilling the "testament of I.V. Stalin" in political economy, he turned out to be unacceptable to revisionists, "debunking the cult of personality" for the sake of the priority of "cash".

 Since the 1960s, the official political economy has no longer solved the tasks of communist construction, but has degraded from state capitalism further to its peripheral colonial model, "catching up with the United States." In a private letter to Yu.A. Zhdanov dated January 18, 1968, E.V. Ilyenkov could only state the creeping "diffusion" of the "formal legal socialization of property" by the state and the "market", instead of building communism, leading to "open recognition of the rights of commodity-money relations"^[23].

E.V. Ilyenkov's development of dialectical logic based on the material of K. Marx's Capital, the study of ways to form a harmonious, comprehensively developed personality directly relates to the political economy of socialist and communist construction. In contrast to the commodity-monetary revisionism of the official political economists of those years, who were preparing market reforms, the restoration of capitalism and the destruction of the USSR. E.V. Ilyenkov's sharp polemic with his opponents, paradoxical as such a statement may seem, is surprisingly in tune with the criticism of Soviet revisionism by Mao Zedong and the Maoists. However, due to the preparations for the restoration of capitalism that took place in our country in the 1990s, further such research and development devalued, were disavowed, became unnecessary and stopped.

E.V. Ilyenkov's creative development of cultural and pedagogical aspects of the formation of the communist ideal of personality is consonant with the orthodox communist vector in culture and pedagogy, which made its way in the USSR in a fierce struggle. The methodological understanding of the successful "Zagorsky experiment", the I. A. Sokolyansky — A. I. Meshcheryakov methodology for the progressive development of deafblind children was extremely important^[24]. This technique continues the previous breakthrough "solutions" of A.M. Gorky (who supported I.A. Sokolyansky and the "teacher-chekist" A.S. Makarenko), outstanding achievements in "human engineering", represented by the images of the main characters of the books "How Steel was Sworn" by N.A. Ostrovsky and "The Story of a Real Man" by B.N. Polevoy. The developments gained in the course of the unprecedented successful labor re-education of street children, the transformation of people who had previously committed serious crimes into hero workers on the construction sites of socialism^[25] have also been developed.

The self-development of "human nature", which has an active, socio-historical character, is possible only by overcoming "commodity fetishism", on the way to understanding human abilities not as a simple derivative of "molecular genetics", "race", but as a result of personal initiative in historical socio-cultural certainty. E.V. Ilyenkov's solution to the personality problem is based on the crucial importance of combining the developing environment, the teacher's guidance and his own personal efforts, work on himself. An analogue in agriculture can be considered the theory and significant practical achievements of "Soviet Lamarckism" — "Michurinsky agrobiology" by T.D. Lysenko^[26], as well as the development and implementation of the "Stalinist plan for the transformation of nature"^[27].

In this understanding, labor overcomes the narrow historical framework of the "abstract universal labor" of capitalism, developed commodity production. Associated workers carry out directly-social, specifically-universal work to transform nature, society and themselves. Such work is able to manifest its socio-anthropogenic character, revealed in the labor theory of anthropogenesis by F. Engels, continuing the evolution of mankind not according to the patterns of "genetic engineers", "cyborgizers", designers of "digital immortality" and "transhumanists".

Final conclusions

The analysis presents E.V. Ilyenkov as a "theoretical heir" and follower of the orthodox communist trend in the development of Soviet philosophy, the executor of the "theoretical testament" of I.V. Stalin. Creative work as a universal form of activity goes far beyond the framework of market relations, since it does not so much produce material wealth as it develops a harmonious, comprehensive personality and the wealth of "non-commercial", friendly relations of people (public relations). Socio-cultural, pedagogical and journalistic activities, the development of family life and large families, the birth and upbringing of children ("expanded human production") can be considered as such work.

The works of E.V. Ilyenkov in the field of political economy, pedagogy, culture (as well as thinking, dialectical logic) are a promising resource for breakthrough methodological and socio-philosophical research of the XXI century, determining the future contours of the development of knowledge of nature, designing a new look of the post-capitalist image of society, culture and man. In modern conditions, the philosophical legacy of E.V. Ilyenkov can be used, in particular, for methodological support of strengthening state socio-cultural policy, including in the field of improving state support for nepotism and large families, solving the demographic problem of reducing the population of Russia.