Valentin Asmus’s historico-philosophical articles in the journal “Pod znamenem marksizma”: between philosophy and ideology

Studies in East European Thought. 2023. Vol. 75. No. 4. P. 589–597.

Elena V. Besschetnova

The article discusses the original critical dialectical approach of the Soviet philoso-
pher Valentin F. Asmus. His publications on the heritage of Western philosophical
thought in the journal Pod znamenem marksizma are examples of this approach.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Asmus published a number of articles analyzing a vari-
ety of the ideas developed by Western European philosophers: “An Advocate for
Philosophical Intuition (Bergson and His Critique of the Intellect)” (1926); “The
Alogism of William James” (1927); “The Dialectics of Necessity and Freedom in
Spinoza’s Ethics” (1927); “Kant’s General and Transcendental Logic” (1928); “Cos-
mogony and Cosmology of Descartes” (1937); “Fichte and the Vocation of Scholar”
(1937); “Nicholas of Cusa. Selected Philosophical Works” (1938); and “Tommaso
Campanella” (1939). These articles differed from the journal’s usual rhetoric, which
was shaped in accordance with the official Soviet state ideology. Asmus, through the
thinkers he examined, showed the fundamental importance of philosophy for the hu-
man personality. This article argues that Asmus, despite his closeness to dialectical
materialism, adapted the official terminology and issues in his historical and philo-
sophical articles in a way that he advanced the human right to spirituality, creative
activity, and individual freedom.

Ключевые слова: soviet philosophy, советская философия, Valentin Asmus, Асмус

ПУБЛИКАЦИЯ ПОДГОТОВЛЕНА ПО РЕЗУЛЬТАТАМ ПРОЕКТА: Отечественная философия XIX-XXI вв. в интеллектуальном пространстве Запада: критика, рецепция, диалог (2019)