Цивилизационный подход и социально-биологическая проблема в советской философии истории

Электронный научно-образовательный журнал "История". 2026. Т. 17. № 2(160). Статья 21.

Алымов С. С.

The article discusses the development of the philosophy of history, i.e. the most general ideas about history and its patterns in the USSR in the 1920s - 1980s. It considers the debates on history that unfolded around O. Spengler's civilizational approach and the criticism of mechanism in the 1920s, the philosophy of history of V. F. Asmus, the criticism of the civilizational approach by historians and philosophers I. S. Kon and E. S. Markaryan in the 1950s - 1960s, as well as the crisis of the formational approach in the late Soviet period and the associated revival of interest in the civilizational approach in the works of historians, philosophers and orientalists of the 1970s - 1980s such as L. V. Vasil’ev, L. V. Danilova and L. I. Novikova. The article concludes that the socio-biological problem and the relationship between the natural and social sciences played a major role in these processes. The integration of the natural and human sciences in this dynamic is linked to an interest in the civilizational approach, whereas the separation of the biological and the social, characteristic of the Soviet version of Marxism in the 1930s-1950s, provoked sharp criticism of this approach and the predominance of the theory of formations.

Keywords: философия истории, цивилизационный подход, philosophy of history, советский марксизм, Soviet science, советская наука, soviet marxism, civilizational approach, socio-biological problem, социально-биологическая проблема

Publication based on the results of: War and Post-War Peace in the Russian Empire and the USSR (2025)