Russian sociology in the 1920s–mid-1950s

the beginnings of Soviet sociology

pp. 33-41

in: Larissa Titarenko, Elena Zdravomyslova, Sociology in Russia, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This period is patchy. The 1920s were most significant: Between 1917 and 1922, there was a struggle between Marxist sociology and all non-Marxist schools. By 1922, Marxist sociology dominated and slowly developed under the umbrella of historical materialism. Several empirical surveys based on the Marxist methodology were conducted during this period. The 1930s and 1940s were less significant as sociological activities were minimized and the discipline itself survived only in a latent form. This chapter sheds light on how the sociological heritage of the two early periods of Russian sociology (up to the mid-1950s) has been used in modern sociological debates in Russia.