Daniel F. Gaido’s Witnesses to Permanent Revolution, which is based on the pre-revolutionary discussion of the ‘Permanent Revolution’ culminating in Trotsky’s theoretical advances in 1905, failed into include an article by Abram Moiseyevich Deborin, the most famous Russian philosopher of Russia’s roaring 1920s*, a disciple of Plekhanov before the outbreak of WWI, the author of the only introduction to dialectical materialism.

In his article, Deborin, who published in German periodical called Die Neue Zeit, a publication more free than any of America’s currently programmed left leaning publications like the Jacobin, an article with the title: “Revolution und Kultur. Ein Kapitel zur Philosophie des Marxismus” where Deborin, like many of his contemporaries, utilized the famous phrase to describe the influence revolution has on culture: “die Revolution in Permanenz.” [1] The article is written in the Kurrentschrift that the Germans replaced in much the same way that the Russians reformed Cyrillic with the removal of letters like the hard sign “ъ” or “ѣ” called ять.

Giado’s failure to include Deborin’s article in his book is a deliberate attempt to preclude any or all discussion of the topic Deborin’s presence elicits a discussion of dialectics. The limiting criteria for an author’s article to appear in the collection he compiled to witness the conceptual evolution of the idea of ‘Permanent Revolution’ focused almost exclusively on the term’s appearance before, on, or around the 1905 Russian revolution, the January 9th revolution Father Gapon led before the Czar’s brutal crackdown. With the limiting criteria, the central aim of Witnesses to Permanent Revolution is the reconstruction of the breadth of the hotly contested debates surrounding the emergence of Trotsky’s theory in the immediate aftermath of his arrest, imprisonment, sentencing, exile, and escape.

In the book Gaido seeks to acquaint readers with the most important contributors to the socialist milieu in which Trotsky became the leader of the Petrograd’s soviet. Gaido includes contributions from Franz Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg, Aleander Helphand (Parvus), whose influence on Trotsky played an elemental role in Trotsky’s later development of Permanent Revolution, as well as David Ryazanov, who played the leading role in the founding, development or fruition of Russia’s earliest study into labor, capital, or the class struggle.

Before his participation in the debate on Permanent Revolution, Ryazanov, who helped Vladimir I Lenin write the State and Revolution in Switzerland in 1916, would late found the institute that would make him famous as one of the primary leaders of the Soviet intelligentsia responsible for roaring intellectual development during the 1920s. The institute, called the Institute of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, would produce many of the most important titles to ever appear in the history of Marxism.[2]

Deborin, whose pre-revolutionary history is a subject of mystery for historians, became a close associate of David Ryazanov. In his own right, Deborin, whose primary interest focused less on economics than philosophy, led circles, discussions, or seminars similar to those whose influence on Alexander Svechin, a leading member of the Soviet intelligentsia during the roaring 20s in sphere of military art, led him to advance from Стратегия в трудах военных классиков [3] to both Эволюция Военного Искусства [4] as well as Стратегия[5], two classics in the study of warfare. Deborin published a number of important works together with David Ryazanov. The most significant of these works is Диалектика и естествознание, whose history of publication requires a completely separate treatment to document fully what transpired with the title.

Alongside Диалектика и естествознание, Deborin republished his book, Введение в философию диалектического материализма [6], a book whose publication history requires careful study to determine its ultimate fate during the period immediately following the roaring 1920s. Deborin wrote the book under the supervision of Plekhanov, who would repudiate Marxism for his vote in favor of Russia’s war with the Austro-Hungarian dynasty at the outbreak of WWI. The book covers the most important aspects in the history of the development of materialism.

The book covers Francis Bacon (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), Berkeley (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), David Hume (7 May 1711 – 25 August 1776), the transcendental method (i.e., Kant), the dialectical method and dialectical materialism, Neo-Humeanism, Mechanism and Marxism, dialectical materialism and empiro-sybolism, and pragmatism and materialism. No similar work from pre-revolutionary Russia, except perhaps Plekahnov’s Основные вопросы марксизма (1908) or Lenin’s Материализм и эмпириокритицизм (1909) reach the level of understanding of Marxism Deborin does in his book.

In light of Deborin’s significance not only for his fellow comrade David Ryazanov, the Institute for K.Marx and F. Engels, or the study of Marxism, the fact that Gaido fails to include Deborin’s early article from Neue Zeit in his collection of articles on the Permanent Revolution can only be attributed to a fear of the radicalism a study of Deborin’s works might elicit among members of the reading public from any mention of his name at all in the Witnesses to Permanent Revolution. Not only a major lacuna in his research on the term’s usage among pre-revolutionary Russian or European social democrats but a conspiracy against Deborin’s power.

Reference

* The roaring 1920s is the period of time after the end of the Russian civil war in which against the backdrop of the relatively free (though not entirely detached from the suppression of non-Orthodox tendencies of opposition), democratically centralized politbureau, the leading members of the pre-Soviet Russia together with those swept away by the Russian revolution engaged widely in discussions, debates, or conversations, whose outcomes became profound, earthshaking breakthroughs in various disciplines. Briefly, the most important leaders of the Soviet intelligentsia to emerge from the roaring 1920s made lasting contributions to the fields Middle Eastern studies, history, economics, literature, art, film, music, military art, philosophy, or the study of Marxism. In the area of Middle Eastern studies together with those of history, Vel’tman (Михаил Лазаревич Вельтман (псевдонимы Михаил Па́влович Павло́вич (Волонтер); 13 [25] марта 1871, Одесса — 19 июня 1927, Москва)) led a journal called Востоковед, as well as wrote several important pieces on the history of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Alongside Vel’tman, linguists produce manuals on Arabic as well as Persian. In music, Shostakovich (Дмитрий Дмитриевич Шостакович), whom Mikhail Tukhachevsky assisted, published his Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10 in 1925, beginning his career with a classic in classical music. These are just a few of the major contributors to make a lasting impact on Soviet society. Most, if not all of these contributors, faced a backlash from Stalin’s suppression of internal debate within the Bolshevik party after his coup d’état ousted the leader of the Left Opposition, Leon Trotsky. Stalin’s backlash either resulted in a disruption of some form or another to continued work or, in some cases, death, as in the case of Alexander Svechin (Александр Андреевич Свечин; 17 August 1878 – 28 July 1938), whom Stalin murdered shortly after ordering the murder of Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky on June 12, 1937 in the beginning of Stalin’s purge against the Soviet military intelligentsia.

References

[1] – [“Revolution und Kultur. Ein Kapitel zur Philosophie des Marxismus, «Die Neue Zeit», 1906-1907, № 24, стр. 802-810. [Революция и культура: см. «ПЗМ», 1925, № 7, стр. 5-13]]

[2] – [“David Riazanov, a Revolutionary Scholar of Marxism,” Jacobin, February 27th, 2024]

[3] – [Стратегия в трудах военных классиков. В 2 т. / Под редакцией А. Свечина. — М.: Государственное военное издательство, 1926.]

[4] – [Эволюция военного искусства: В 2 т. — М.—Л.: Госиздат, 1927—1928]

[5] – [Стратегия. — М.: Госвоениздат, 1926]

[6] – [Деборин А.М. Введение в философию диалектического материализма. С предисловием Г.В. Плеханова. Изд. 2 (М.: Госиздат, 1922. — 376 с.).]