Marxist philosopher who went from Stalin's Hegel tutor to Right Opposition conspirator
When Stalin failed to grasp Hegelian dialectics, the hot-tempered Latvian philosopher grabbed his pupil by the lapels in his Kremlin office and shook him. After a lesson, he told a friend: 'Koba will do things that will put the trials of Dreyfus and Beilis in the shade.'
A Latvian Marxist philosopher who, after graduating in the first cohort of the Institute of Red Professors, gave Stalin private tutorials in Hegelian dialectics and helped institutionalize Soviet philosophy. He broke with Stalin in 1928 to join Bukharin's Right Opposition, was exiled in the 1932 'Union of Marxists-Leninists' case, briefly rehabilitated, then executed in 1937.
Career Timeline
- 1914Joined RSDLP in Latvia
- 1921–1924First cohort, philosophy department, Institute of Red Professors
- 1925–1928Gave Stalin private lectures on Hegelian dialectics
- 1927–1928Deputy head, Agitprop Department, CC VKP(b)
- 1928–1930Deputy director, Marx-Engels Institute
- 1932Expelled from party, arrested in 'Union of Marxists-Leninists' case, exiled
- 1934–1936Released, edited Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- 1937Rearrested and executed
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionRed Army soldier
- 1937–1938The Great PurgePhilosopher arrested and executed in 1937Rearrested on 3 August 1936 on charges of 'participation in a counter-revolutionary right-left organization' and 'preparation of terrorist acts.' Sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court on 19 June 1937 and shot the next day at Lefortovo Prison. Stalin, whom Sten had once tutored in Hegelian dialectics, personally named him a chief of the 'Menshevizing idealists.' After his execution, the signature on his article 'Dialectical Materialism' in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was replaced with that of M.B. Mitin. Rehabilitated in 1988.
The Deborin School and Soviet Philosophical Debates
Sten was the most brilliant figure in the so-called 'Deborin school' led by Abram Deborin. Bukharin's widow Anna Larina recalled that 'there was something majestic in the proud bearing of this Latvian,' and friend and foe alike acknowledged him as the school's leading theorist. Sten played a decisive role in the mid-1920s debate against the Mechanists, a watershed that determined the direction of Soviet philosophy. On one side stood the Mechanists, such as Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov, who denied the very existence of Marxist philosophy and sought to reduce everything to natural science. On the other stood the Deborin school, defending the autonomous domain of philosophy and the legacy of Hegelian dialectics. Sten opened fire in this debate with a critical review of Skvortsov-Stepanov, continuing the struggle Lenin and Plekhanov had waged against the Machists.
Sten also joined the polemic against the 'idealist deviations' of Western Marxists such as Georg Lukács and Karl Korsch. In a 1925 article, he attacked Lukács's History and Class Consciousness for retreating into Hegelian idealism, arguing that this philosophical error was linked to the 'left-wing infantile disorder' in politics. The critique aligned with the Comintern's official line, yet it was paradoxical: Sten himself was a philosopher deeply immersed in Hegel.
By the late 1920s, the Deborin school dominated Soviet philosophy, but in 1929 a piece Sten wrote for Komsomolskaya Pravda was effectively an anti-Stalin pamphlet. An enraged Stalin drafted Politburo instructions the same day outlining his persecution. Soon after, younger philosophers led by Mark Mitin and Pavel Yudin, under Stalin's patronage, denounced the Deborin school as 'Menshevizing idealism,' with Sten as a prime target. By the time he was executed in 1937, his major article 'Dialectical Materialism' for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia had already been printed. Rather than destroy the entire run, the editors replaced only the single page bearing his signature, substituting Mitin's name. Sten's widow Valeriya Sten later exposed Mitin's plagiarism, forcing his removal as editor-in-chief of Voprosy Filosofii.
Sten completed two monumental works: Goethe's Faust and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit in Light of the Materialist Theory of Knowledge. The manuscripts disappeared upon his arrest and have never been recovered.