Vulgar Sociology
저속사회학
A critical term for a dogmatic simplification of the Marxist method applied to art, literature, and history, widely used in the Soviet press from the 1930s. Its core was a mechanical class reductionism that interpreted artworks as coded expressions of class 'psychoideology': reducing Pushkin to an ideologue of the impoverished gentry, Tolstoy to a spokesman of the middle nobility, and so on. Mikhail Lifshits and Georg Lukács attacked this tendency in the 1930s as a 'caricature of Marxism,' defending instead the trans-historical value of classical art and a dialectical aesthetics.
In depth
Origins and Background
The term 'vulgar sociology' (вульгарная социология) itself appeared in the Soviet press in the 1930s, but the phenomenon was known much earlier. Even during the lives of Marx and Engels, half-educated representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia who joined the workers' movement transformed Marxism into a crude scheme. In Russia, V. Shuliatikov typified this tendency in the history of philosophy; Plekhanov coined the term 'Shuliatikovism' for it in 1909.
Dominant Current in 1920s Soviet Art Theory
After the October Revolution, as Marxism spread rapidly and the old intelligentsia adopted Marxist language, vulgar sociology became the most influential current in Soviet art theory in the 1920s. Its premise was that art is a means of class self-assertion and class domination. Each work of art was seen as a coded ideogram of social groups struggling for power, and the critic's task was to decode it, exposing concealed class interests.
Under this logic, Pushkin became an ideologue of the impoverished gentry or bourgeoisified landowners, Gogol a spokesman of the small-scale landowning gentry, and Tolstoy a representative of the middle nobility in contact with the higher aristocracy. The Decembrists were interpreted as defending not the people but the interests of landowners engaged in the grain trade. In painting, 'organized' forms derived from Cubism were deemed most congenial to the proletariat; easel painting was rejected in favor of monumental art; theories of the dying-out of tragedy and comedy even appeared.
Critique and Overcoming in the 1930s
In the early 1930s, Lifshits and Lukács mounted a systematic critique. Their core argument rested on Marx's own observation that Greek art 'continues to give us artistic pleasure and in a certain sense serves as a norm and unattainable model.' Vulgar sociology saw only the class character of art and could not explain why the great art of the past continued to hold aesthetic value beyond its class origins.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979) defined vulgar sociology as a 'caricature of Marxism,' and Lenin himself had referred to such tendencies in similar terms. With the party reorganization of literary and artistic organizations in 1932 and the official adoption of Socialist Realism, vulgar sociology was declared overcome, though its residues surfaced intermittently in Soviet cultural discourse thereafter.
Related people
Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia article on Mikhail Lifshits; section 'Борьба с вульгарной социологией' details the 1930s campaign against vulgar sociology, its origins in 1920s Soviet art theory, and Lifshits's role in opposing it alongside Lukács.
- encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979) entry defining vulgar sociologism as a 'dogmatic simplification of the Marxist method' and a 'caricature of Marxism'; details its manifestations in literary criticism, art theory, and historiography.