Stalin-era chief philosophical authority who installed dialectical materialism as state doctrine
"The absolute, overwhelming majority of Menshevizing-idealism cadres turned out to be enemies, traitors — exposed and arrested by the NKVD." — justifying the mass arrest of fellow philosophers at the Institute of Philosophy, May 1937
The philosopher who installed Stalinist orthodoxy in Soviet philosophy by overthrowing the Deborin school as 'Menshevizing idealism.' For three decades he enforced party control as editor of Under the Banner of Marxism and director of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, before a plagiarism scandal drove him from his last post.
Career Timeline
- 1901Born in Zhitomir to a Jewish family; birth name Mordko Gershevich Gershkovich
- 1919–1921Joined RKP(b) (1919); first secretary of Zhitomir city and Volyn gubernia Komsomol; served in CHON special-duty units
- 1921–1929Completed Sverdlov Communist University; graduated philosophy division, Institute of Red Professors; deputy rector of Academy of Communist Education
- 1931–1933Led the philosophical campaign against the Deborin school — denouncing 'Menshevizing idealism' and installing the Stalinist line with Yudin
- 1931–1944Editor-in-chief of Under the Banner of Marxism; worked at the Institute of Philosophy (Communist Academy, then Academy of Sciences); full academician (1939)
- 1939–1944Director of Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute; CC member (1939–1961); Stalin Prize 1st class for History of Philosophy (1943)
- 1944–1950Dismissed from editor-in-chief and director posts after Stalin Prize withdrawal; executive secretary of Bolshevik editorial board; chair of dialectical materialism at Higher Party School
- 1950–1968Chief editor of Cominform journal in Bucharest (1950–1956); chairman of Znanie society (1956–1960); editor-in-chief of Voprosy Filosofii (1960–1968); forced out by plagiarism scandal
- 1970–1987Sector head at Institute of State and Law (1970–1985); Plekhanov Prize (1982); died of natural causes, buried at Novodevichy Cemetery
Related historical events
The Purge of the Deborin School and the Institutionalization of Stalinist Philosophy
Soviet philosophy in the 1920s was split between the 'Dialecticians' (the Deborin school) and the 'Mechanists.' Deborin defeated the Mechanists in debate by 1929 and took control of the Institute of Philosophy. But his victory was short-lived. In June 1930, Mitin, together with Pavel Yudin and other young philosophers from the Institute of Red Professors, published 'On the New Tasks of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy' in Pravda, followed in August by 'For the Genuine Development of Lenin's Philosophical Legacy.' These articles attacked the Deborin school as 'Menshevizing idealism,' accusing it of overpraising Hegel, underestimating Lenin's philosophical contributions, and tolerating a separation of theory from practice.
Stalin gave the Mitin-Yudin group his unambiguous backing. In December 1930, at a meeting with representatives of the Institute of Red Professors party cell, Stalin branded the Deborin camp 'Menshevizing idealism,' turning a philosophical dispute into a political condemnation. Immediately afterward, Mitin was appointed editor-in-chief of Under the Banner of Marxism, expelling Deborin from the editorial board, and moved to seize effective control of the Institute of Philosophy at the Communist Academy.
Through a sustained offensive from 1931 to 1933, the Deborin school was purged from Soviet philosophy. And dialectical materialism was recast as official doctrine subordinate to the Stalinist-Leninist system. During the Great Purge of 1936–1937, the philosophical campaign escalated into physical liquidation: dozens of Mitin's former colleagues, students, and subordinates were arrested and executed as 'anti-party elements.' Mitin himself justified the repression at the May 1937 general assembly of the Institute of Philosophy, reporting that 'the overwhelming majority of Menshevizing-idealism cadres turned out to be enemies, traitors: exposed and arrested by the NKVD.'
Through this campaign, Mitin established himself as the architect and guardian of a system in which the Party directly controlled Soviet philosophy for three decades. Thereafter, Soviet philosophy served less as independent inquiry than as explication and justification of the party line.