Founder of Soviet Marxist philosophy, condemned as 'Menshevizing idealism'
"I told Anastas Ivanovich that for 25 years I've been trying to understand what it is, and still haven't." (Replying to Mikoyan on what 'Menshevizing idealism' meant, Kremlin, October 1956; sources give differing wordings of the exchange.)
The philosopher who institutionalised Soviet Marxist philosophy. He became a full academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1929 and led the dialecticians to victory over the mechanists. Condemned in 1931 for 'Menshevizing idealism,' he was stripped of his editorship and of the directorship of the Institute of Philosophy he had founded, but continued research in the Academy and served as academician-secretary of its History-Philosophy Division in 1940–1941. In the late 1940s anti-cosmopolitan campaign his sector's staff were dismissed; he survived into the Khrushchev thaw to see his works republished after 1956.
Career timeline
- 1897–1903Joined illegal Marxist circles at 16; fled Russia in 1903 under police pressure
- 1903–1908Joined Bolsheviks (1903), then Mensheviks (1907); graduated philosophy at Bern (1908); Plekhanov's disciple
- 1908–1916Critiqued Machism and empiriocriticism; published Introduction to Dialectical Materialism (1916); aligned with Lenin on philosophy
- 1931Denounced for 'Menshevizing idealism' — stripped of editorship and directorship, the symbolic turning-point of Stalinist philosophy
- 1922–1930Headed philosophy at the Institute of Red Professors (1922–1930)
- 1922–1930Editorial board of Under the Banner of Marxism (1922–); effectively editor-in-chief from 1925, removed at the end of 1930
- 1924–1931Deputy director for science, Marx-Engels Institute (1924–early 1931)
- 1929Founding first director of the Institute of Philosophy, Communist Academy; full academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1935–1963Academy of Sciences researcher; academician-secretary of the Social Sciences Division (1937) and the History-Philosophy Division (1940–1941); taught at the NKVD Special-Purpose School
- 1943–1949Headed the modern history sector, Institute of History; dismissed on 'cosmopolitanism' charges, then restored as senior researcher; refused to support the anti-cosmopolitan campaign in 1949
- 1956Met Mikoyan; on 18 October 1956 Mikoyan submitted a Presidium draft resolution allowing him academic council seats and publication of his works; republication began
Partisan commander “Vanagas” who led the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters from 1952, the last commander to be captured
Born to a Lithuanian immigrant family in New Britain, Connecticut, he came to Lithuania at the age of three. He graduated from the War School of Kaunas in 1940 and worked as a teacher, and after the NKVD pressured him to spy on his students he joined the partisans in early 1945 under the nom de guerre Vanagas (“Hawk”). He commanded the Dainava military district and the Southern Lithuania Region, published underground newspapers, and in 1949 became first deputy chairman of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters. Succeeding Jonas Žemaitis as its leader in 1952, he ordered an end to armed struggle in favour of passive resistance. Betrayed by a former classmate, he was arrested in October 1956, tortured and executed in November 1957. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has alleged that a unit he commanded in the June 1941 uprising took part in killing Jews; the Lithuanian government denies this.
Career timeline
- 1940Graduated from the War School of Kaunas
- 1945Joined the partisans; brigade commander
- 1947Commander of the Dainava military district
- 1949First deputy chairman of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters
- 1952Leader of the Union
- 1956–1957Arrested and executed
Ideology secretary of the pro-Moscow Lithuanian Communist Party who proclaimed the 'National Salvation Committee' in the Vilnius crackdown
On 13 January 1991, his recorded voice boomed from the loudspeakers of Soviet BMPs advancing on the Vilnius TV tower: 'Brother Lithuanians! The nationalist and separatist government, which confronted the people, has been overthrown!'
A farmer's son from southern Lithuania, Jermalavičius studied at Vilnius University and the Leningrad Higher Party School, then spent two decades as a researcher at the Party History Institute, publishing on atheism and religion. In 1990 he became ideology secretary of the pro-Moscow Lithuanian Communist Party (CPSU platform), fiercely opposing independence, and on 11 January 1991 he announced the creation of the 'National Salvation Committee of the Lithuanian SSR', which claimed to be the sole legitimate government, providing the political pretext for the Soviet military operation that killed 14 civilians two days later. Convicted in 1999 of anti-state organization and incitement to violently overthrow the government, he served eight years, then moved to Russia where he continued writing in defence of the Soviet system until his death.
Career timeline
- 1962Joined the CPSU
- 1970–1990Researcher, Institute of Party History, CPL CC
- 1990–1991Head of Ideological Department, CC, CPL (CPSU platform)
- 1994–2002Imprisoned for anti-state activities (8-year sentence)
- 2002–2012Professor, RSSU; Deputy Chairman, UCP-CPSU Council
