Soviet Power Plus Rationalization of the Whole Country: Creating the Kingdom of Reason

Abstract

The correlation between the categories of rational and irrational in the philosophy of the Enlightenment and classical Marxism, which found its embodiment in Russia in the form of Bolshevism (Leninism), is studied. The authors identify that rationalism as a kind of "mythology of Reason" arose in the Enlightenment era and reached its apogee in the Great French Revolution and German classical philosophy. Despite the fact that in a number of works of classical Marxism heuristically valuable ideas were put forward to reformulate the problem of the essence and correlation of the categories of ration-al and irrational, rationalism prevailed in the understanding of reality and practices of the first years of the October Revolution. This found expression in the works of V.I. Lenin, in the socio-political and spiritual atmosphere of revolutionary Russia, which had far-reaching consequences for Soviet society. This phenomenon paved the way for the state-political mythology of Reason and its fetishization, the mystification of science (which, like magic, "can do anything"). These rationalist schematisms penetrated deeply into all forms of mass consciousness and gave rise to the cult of Reason, on the basis of which all spheres of life of Soviet society were supposed to be transformed.

Keywords

• early soviet period
• enlightenment rationalism
• mass consciousness