The Role of Classical Populism in Russian and World History in the Evaluation of Soviet Historiography

Abstract

The article analyzes the role of classical populism in the national and world history in the evaluation of Soviet historiography. The authors examine the evolution of the ratio of negative and positive features of populism in Soviet historiography. It is concluded that the evaluation of the role of populism in the liberation movement in the Soviet historiography largely depended on the political situation. In the 1920s and early 1930s a number of historians — M.N. Pokrovsky, B.I. Gorev, S.I. Mickiewicz, I.A. Teodorovici, Y.M.Steclov — were inclined to see in the revolutionary populists (M.A. Bakunin, PL. Lavrov, PN. Tkachev, the, the populists ) the direct predecessors of the Bolsheviks. In the mid-1930s Soviet historiography was dominated by "Stalin", completely negative assessment of all Russian classical populism, both "revolutionary" and "liberal". At the end of the 1950s, certain progressiveness not only of revolutionary populism, but also of liberal one, as integral parts of the liberation movement was recognized. The article disputes the thesis about reducing the ideological and theoretical level of populism in the 1870s in comparison with the so-called revolutionary democrats. The second half of the 80s revived the interest in populism. This was due to the reinterpretation of national history and the search for alternatives to the socio-economic and political system that existed in our country before the beginning of the 1990s. For the first time in many years, the question of the socialist and anti-totalitarian alternativeness of populism was solved positively.

DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2018)2-16