Communism, Science and the University

Towards a Theory of Detotalitarianisation

By Ivaylo Znepolski
First Published 2020

ISBN 9780367895686
Published April 16, 2020 by Routledge
330 Pages

Book Description

The book explores the intellectual history of Bulgaria between the 1960s and the 1980s at the intersections of the country’s social and political history. Based on case studies, the research delves into three areas: the control and pressure mechanisms used on science and the university; the clash of ideas while performing the formal and hidden functions of academia in a communist regime setting; the processes whereby research and academia acquire a relative autonomy and alternative academic communities are being formed amidst the eroding ideological legitimacy of the regime.

Centred on the concept of the „incident“, this setup allowed us to eschew the narratives around the role of the dissidents or „freedom as a gift“ and interpret society’s transformation as the outcome of intersecting and overlaying sectoral events, which gathered strength down the years and lay the ground for the eruption labelled here as the „Big Event of 1989“.

Introduction: On this Book’s Nature and Objectives

1. Siezing power and Institutionalization of “The New Socialist Science”

• Purging the university
• De-Stalinisation and swift re-Stalinisation in the university

2. The Zhelyu Zhelev case: Sinning Against Faith and the Party Themis

• Claiming subjectivity through individual Action: eventual subjectivity
• How to use the topsy-turvy political speak
• Types of party discourses – Of the prosecution, of the defence and of the defendant
• Radical honesty or venal pragmatism?
• Structure and event in a post-Stalinist society

Theoretical Outcomes (1): A Sense of Community Awakens – Small Goups of Civic Engagement

3. The Ivan Slavov Case: Between the Threat of Social Exclusion and the Moral Sanction of the Group

• A pamphletist versus communist logomorphia
• Private life as pretext for political blackmail
• “The betrayal” as a private drama and test for the group’s integrity
• The excommunication from the group as a loss of identity

Theoretical Outcomes (2): On Actions Committed under Duress and amidst Severe Freedom Shortage

4. The Nikolay Genchev case: Against Historiography as the Chambermaid of Politics or Life in Two Parallel Worlds

• Broadening the solidarity field
• The early Nikolay Genchev and the history of the Algerian Revolution
• For a national – rather than class – history: A critique of official historiography
• A personal story morphing into social history: Tearing apart and sewing together of the physical author and his ideas
• New challenges: Initiating the debate on Bulgaria’s political system between the two World Wars
• Changes in the intentional background of action. Nikolay Genchev: the „double contingency“ principle
• The dual use of the primary party organisation. Nikolay Genchev, an expert in the guerrilla warfare in the jungle of the party’s chain of command

5. The Zhelyu Zhelev Case (continued): Between Truth and Authority – Creation of “The Revisionists”

• Attempts at a philosophical position in the context of modern times
• The artfulness of a small man in the battle for survival
• Zhelyu Zhelev, the Postgraduate Student and Todor Pavlov, the Academician
• Samizdat within the bounds of legality. The scandal – a publicity strategy in a closed system
• The contrivance of scientific facts through text-substituting “translations”
• The informal public sphere – how it functions?
• A purging trend at the Philosophy Faculty
• From criticising leading to wrenching Lenin out of the dogmatic stranglehold: The generational discourse as political speak in disguise

Theoretical Outcomes (3): “Letters to the Chief” as a Genre – Social Communication in a Closed, Overcentralised Society

6. The Assen Ignatov Case: Beyond the Limits of the Officially Regulated Knowledge – Philosophy as a Way to Deliberate on the Human Condition

• A diagnosis of dogmatic thinking
• The witch-hunt season is open
• A basic programme for the development of social science. Alienation under socialism.
• The party tribunal against Assen Ignatov: Timid solidarity and loose ties within „the group“
• Biographies falling apart: Living in the lie and through the lie
• Sketching out a reformist agenda
• Intelligentsia and the Party bureaucracy
• A surprising deliverance: the deus ex machina and the ambivalence of the „pardoning from above“
• „Philosophy in action“: a critique of the „asymmetrical relations“ in the education model
• The end of a long administrative assassination
• „Disarmament“ and „self-criticism“: key concepts in the discourse of power
• A Bulgarian reception of Heidegger and ways of utilising the philosopher
• Heidegger’s deconstruction as a way to experience one’s own existential situation: Designing a „project“ for oneself
• A play between the truth of historical facts and the „logic of history“
• Baiting the other side: State Security and the philosopher
• Redemption and its price

Theoretical Outcomes (4): The Correlation between Coercion and Free Action in a Totalitarian State

7. The Isak Passy Case: The Separation of Political and Intellectual Power – Theory and Information Breakthrough

• On the tragedy of a crushed ideal
• Facts against the dogmatist’s theoretical superstition
• The philosophers’ enlightenment surge: A quest for the educational and moral fundamentals of young people
• Altering the whole intellectual context: “destruction through creation”

Theoretical Outcomes (5): Academic Paradigm and Community amid the One-party Dictatorship

8. From Zhelyu Zhelev Case to the Case of ‘Fascism’ Anatomy of a Chain of Incidents

• Fascism: A dissection of the totalitarian phenomenon and the semantic challenges of a book with a key
• From a manuscript titled, The Totalitarian State, to Fascism: on the collective authorship of an incident
• „Constitutional fiction“ and its use
• The arraignment of the „ideological prosecution“: formalism and lack of zeal
• Fissures in Censorship: Penalties for „blunted vigilance“ and „political myopia“
• A split between the party commanding heights and the grassroots: The primary party organisation – one possible pocket of resistance

9. The Dobrin Spassov Case: A Clash between the Rejection of Totalitarian Practices and the Commitment to Social Utopia

• Alien among his own or the testing of loyalty
• Hamstrung innovation
• Dobrin Spassov stepping into Todor Pavlov’s boots: Efforts to overcome the „intense backwardness“ of Bulgarian philosophy
• The debate on totalitarianism and the changes in the structure of the scientific (philosophical) field
• The emergence of an alternative assessment centre of academic relevance and civil conduct
• The contradiction between the regime’s nature and the principles of civil conduct

10. The Ilcho Dimitrov Case: In Search of a Win-Win Game within the System – The Public Communications Craftsman

• Questioning the simplistic propaganda version of Bulgarian history between the two World Wars
• Ilcho Dimitrov and Todor Pavlov: historical facts against class-and-party fitness for purpose
• The intellectuals’ quest to positions of power: The relationship between the power of force and the power of knowledge
• The in-out existence in two different social environments: The inexorable logic of symbolic capital exchange
• The inner workings of big power: How can academic and political attitudes part ways
• „Paris is worth a mass“: Clashes between the state administration and the party apparatus
• The horizon of reformist thinking and action

Theoretical Outcomes (6): Specifics of Social Criticism in Totalitarian Society – Social Criticism and Social Change

Conclusion: From the Big Event to the Incidents: A Reconstruction of the Event(ual) Identity of Historical Change

Abbreviations

Literature and archival sources