Pacifism in Soviet Socio-Political Thought: From Hostility and Non-Recognition to Acceptance and Approval

Introduction. The article considers the evolution of the concept of “pacifism” in Soviet sociopolitical thought. The stages in the assessments of pacifism by the Soviet social scientists regarding the peculiarities of the historical development of our country are distinguished. Methods and materials. The historiography of the considered problem is rather limited, as a comprehensive study of assessments of pacifism (in the ideological and terminological dimensions) in Soviet socio-political thought has not been conducted. The source base of the study was, first, scientific works, reference encyclopedic editions, and journalistic materials. The following methods and techniques were used in the work: historical-comparative, semantic-cognitive, and historical-semantic. Analysis. According to the author, in the pre-revolutionary period, pacifism was considered a rather integral ideology that had a moderate character and was focused on liberal values. A great influence on the perception of pacifism by representatives of Soviet socio-political thought was provided by the ideological preferences of Bolshevik theorists and, above all, by Lenin’s works, which contained a serious criticism of pacifism as a doctrine alien and hostile to Marxism. Results. Throughout almost the entire Soviet period, one could observe in social and political thought a negative attitude towards pacifism, a careful and conscious non-use of it, as well as its replacement by ideologically more appropriate concepts (“struggle for peace”). A complete reevaluation and intellectual “rehabilitation” of pacifism took place at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, when, with the ideological pressure coming to an end, the term “pacifism” entered firmly into public and political discourse, including the research discourse.