Ideological problem in Soviet Marxism and the silent polemic in "The School of Meškauskas"

The paper deals with the concept, evolution, and reception of ideology in Soviet Marxism as they appear in the texts by the Lithuanian Marxists Eugenijus Meškauskas, Justinas Karosas, and Albinas Lozuraitis, and with the differences in their interpretations. The author holds the view that in the Marxist theory, the definition of ideology far from unambiguous. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels referred to ideology as distorted and false consciousness and as an ideological system that justifies the existing status quo of the society. They saw ideology as the superstructure formed by the material base, which is dependent on the relations of production and other "objective" social factors. The attitude to ideology changed radically in Soviet Marxism, which started referring to itself as an ideology among other ideologies validating its advantage by the party spirit, "fair" social engagement, and its ostensible scientific nature (the transformation was eventually carried out after Stalin had codified the "orthodoxy" of Marxism-Leninism). This gave rise to interpretational and theoretical problems in attempting a reconciliation of these contradictory elements in Soviet ideological conception. Eugenijus Meškauskas, one of the most influential and prominent Marxist in Soviet Lithuania, emphasised the aspect of the scientific nature of Marxist ideology, while his disciples chose different approaches. Karosas tried to reconcile the ostensible scientific element in Marxism with the party spirit, and Lozuraitis made attempts at separating these elements by imparting more significance not to cognitive aspects but to those of value engagement. However, none of them crossed the boundaries of the concept of Marxist ideology that was permitted by the officially-established scholastic version of Soviet Marxism