A materialist doctrine of good and evil: Stalin's revision of Marxist anthropology

This article argues that Stalin makes a significant philosophical contribution to Marxist anthropology (the doctrine of human nature). He does so by challenging Russian Orthodox theological assumptions, as well as the Pelagian heritage of Marxist anthropology. Indeed, I situate the analysis in terms of the fifth century tensions between Pelagius and Augustine concerning human nature and its transformation. My argument has two parts.The first investigates the effort to identify a new human nature, particularly during the ‘socialist offensive’ of the 1930s. Stakhanovism, with its emulation, tempo and grit, provided the first glimpse of the new nature which both realised the latency of workers and peasants and marked a new departure. The second part analyses the necessary other side of this nature, with a focus on the purges, Red Terror and discovery a new and deeper level of evil within. While the first development may be seen as an elaboration of a Pelagian-cum-Orthodox approach to human nature, the second is an Augustinian irruption, in which the power of evil is evident. However, Stalin does not opt for one or the other position; instead, he seeks an intensified dialectical clash between both dimensions