Between Hegel and Haeckel: Monistic Worldview, Marxist Philosophy, and Biomedicine in Russia and the Soviet Union

Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, “monism” became a key term in political debates across Europe. The term was seized upon by social reformers and revolutionary visionaries of all stripes and, in Russia and Germany in particular, there was a pronounced tendency to yoke monism to socialism. Maxim Gorky (1868–1936), the “poet of the proletarian revolution,” even said: “For me, the value of Bolshevism resides in its being the creation of monists.”1 And the Social Democratic member of the Reichstag Heinrich Pëus (1862–1937) stated in the organ of the German Monist League The Monist Century: “Social Democracy strives for a specific form of life, monism for a specific method of thinking and living. Both, however, will always remain friends.”2 Nevertheless, this pledge was accompanied by a certain reservation: “Monism is not beholden to social democratic views. Rather, it has the right and is obligated to make the Social Democratic Party aware of the dangers, the ‘inevitable evil’ that party brings with it.”3