Society of Marxist Historians

a society founded in Moscow in 1925 under the auspices of the Communist Academy. Its principal functions were bringing together Marxist specialists to conduct research in history and the methodology of the historical process, struggling with bourgeois ideology, and popularizing the historical knowledge and achievements of Soviet scholarship. Among the founders were M. N. Pokrovskii, A. V. Shestakov, V. P. Volgin, P. O. Gorin, and A. M. Pankratova. In 1926 the society had 40 members; in 1929, 345.

The society had sections on Russian history, on the history of the CPSU, and on Western and Oriental history. It also had sociological and methodological commissions and commissions on the history of revolutionary wars and armed uprisings and of the proletariat. Members of the society organized and actively participated in scholarly discussions in the second half of the 1920’s and beginning of the 1930’s. At the society’s conferences members discussed the tasks of Soviet historical scholarship, the problem of improving the quality of scholarly research, and the task of improving the teaching of historical disciplines in schools and institutions of higher learning. In 1929 the society became part of the Communist Academy. In 1930 it was reorganized as the All-Union Scholarly Society. From 1926 it published the journal Istorik-marksist (Marxist Historian), and from 1931 the journal Bor’ba klassov (The Struggle of the Classes). It ceased to function in 1932–33.