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Introduction

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Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931

Part of the book series: History of Physics ((HIPHY))

Abstract

This book arose out of a study of David Bohm’s Causality and Chance in Modern Physics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Talbot (2017). The original is Bohm (1957).

  2. 2.

    Engels (1988).

  3. 3.

    See for example Fock’s views in Graham (1966).

  4. 4.

    For example Graham (1971), Josephson (1991), Joravsky (2019), Bakhurst (1991).

  5. 5.

    On this see Pollock (2006).

  6. 6.

    Christopher Chilvers discovered (Chilvers 2003) that in the few records available, Hessen signed his name in English with an ‘H’ rather than the alternative translation from the Russian of ‘G’. We have used Hessen throughout the translations here.

  7. 7.

    Talbot (2017, p. 81).

  8. 8.

    Josephson (1991, pp. 242–245).

  9. 9.

    Ibid., pp. 266–269.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., p. 240.

  11. 11.

    Werskey (1973), Freudenthal and McLaughlin (2009).

  12. 12.

    Josephson (1991, p. 240).

  13. 13.

    Joravsky (2019).

  14. 14.

    Joravsky (2019, pp. 185–187, 285–286).

  15. 15.

    Graham (1993).

  16. 16.

    Kojevnikov (2004).

  17. 17.

    Gorelik and Frenkel (1994).

  18. 18.

    Yakhot (2012).

  19. 19.

    Yakhot (2012, p. 219).

  20. 20.

    For an introduction to Deborin see Ahlberg (1961).

  21. 21.

    “Dialectics of Nature” by Boris Hessen and Vasilii Egorshin, Under the Banner of Marxism, 1927, 2–3, pp. 211–225. This was directed against the 1927 edition of Dialectics in Nature, a collection of Mechanist writings published each year from 1926 to 1929 by the Timiryazev Institute (see Yakhot 2012, p. 27).

  22. 22.

    For example in Blitz (1992), a widely used reference on the history of the topic.

  23. 23.

    For example in a Reader’s Guide to the History of Science (Hessenbruch 2000) there are four entries referring to Hessen’s paper.

  24. 24.

    See Graham (1985).

  25. 25.

    We are assuming that the Haas Preface, Chap. 11, although published in 1931 was written earlier so that the significant change in Hessen’s work took place after the August 1930 Odessa conference (Chap. 12).

  26. 26.

    Tucker (1990, p. 170).

  27. 27.

    A small amount of background to Newton’s ideas were written earlier. See Chap. 4, p. 49, n. 17 and Chap. 11, p. 145, n. 10.

  28. 28.

    See Appendix on Egorshin.

  29. 29.

    Chapter 3, p. 33. Graham’s translation—“throwing out the physical contents of the theories”—is slightly different to ours. Note that Hessen follows Lenin in distinguishing a “philosophical concept of matter and matter as a natural scientific category”, Chap. 11, p. 141.

  30. 30.

    Lenin (1977).

  31. 31.

    Lenin (1976).

  32. 32.

    Engels (1988).

  33. 33.

    Hunt (2010).

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 282.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., pp. 282–292.

  36. 36.

    See Beiser (2003b) for an introduction.

  37. 37.

    Friedman (2006).

  38. 38.

    Heuser (2011).

  39. 39.

    Hankins (1980).

  40. 40.

    Beiser (2003a).

  41. 41.

    See Korsakov et al. (2015).

  42. 42.

    See Chilvers (2003, 2007).

  43. 43.

    The most detailed and up to date (in terms of archival research) is in Korsakov et al. (2015, pp. 9–14, 18–21, 74, 97–98 and 162–167). Further material can be found in Joravsky (2019, pp. 185–188, 285–286, 292–295), Josephson (1991, pp. 233–246, 266–269), Chilvers (2003, pp. 422–426), Graham (1985, pp. 707–712), Freudenthal and McLaughlin (2009, pp. 253–255), and Gorelik and Frenkel (1994, pp. 44–52).

  44. 44.

    See Appendix.

  45. 45.

    Bushkovitch (2011, p. 274).

  46. 46.

    As one writer with personal experience explains: “For decades they had headed to the West in search of education”, Weizman (1949, p. 44).

  47. 47.

    Whittaker (1910).

  48. 48.

    The Menshevik Internationalists broke away from the Russian Social Democratic Party (Mensheviks) in May 1917 in opposition to the war. Many Menshevik-Internationalists would leave the Mensheviks and join the Bolsheviks later in 1917. Josephson (1991, p. 241) suggests that Hessen was associated with Trotsky’s organisation in 1917 which would undoubtedly have led to his execution in 1936. This does not seem to be the case—by 1917 Trotsky was a member of the Mezhraionka (members were called Mezhraiontsy) or Inter-District Organisation, a group formed in 1913 which took a middle course between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. This was a different group to the Menshevik Internationalists. The Mezhraionka merged with the Bolsheviks in late July/early August 1917.

  49. 49.

    Fitzpatrick (1979, p. 68).

  50. 50.

    Ibid., p. 71.

  51. 51.

    This incident occurred in 1922 when philosophers and intellectuals who were not Marxists, and their families, were exiled in the “philosophers’ steamboat”. Others were to follow. It was feared they could incite support for the White armies, backed by the Western powers, that the Bolsheviks had just defeated. This action was widely criticized in the West.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., p. 76.

  53. 53.

    Josephson (1991, p. 4).

  54. 54.

    Ibid., p. 341.

  55. 55.

    Joravsky (2019, p. 65).

  56. 56.

    See Appendix.

  57. 57.

    See Appendix.

  58. 58.

    See Appendix.

  59. 59.

    No date for this is known.

  60. 60.

    See Appendix on Maksimov and Timiryazev.

  61. 61.

    See Appendix.

  62. 62.

    Korsakov et al. (2015, p. 97).

  63. 63.

    See Chaps. 6–8 and 10 translated here for the parts of these that were already published.

  64. 64.

    See Freudenthal and McLaughlin (2009), p. 2.

  65. 65.

    Chilvers (2003, pp. 432–3).

  66. 66.

    Josephson (1991, p. 270).

  67. 67.

    See Josephson (1991, p. 310, n. 89). Josephson interviewed Immanuil Lazarevich Fabelinskii on November 1, 1989. He graduated from Moscow University in 1936, a specialist in optics and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences since 1979.

  68. 68.

    Korsakov et al. (2015, p. 167).

  69. 69.

    Information from Korsakov et al. (2015, pp. 169–174).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Abingdon, UK

    Chris Talbot

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  1. Abingdon, UK

    Chris Talbot

  2. Oxon, UK

    Olga Pattison

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Talbot, C. (2021). Introduction. In: Talbot, C., Pattison, O. (eds) Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931. History of Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70045-4_1

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