Renovating Russia: The Human Sciences and the Fate of Liberal Modernity, 1880–1930

About the Book

Renovating Russia is a richly comparative investigation of late Imperial and early Soviet medico-scientific theories of moral and social disorder. Daniel Beer argues that in the late Imperial years liberal psychiatrists, psychologists, and criminologists grappled with an intractable dilemma. They sought to renovate Russia, to forge a modern enlightened society governed by the rule of law, but they feared the backwardness, irrationality, and violent potential of the Russian masses. Situating their studies of degeneration, crime, mental illness, and crowd psychology in a pan-European context, Beer shows how liberals' fears of societal catastrophe were only heightened by the effects of industrial modernization and the rise of mass politics. In the wake of the orgy of violence that swept the Empire in the 1905 Revolution, these intellectual elites increasingly put their faith in coercive programs of scientific social engineering. Their theories survived liberalism's political defeat in 1917 and meshed with the Bolsheviks' radical project for social transformation. They came to sanction the application of violent transformative measures against entire classes, culminating in the waves of state repression that accompanied forced industrialization and collectivization. Renovating Russia thus offers a powerful revisionist challenge to established views of the fate of liberalism in the Russian Revolution.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1. "Morel's Children" Chapter 2. The Etiology of Degeneration Chapter 3. "The Flesh and Blood of Society" Chapter 4. "Microbes of the Mind" Chapter 5. Social Isolation and Coercive: Treatment after the Revolution Conclusion Bibliography of Primary Sources Index

About the Author :
Daniel Beer is Lecturer in Modern European History at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Review :
"Beer offers a wealth of new material on the pre-revolutionary roots of the intellectual apparatus used by the Bolsheviks to make sense of their society. The book offers a convincing case in favor of seeing the Soviet modernization project, not as a deviation from European modernity, but as 'a legitimate offspring of the modern spirit,' as Zygmunt Bauman has put it. The book also effectively challenges a common perception that the biological paradigm for understanding social issues was completely marginal to the Russian intellectual tradition... Daniel Beer succeeds in offering an unexpected perspective on Russian and pan-European influences on Soviet socialism."-Vera Tolz, Times Literary Supplement (6 February 2009) "Daniel Beer has written an impressive and important book. Renovating Russia examines the arc of the human sciences-psychology, criminology, biopsychology-from the 1880s into the early Soviet period. In tracing the trajectory of these disciplines, he demonstrates how they framed broader public discussions about the dilemmas and problems facing Russia and its passage to modernity. Beer demonstrates the degree to which high culture-in the form of belles-lettres-was informed by key concepts and categories from the human sciences. Clearly and engagingly written, the book superbly integrates an examination of the professional development of these disciplines together with an analysis of these broader political debates. In examining these individual disciplines, Beer provides a revealing analysis of the dilemmas confronting Russia's liberals and their programs in an age of social upheaval and revolution. He demonstrates the real commitment of Russian liberals to this project, but he also shows how these programs could be appropriated and mobilized after 1917 by the Soviet state. Beer's work demonstrates the specific features in the development of the human sciences in Russia. Yet he also juxtaposes developments there with the emergence of the human sciences in Italy, France and Germany. Both as a demonstration of the specific Russian case and as treatment of how Russia compared to other European societies, Daniel Beer's excellent book should be read by not only specialists but also those interested in modern European history and the problems of the specific ways in which power and knowledge come to be intertwined."-Peter Holquist, University of Pennsylvania, author of Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 and founder and editor of Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History "Renovating Russia represents a major new study of social-scientific thought in late imperial and early Soviet Russia. Daniel Beer argues that theories of degeneration and deviance lent scientific authority to liberal professionals' prescriptions for social renovation. When applied to the far more radical agenda pursued by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution, these narratives of deviance and renovation contributed to Soviet state violence. Given Beer's extremely sophisticated and nuanced analysis, his book should become essential reading not only for Russianists but also for all Europeanists interested in the 'dark side of the Enlightenment.'"-David L. Hoffmann, The Ohio State University, author of Stalinist Values "In this forcefully argued book, Daniel Beer pays special attention to the social, moral, and hence political implications of degeneration theory and related studies of deviance across several disciplines in late imperial Russia. The fusion of the scientific study of deviance and Soviet Marxism after the revolution then comes marvelously into focus, yielding a new appreciation of the biological components fueling Soviet-era thought on the 'isolation' and coercive rehabilitation of deviants. Beer's provocative argument is that the fate of Russia's liberal 'laboratory of modernity' was not one of extinction but of profound influence on its totalitarian heir."-Michael David-Fox, University of Maryland, author of Revolution of the Mind "This is an extraordinary book that uses the biomedical sciences to make large arguments about modern Russian history. With one eye on science and the other on politics, Daniel Beer argues that liberalism from the nineteenth century elaborated on a perception of biological deterioration in order to propose that human beings were plastic and that Russia could be revamped. The perceived threat of degeneration opened new possibilities for expert intervention, regeneration, and, ultimately, wholesale national transformation. Beer argues against the grain that the liberal mantle was carried beyond 1917 by the Bolsheviks, who appropriated liberal biomedical techniques as an approach to government. Beer furthers our understanding of Russia as a European experience, and of the USSR on a continuum of Russian and European history. With its fluid writing, Renovating Russia is a rigorous rethinking of science and politics that speaks in original and compelling ways to the historian of virtually any modern polity."-Yanni Kotsonis, New York University, author of Making Peasants Backward