Soviet mathematics and dialectics in the Stalin era
The article is a sequel to an earlier one (1999) in the same journal on mathematics and dialectics in the pre-Stalinist period of the 1920s [ibid. 26, No. 2, 107-124 (1999; Zbl 0944.01006)]. The article gives short accounts of many articles published in Russian on the relation of mathematics to communist ideology in its Stalinist version, which the author mostly calls ``Marxist''. Vucinich does not restrict the report to ``dialectics'' (which is not clearly explained) but refers to many kinds of official political and ideological intrusion. In the case of the well-known (also from other sources) Luzin affair of 1936 the anti-religious, atheist motive of the persecution seems underrated. Author shows that with the exception of S. N. Bernstein, N. N. Luzin and a few others and frequently for tactical reasons almost no Russian mathematician denied the relevance of the communist ideology for mathematics. Even Marxist philosophers such as Janovskaja occasionally helped to build a protection belt for mathematics. With the beginning of World War II and the growing Russian isolation and nationalism reference to the past of Russian mathematics, e. g. the work of Lobachevskii in non-Euclidean geometry was a growing theme in the ideological discussion.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1437472
scientific article