The section, Sociometry, Sociology and Scientific Socialism opens (page 12):
In the last hundred and fifty years three main currents of social thought developed, sociology, scientific socialism and sociometry, each related to a different geographic and cultural area: sociology to France, socialism to Germany-Russia, and sociometry to the USA.
Moreno is honouring Marxism by referring to “scientific socialism”. Moreno sees himself in this tradition of developing a third science, one that relates to humans.
Moreno continues (Page 12) with a references to revolutions:
The first part of the hypothesis, that is, that sociology owes its origin to France is probably most easy to accept, as it is primarily to the French revolution between 1789 and 1795, and French writers like Claude Saint Simon, Auguste Comte, Pierre Proud- hon and Emile Durkheim that sociology owes its name and existence. The productivity of the French revolution consisted of the emancipation of the bourgeois class–that is how far it went or was able to go; it spent itself in doing it–and inspired the emergence and consolidation of sociology as a scientific system . The total configuration of social forces during the nineteenth century in France–and also in England–did not permit the victory of a proletarian revolution to cluster although it was the battleground of at least two major efforts. As already said, its revolutionary energy had spent itself in the emancipation of the bourgeois and its theoretical energy in the development of sociology .
When Moreno refers to the emancipation of the bourgeois class, he adopts a distinctly Marxist framework. Rather than framing the French Revolution as a fight for abstract ideals like liberty, equality, and fraternity, he views it as a class struggle—a fight for the interests of a specific class: the bourgeoisie. He also acknowledges the potential for proletarian revolution.
Moreno continues. (page 13)…
The second part of the hypothesis, that scientific socialism owes its origin to the German-Russian combine, is also plausible . No one denies that many seeds of thought which entered into the doctrine of Karl Marx came from French and English writers, but on the other hand, no one can deny that it is in Germany and Russia where its most feverish theories developed and that it is there where the most violent proletarian revolutions culminated in victory. Scientific socialism became, in the hands of Marx, Engels and Lenin as rigorous a system of revolutionary social science and interpretation of history as sociology in the hands of Comte and Durkheim.
Linking the developments to geography seems to push some credibility, especially Marxism as being German and Russian), however it leads well into the next passage (Page 13):
The first consequence [of the geographical delineations] would then be to consider Marx exclusively as the founder of scientific socialism and not to claim him, as it is often the case, along with Comte and Proudhon as one of the founders of sociology, an honor which he would most likely have refused. This also gives proper consideration to the deep cleavage and divergence which exists between sociology and revolutionary socialism. By classifying Marx as a “sociologist” one dilutes and sentimentalizes the theoretical and practical clash between the two historical movements. This hypothesis makes more understandable the tight resistance against sociology in Soviet Russia and in the countries dominated by its influence and, in turn, the tight resistance against revolutionary socialism in the western democracies . One may assume that this sharp demarcation of boundaries is not only due to political reasons but to genuine differences of thoughtways which hinder the infiltration of sociology and western cultural concepts into the Soviet world .
I think Moreno shows insight here into the world of difference between between sociology and revolutionary (scientific) socialism.
The work in Soviet Russia in this field suffered from Stalinist orthodoxy. This may require some careful exploration of Moreno’s criticism of orthodox (Stalinist) Marxism.
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To give an overview of where we are in “Who Shall Survive?” – we have traversed the Preludes, and are now well into the Introduction.
INTRODUCTION
SOCIAL AND ORGANIC UNITY OF MANKIND 3
The Problem of Natural Selection Within the Framework of Sociometry. 6
THE HISTORIC ROLE OF SOCIOMETRY 8
SOCIOMETRY, SOCIOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM 12
EMERGENCE OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD 21
EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL REVOLUTION 31
By the time we come to the end of the Introduction there are 21 mentions of Marx we have covered about 14.
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This post is part of a series.
See Intro Marx and Moreno Monograph