Marxist Historian

The Marxist Historian (Russian: Историк-марксист) was a Soviet scientific journal published in Moscow in 1926–1941. Merged with the "Historical Journal". The first historical magazine, widely covering issues of national and world history, including the countries of the East. The journal published research articles, reviews, documents and official materials.

The appearance of the first issue of the magazine was noted in the newspaper Pravda (June 15 and July 7, 1926) and the magazine Bolshevik (No. 23–24, 1926).

Ideological support for the magazine came from the Press Department of the Central Committee of the All–Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and from the Agitation and Propaganda Department. The first provided the journal with constant assistance in the form of reports on the activities and approval of the composition of the editorial board. In turn, the board fulfilled the instructions of the leadership by reviewing the published historical literature (which included textbooks and teaching aids), and also compiled reviews and summaries of the current state of affairs in historical science. The press department asked historians to prepare memoranda for drawing up a plan for the development of the historical press in the Soviet Union, which should have included the content of historical journals and the essence of published articles, the authorship, as well as the order of work of the editorial board, circulation and volume.

At this time, the journal published reports on the activities of the Society of Marxist Historians, information about past meetings of the Council of the Society of Marxist Historians, the past work of sections, the Presidium of the Communist Academy, the results of scientific research, verbatim reports of scientific meetings, as well as individual reports and articles. The reports were devoted to issues of historical and revolutionary events (October Revolution, Revolution of 1905–1907, French Revolution, financial capitalism in Russia), historical and political figures (Nikolay Chernyshevsky), social and political movements (Thermidorian Coup, Trotskyists, opportunists). The magazine took a significant part in the preparation and conduct of the 1st All–Union Conference of Marxist Historians.

In 1926–1931, the journal was a print publication of the Society of Marxist Historians at the Communist Academy and its Institute of History of the Communist Academy. The Institute studied the history of the working class in the Soviet Union, the history of the peoples of the Soviet Union, as well as a broad development of the history of Western countries, which included the history of the Second International, the history of imperialism and the revolutionary movement. In the period from 1929 to 1935, about 65–70% of all materials were published by employees of the Institute of History of the Communist Academy.

In 1936–1941 – published by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. The journal created the column "On the Front of Historical Science", which published the decisions of the All–Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union on historical education, as well as reports on meetings of employees of research institutes and teachers of universities in the country, where these decisions discussed. After the transition of the journal to the jurisdiction of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, due to internal changes in the latter, difficulties arose in interaction between the editorial board and the directorate. In 1938, the executive secretary of the magazine, Boris Rubtsov, wrote that "only a very narrow group of authors was interested in the work of the Marxist Historian". Another executive secretary of the journal, in her report in February 1938, noted that there was an insufficient participation of the staff of the Institute of History in the work of the journal, and according to the estimates of the editorial board, only 35.7% of the authors of the articles were employees of the Institute of History. Nevertheless, in 1940, at a session of the Department of History and Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, in the report for 1939, it was noted that the journal took one of the first places in production.

During these years, with the participation of the journal, discussions were held at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union on the periodization of world history, on the essence of the social system of Kievan Rus, on the emergence of the Russian State, and the problem of the folding of the Belarusian and Ukrainian nationalities was also considered. A discussion was held on the issue of absolutism and autocracy, and there were also proposals to discuss the problem of disputes about Slavophilism. Along with the preparation of textbooks and multivolume editions, monographs were written on a wide range of topics: the history of the October Revolution, revolutionary movements in Russia in the 19th century, the French Revolution, Western European revolutions in the 19th century. The magazine first published chapters and sections from the prepared monographs of historians – Osip Pyatnitsky on the October Uprising in 1917 in Moscow, Alexander Molok on the July Revolution of 1830 and Evgeny Tarle on the Prairial Uprising of 1795. The works of Yevgeny Kosminsky about the English Village of the 13th century, Fyodor Potemkin about the Lyons Uprisings and Boris Grekov about Kievan Rus were reviewed. The magazine constantly published reviews of the "Materials on the History of the Peoples of the Soviet Union" published by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union and individual historical sources. And the staff of the Institute published reviews of the main stream of historical publications in the Soviet Union in the journal. Thus, at the suggestion of the staff of the sector of the history of the Middle Ages, the magazine published reviews of "Chronological Extracts" by Karl Marx.

The main departments in the journal were: