Alexander Tarasov


Alexander Nikolaevich Tarasov is a Soviet and Russian left-wing sociologist, politologist, culturologist, publicist, writer, and philosopher. Up until the beginning of the 21st century he referred to himself as a Post-Marxist alongside István Mészáros and a number of Yugoslav Marxist philosophers who belonged to Praxis School and emigrated to London. Since in the 21st century the term Post-Marxism has been appropriated by Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe and their followers, Alexander Tarasov stopped referring to himself as a Post-Marxist.

Early political activity and arrest

In December 1972 – January 1973 together with Vasily Minorsky, Tarasov has founded a clandestine radical left group called the "Party of New Communists" , and became the group's informal leader in the summer of 1973. In 1974 PNC merged with another clandestine radical left group called “Left School" to form the “Neo-Communist Party of the Soviet Union" . Tarasov has become one of the NCPSU leaders and theorists, writing the party program, The Principles of Neo-communism in 1974. The KGB arrested him in 1975. Upon preliminary imprisonment and a yearlong confinement in a special psychiatric hospital he was released because the NCPSU case was never brought to trial. In the psychiatric hospital Tarasov was subjected to cruel treatment and to torture all resulting in severe somatic disorders, which A.Tarasov has been suffering from since his release, leaving him virtually disabled. After his release, Tarasov participated in restoration of NCPSU, which he had led until its self-dissolution in January 1985. In 1988, two State Psychiatric Commissions examined Tarasov and found him completely psychologically healthy.

Education and professional activities

Tarasov held many different jobs: he worked as a draughtsman; laboratory assistant in a design institute; graveyard warden at Vagankovo Cemetery ; machinist; boiler technician; librarian; editor; feldsher; gas boiler operator; bookkeeper at the Central Warehouse of Mikoyan Meat Processing Plant Corp.; light board operator at Moscow Hermitage Theatre ; research associate at the Centre for Scientific Analysis ; university teacher; consultant for the Ministry of Education and Science; political columnist; expert at Information Research Centre "Panorama" and Moscow Human Rights Committee; etc. He got a degree in Economics from All-Russian State Distance Learning Institute of Finance and Economics and a degree in History. When "perestroika" started, he soon firmly positioned himself as a professional sociologist and politologist.

Publishing and literary activity

In 1984 Tarasov started publishing his works in the USSR and in foreign press. In 1988, his articles started appearing in independent press and from 1990 he has been publishing his works in independent and official press under his own name.
In 1988 he founded the "Independent Archive" and in 1991 he became an associate at the Centre for New Sociology and the Study of Applied Politics "Phoenix". In 2004, he became a co-director of "Phoenix" and, in February 2009, its Director.
In the first half of 1993 Tarasov was one of the three editors of a monthly magazine called The House of the Unions, published by the same team as Solidarnost, the newspaper founded by the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions . The magazine had a circulation of 30,000. In his address to the readers of the first issue A.Tarasov has noted that The House of the Unions makes it its mission to "update Socialist thought" and "create a theory that matches current reality." After just five issues the magazine was closed down by Andrey Isaev, Editor in Chief of "Solidarnost", for non-conforming to the political line of MFP, i.e. for "excessive" radicalism.
In the second half of 1993 Tarasov was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper The Working Class Action; in 1993–1994 – a member of the editorial board of a counterculture magazine Vugluskr ; in the mid-1990s – political adviser for a radical student union "Students’ Advocacy".
Tarasov has penned more than 1100 publications in sociology ; politology
; history ; culturology
; economics. He is also a literary and movie critic. He has been the first to study and describe Nazi-skinhead subculture in Russia. A.Tarasov is the author of the first profound research on the influence of far-right ideas and organizations on the subculture of football fans in Russia.
In 2002 he was one of the founders, compilers and a scientific editor of a book series Zero Hour: Contemporary World Anti-Bourgeois Thought. He followed this with two additional book series: Class Struggle in 2005, and The Rose of the Revolution in 2006. These series include modern left-wing socio-political literature.
In addition to contributing to compiling and editing of these series, Tarasov takes on the role of a science editor and commentator on the works of famous left-wing thinkers: Leon Trotsky, Alain Badiou, Cornelius Castoriadis to name a few.

As a target of violence in post-Soviet Russia

On November 4, 1995, Tarasov was the victim of an unprovoked assault near his house: after calling him by name, unknown attackers beat him so severely that he lost consciousness. The attackers escaped with his passport, but did not take a large sum of money and valuables. Police opened a criminal investigation into the assault, but the attackers have never been found.
In 2008, neo-Nazis included A. Tarasov on the list of their enemies who must be physically exterminated. The list was published on radical right-wing sites.
In 2011, the Russian pro-Kremlin group "Nashi" named Tarasov among "168 most loathsome enemies" of the group's leader Vasily Yakemenko and of Vladimir Putin's regime.

Political differences with contemporary dissenters

Tarasov is known among Russian anarchists as a consistent critic, primarily of the practice of anarchism as fruitless and unpromising, and, to some extent, of its theory as outdated and unscientific. Tarasov’s criticism has caused open animosity towards him among anarchists.
Tarasov's reaction to 2011–2012 Russian protests was negative. He criticized the protests from the left, considering them to be the movement of petit bourgeoisie and "consumers' rebellion" alien to the goals and objectives of left-wing forces in Russia and irrelevant to the revolutionary struggle against capitalism.
Between 2002–2012 Tarasov actively participated in publication of the Scepsis journal, also contributing to its online version. He was responsible for some of the publications on the journal's website, collaborated with authors and translators as an editor and a curator. He had a noticeable influence on the political and theoretical stance of the journal, which is evident in the journal's and the website's mission statement, documenting some of Tarasov’s theoretical ideas, such as: defining the bureaucrat-bourgeoisie as the ruling class of modern Russia; characterization of Russia as a society of degrading peripheral capitalism; distinguishing between the concepts of "intellectuals" and "intelligentsia"; recognition of the rudimentary level of the left movement in Russia, etc. In addition, the mission statement of Scepsis contains references to five of Tarasov's writings. It is also known that A. Tarasov was one of the authors of the Scepsis's manifesto entitled "Do Not Fall into the Same Trap!" and dedicated to the "Bolotnaya" protests of 2011. His input into the manifesto was the idea of the necessity to organise grassroots "clusters of resistance… at work, at school, and in the neighbourhoods".
In 2012 A. N. Tarasov left the Scepsis due to ideological and political differences with the majority of its Editorial Board members, most of whom were the students and followers of Yuri Semenov. Tarasov's departure was preceded by his public polemics with Semenov.

Recognition and awards

Tarasov is an accomplished prose and poetry writer. He is also a translator from English and Spanish. Tarasov's works have been published, apart from Russia, in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece, Finland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Serbia, India, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Argentina, Cuba, Panama, South Africa, Morocco, Réunion, New Zealand, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, as well as in unrecognized Transnistria and Donetsk People's Republic. He is a laureate of the prizes of several literary magazines: “Druzhba Narodov”, “Yunost" and "Oktyabr'".
Since 2014 Tarasov's profile has been included in annual editions of Marquis Who's Who in the World.

Books