Obshestvovédeny or Obshchestvovédeniye (russian: Обществоведение) is a

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

and eponymous academic subject in a Soviet school. As a subject, it was taught from the 1960s to 1991 throughout the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and covered all the three constituent parts of

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various c ...

. These component parts of Marxism, according to Lenin and his Soviet adherents, are Marxist-Leninist philosophy (

dialectical Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...

and

historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

, and

scientific communism Scientific Communism (russian: Научный коммунизм, ''Nauchny kommunizm''), as one of three major elements of Marxism, is "the science dealing with general socio-political laws and patterns, ways, forms and methods of changing societ ...

Overview

Soviet Union

For the first time the school program was approved by the

People's Commissariat for Education The People's Commissariat for Education (or Narkompros; russian: Народный комиссариат просвещения, Наркомпрос, directly translated as the "People's Commissariat for Enlightenment") was the Soviet agency charge ...

in 1925. The peculiarity of the subject was to develop a system of views on the world among students of secondary schools, covering all the phenomena occurring in it and giving students a unified understanding and explanation of these phenomena through the prism of Marxist-Leninist philosophy (In other words, the subject was also a complex of

social Sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

, but from a Marxist point of view). In the USSR education system, social studies was a mandatory course for all senior-class secondary-school students and represented the world as Soviet officials wanted their young people to see and understand it. In order to indoctrinate students about Communism, the course contained "much distortion, half-truth, and deliberate falsification." The Soviet textbook of social studies included: : ''1.

Dialectical Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...

and

— the basis of the scientific worldview.'' : ''2. Socialism — the first phase of Communist society.'' : ''3. The Communist party — the leading and guiding force of Soviet society.'' : ''4. Ways of gradual development of socialism into communism.'' : ''5. XX century — the century of the triumph of communism.''

Russia

After the

collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

in the Russian school and CIS schools since 1992 the subject was canceled. The factual information previously contained in the subject began to be taught within the framework of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

. Since 2000, the subject has been returned to secondary school as a complex of Sciences, including: philosophy,

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

. As an independent educational subject has been preserved in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

References

Bibliography

; Articles * * Wojciech Siegień (2016)
Naprzód ku przeszłości! Nauczanie historii a zmiany ideologii państwowej w Rosji na początku XXI wieku
Forum Oświatowe, 28 (2), 185–202. * Yevgeny Bukhtoyarov (2015)
The emergence of Obshestvovedeny
(in Russian). (15.08.2015) ; Books *

External links

* * {{cite book , editor1-last=Shakhnazarov , editor1-first=Georgy , editor1-link= Georgy Shakhnazarov , title=Social Science: A Textbook for Soviet Secondary Schools , date=1964 , publisher=U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Technical Services,

Joint Publications Research Service The Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) was a United States government defense-funded organization that was absorbed into the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) but its funding and personnel did not transfer. For all practical purp ...