Abram Deborin

Who was Abram Deborin?

Abram Moiseyevich Deborin was a Soviet Marxist philosopher and academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Entering the revolutionary movement by the end of the 1890s, Deborin joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party in 1903. By 1907, however, he switched to the Menshevik faction and became known as one of Georgi Plekhanov's disciples, both in politics and philosophy. In 1908, Deborin graduated from the philosophy department at Bern University. He soon began publishing major books and articles on philosophy from a Marxist perspective.

Soon after the October Revolution of 1917, Deborin left the Mensheviks and began lecturing at the Sverdlov University, the Institute of Red Professors and the Institute of Philosophy. He soon assumed editorial duties at the journal, "Under the Banner of Marxism," which he headed from 1926-1931.

Following the 1917 October Revolution, Soviet philosophy found itself divided itself between two factions: the "dialecticians," headed up by Deborin, and "mechanists," whose leading figure was the philosopher Lyubov Akselrod.