So How Was It Really? On the History of the Rebirth of Sociology in the USSR

This article is devoted to the events taking place in the 1950–1960s during the rebirth of sociological science in the USSR (Russia). These events are considered from the point of view of their coverage in publications analyzing the difficult and complex path of the processes taking place in this period. This approach is based not on memories, individual impressions, but on a scrupulous analysis of the documents of those organizations that were involved in the fate of sociology – the CPSU Central Committee, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Philosophy, the first sociological groups and laboratories. This fundamentally new analysis, carried out by A.S. Kapto, shows the real process of the rebirth of sociology in the USSR (Russia), the difficult, complex and contradictory way of its formation, real participation of various groups of sociologists in the preparation and implementation of actions for the gradual institutionalization of sociology. The author reveals the fictions, questions reality of some processes, shows falsified pages of its development, the refutation of which is complicated by their close interlacing with actual events that have been interpreted in a particular way by certain authors, including G.V. Osipov.