The Soviet discourse on the origin and class character of Islam, 1923-1933

The article examines the growing radicalization of the Marxist anti-Islamic discourse
in the USSR as a case-study of "Soviet Orientalism". To which of Marx’s
five socio-economic formations should Muslim society be assigned? During the
relatively pluralistic period of the New Economic Policy (1921-1927) Marxist
scholars offered various answers. Many argued that Islam emerged from the trading
community of Mecca and was trade-capitalist by nature (M. Reisner, E. Beliaev,
L. Klimovich). Others held that Islam reflected the interests of the agri culturalists
of Medina (M. Tomara), or of the Bedouin nomads (V. Ditiakin, S. Asfendiarov);
and some even detected communist elements in Islam (Z. and D. Navshirvanov).
All authors found support in the Qurʾān and works of Western Orientalists. By
the late 1920s Marx’ and Engels’ scattered statements on Islam became central
in the discourse, and in 1930 Liutsian Klimovich rejected the Qurʾān altogether
by arguing that the book, as well as Muḥammad himself, were mere inventions
of later times. By the end of the Cultural Revolution (1929-1931) it was finally
"established" that Islam was "feudal" in character, and critical studies of Islam
became impossible for decades. The "feudal" interpretation legitimized the Soviet
attack on Islam and Muslim societies at that time; but also many of the Marxist
writers on Islam perished in Stalin’s Terror. We suggest that the harsh polemics
the authors directed against each other in the discourse contributed to their later
repression. By lending itself to the interests of the totalitarian state, Soviet Marxist
Islamology committed suicide—the ultimate form of "Orient alism".