Stalin’s critique of the idea of the class character of language

Abstract

Shedding light on the different Soviet linguistic approaches to the phenomenon of the class character of language, this paper shows that Stalin’s 1950 critique of Nikolaj Marr’s views echoed criticism that had already been addressed to Marr by his contemporaries. The idea of the class character of language did not amount to a single coherent theory, in Soviet linguistics, of social and linguistic structures, but in many cases remained an abstract theoretical construct. Even if some linguists manifestly subscribed to the Marrist dogma, it did not immediately follow that the idea of the class character of language had exerted significant influence on the actual analysis of language material.