Mark Borisovich Mitin — Chairman of the Board of the All-Union Society «Znanie» (1956-1960)

Mark Borisovich Mitin (real name Gershkovich; June 22 (July 5), 1901, Zhitomir — January 15, 1987, Moscow) was a Soviet philosopher, publicist, political and social activist, one of the main ideologists and apologists for Stalinism. He is the author of works on dialectical and historical materialism, «critique of bourgeois philosophy».

Member of the RCP(b) since 1919, member of the Central Committee (1939-1961). He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1950-1962).

Doctor of Philosophy (1934), Professor (1933), Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (28.01.1939).

He was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1943).

He was born in the family of a worker of Zhitomir factory of Caucasian silverware. In 1919 he was the first secretary of Zhitomir city organization of Komsomol, then of Volyn regional committee of Komsomol. In the years 1919-1920 he served in the Special Forces in Bogunsky Regiment, 44th Infantry Division. In 1920-1921 was on Komsomol work.

In 1921-1922 he attended an eight-month course at the Communist University named after Yakov Sverdlov, then worked as a teacher of social sciences in industrial-technical school factory «Trihgornaya manufactory.

From 1923 to 1925 he was in the Red Army, serving, among others, in the 14th Infantry Division.

He graduated from the philosophical department of the Institute of Red Professors (1929) where he studied from 1925. After graduation from the IKP he was appointed Deputy Rector of the Academy of Communist Education (ACE).

From 1931 he worked at the Institute of Philosophy of the Comacademy, on the basis of which in 1936 the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences was established, where Mitin continued to work until 1939 as deputy director.

From 1931 to 1944 he was editor-in-chief of the journal Under the Banner of Marxism. In 1939-1944 he was the director of the Marx — Engels — Lenin Institute (IMEL) of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

Member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1942-1946).

In 1944-1950 he was the executive secretary of the editorial board of Bolshevik magazine. From 1944 to 1950 he was head of the department of dialectical materialism in the Higher Party School in the Central Committee of the VKP(b). He was one of the authors-composers of the book «Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Short Biography» (1947).