The "Philosophical Steamer" is the general name for two voyages of the German passenger ships Oberbürgermeister Haken and Preussen, which in September and November 1922 transported over 160 representatives of the intelligentsia, including philosophers exiled from Soviet Russia, from Petrograd to Stettin.

Each exile was allowed to take only a minimal set of clothing: two pairs of long johns, two pairs of socks, a jacket, trousers, a coat, a hat, and two pairs of shoes. All their money and property were subject to confiscation.

In May 1922, V. I. Lenin proposed to replace the death penalty for those actively opposing Soviet power with exile abroad. He believed it was necessary to expand the use of execution with a replacement of exile, and to provide for execution for unauthorized return to the country. In a letter to F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Lenin expressed the opinion that the magazine "Economist" is a center for White Guards and counter-revolutionaries, and suggested systematically capturing and exiling these "military spies" abroad.

L. D. Trotsky commented on this action: "We exiled these people because there was no reason to shoot them, but it was impossible to tolerate them."