Homo Sovieticus

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Gessen’s Homo Sovieticus seems, in the end, more a projection of liberal disappointments in the post-Soviet years than a player in the country’s recent past. A fascinating but flawed account, The Future is History presents a Russia whose future in fact stands outside history, as its people are condemned decade after decade to rehearse the same drama of tyranny and obedience. Although Russia has no iron curtain and the internet is free, “it is as though an invisible wall still counterpoises everything that is ‘ours' to everything ‘foreign',” Mr Levada has written. Indeed his polling showed that, by 2004, the number of Russians who considered themselves no different from people in other countries had fallen, while the opinion that Russia is surrounded by enemies had grown stronger. When the Communist regime collapsed in 1991 there was an expectation, both in the West and in Russia, that the country would embrace Western values and join the civilised world. It took no account of a ruined economy, depleted and exhausted human capital and the mental and moral dent made by 70 years of Soviet rule. Nobody knew what kind of country would succeed the Soviet Union, or what being Russian really meant. The removal of ideological and geographical constraints did not add moral clarity. Terinspirasi oleh terminologi homo sovieticus, Jalaluddin Rakhmat merumuskan homo orbaicus sebagai karakter manusia penghambat perubahan sosial. Apakah, setelah lebih dari dua dasawarsa reformasi, kita masih mengindap homo orbaicus? What makes so many Russians numb to the suffering of Ukrainians or even their own hardships emerging because of the war?

What is particularly tragic is that despite shared religion, cultural features, and common traditions, for the last 10 months, millions of Russians have been watching the suffering of Ukrainians (who dress similarly to them, live in similar panelkaneighborhoods, many of whom speak Russian as their first language) while expressing no regret or much empathy for the victims. Russian sociologist Lev Gudkov, former director of the Analytical Center Levada, describes the makings of a "Soviet Man" as a lifelong socialization process, accompanied by a powerful propaganda machine, highly ideological education system, supported by a powerful apparatus of political repression, as well as various forms of social control, including neighbors, colleagues, or even family members.

25 Pages

There were gains made in combating illiteracy and promoting education for women during the 1920s. Soviet policy encouraged working-class women to attend school and develop vocational skills. There existed opportunities for women to participate in politics, become party members and vie for elected and administrative positions. Access to the political sphere, however, was extremely limited. [22] A pejorative term Homo Sovieticus is used to describe the concept in countries of the former Eastern Bloc. [27] [28] See also [ edit ] Communist Homo sovieticus ( псевдо- lat.— « гомо совєтікус», буквально «людина радянська»)— саркастичний і критичний термін, що вживається до середньостатистичної людини, яка народилася в Радянському Союзі або в одній з країн Східного блоку [1] і яка сприймає навколишній світ, використовуючи виключно систему мітів Радянського Союзу. The New Soviet man or New Soviet person ( Russian: новый советский человек novy sovetsky chelovek), as postulated by the ideologists of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was an archetype of a person with specific qualities that were said to be emerging as dominant among all citizens of the Soviet Union, irrespective of the country's cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity, creating a single united Soviet people and Soviet nation. [1] [2] Intent [ edit ] For a final note, here is a citation from Mark Zakharov's film "To kill a Dragon" (1988) based on the play of Yevgeny Schwartz: "What are you? … You are free people! Get up! You are slaves! /…/ I will now make everyone understand this and kill the Dragon in themselves! IN YOURSELF, do you understand that?"

Od tego momenty jest podmiotem praw i obowiazków. Jako podmiot praw i obowiazków, jest odpowiedzialny za siebie. Nie jest nie niewolnikiem. Dopier A very timely book about major attempts to analyse Soviet-Russian identity before and after the collapse of the USSR. Combining methodological clarity with empathy and erudition, the author rejects a reductionist 'totalitarian' approach in favour of nuanced observation. A useful corrective to any current analysis of Russia, in peace and at war. Russia was much freer in the 1990s than it became under Mr Putin. But the change was gradual rather than sudden, and was based on a relationship between money and power inherited from a previous era. The privatisations of the 1990s put property in the hands of the Soviet officialdom and a small group of Russian oligarchs. As Kirill Rogov, a historian and analyst, has observed, the real problem was not that the accumulation of capital was unfair—it usually is—but that clear rules of competition and a mechanism for transferring property from less to more efficient owners were never established. The consequences of this probihiting of every individual initiative and the denial of individual freedom.Homosos jest najbardziej charakterystycznym i adekwatnym ucielesnieniem samej istoty nowego komunistycznego spoleczenstwa.” (Zinoviev, 1984) Wlasnosc prywatna jest istotym zlem zycia spolecznego. Negacja posiadania nie tylko do tego, by zniesc prywatne posiadanie srodków producji, ale równiez ‘prywatne posiadanie siebie’. Trzeba uspolecznic czlowieka. Czlowiek musi uznac, ze jest wlasnoscia kolektywu.” (Tischner, 1992) Raikhel, Eugene (18 April 2013). "Placebos or Prostheses for the Will?: Trajectories of Alcoholism Treatment in Russia". In Eugene Raikhel and William Garriott (ed.). Addiction Trajectories. p.204. ISBN 978-0-8223-5350-8. Older patients, or "Soviet people," were often described as being more suggestible than younger people, an ascription that draws on a common stereotype of the sovok (or homo Sovieticus) as conformist and prone to manipulation through political propaganda. Yet the election results also revealed the reluctance of a large part of Russian society to carry on with the present system. Thousands of indignant men and women, young and old, tried to stop the fraud and protect their rights. One election monitor, who was thrown out of the polling station, wrote in his blog that “I thought I would die of shame…I did not manage to save your votes…forgive me.” Such voices may still be a minority, but the clash between these two groups was essentially a clash of civilisations—and a sign that the process of dismantling the Soviet system, which started 20 years ago, is far from over. The totalitarian and authoritarian delusion of wholeness, where history and every part of live was explained by the law of progression, sounded as a very attractive offer, it was considered to be the big new perspective. It however soon became fixed as a doctrine. The ideology of dialectial materialism was used to explain all social facts. All human beings were obliged to think in the same terms. Free autonomous thinking was not allowed. People ’s minds became captive. 2.1 The functioning of an ideology.