''Homo Sovieticus'' (

Dog Latin Dog Latin or cod Latin is a phrase or jargon that imitates Latin, often by "translating" English words (or those of other languages) into Latin by conjugating or declining them as if they were Latin words. Dog Latin is usually a humorous devi ...

for "Soviet Man") is a pejorative for an average

conformist Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choo ...

person in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and other countries of the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

. The term was popularized by Soviet writer and sociologist

Aleksandr Zinovyev Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev (Russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Зино́вьев; October 29, 1922 – May 10, 2006) was a Soviet philosopher, writer, sociologist, and journalist. Coming from a poor peasant famil ...

, who wrote the book titled ''Homo Sovieticus''. Michel Heller asserted that the term was coined in the introduction of a 1974 monograph "Sovetskye lyudi" ("Soviet People") to describe the next level of evolution of humanity thanks to the success of

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

social experiment. In a book published in 1981, but available in ''

samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

'' in the 1970s, Zinovyev also coined an abbreviation ''homosos'' (''гомосос'', literally a ''homosucker'').

Characteristics

The idea that the

Soviet system The political system of the Soviet Union took place in a federal single-party soviet socialist republic framework which was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only party permitted by the Cons ...

would create a new, better kind of

Soviet people Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in t ...

was first postulated by the advocates of the system; they called the prospective outcome the "

New Soviet man 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 ...

". ''Homo Sovieticus'', however, was a term with largely negative connotations, invented by opponents to describe what they saw as the real result of Soviet policies. In many ways it meant the opposite of the New Soviet man, someone characterized by the following: * Indifference to the results of his labour (as expressed in the saying "They pretend they are paying us, and we pretend we are working"). * Lack of initiative and avoidance of taking any

individual responsibility In philosophy, moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission in accordance with one's moral obligations. Deciding what (if anything) counts as "morally obligatory" is a princi ...

for anything.

Jerzy Turowicz Jerzy Turowicz (; 10 December 1912 – 27 January 1999) was a leading Polish Catholic journalist and editor for much of the post-Second World War period. He was editor of the Catholic weekly ''Tygodnik Powszechny'' from 1945 until his death i ...

wrote: "it's a person enslaved, incapacitated, deprived of initiative, unable to think critically; he expects – and demands – everything to be provided by the state, he cannot and doesn't want to take his fate in his own hands". * Indifference to common property and to petty theft from the workplace, either for personal use or for profit. A line from a popular song, "Everything belongs to the

kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz., a contraction of советское хозяйство, soviet ownership or ...

, everything belongs to me" ("" / ''vsyo teperь kolkhoznoe, vsyo teperь moyo''), meaning that people on collective farms treasured all common property as their own, was sometimes used ironically to refer to instances of petty theft: "Take from the plant every nail, you are the owner here, not a guest" ("" / ''taschi s zavoda kazhdyj gvozd' - ty zdes' hozyain, a ne gost). * Chauvinism. The Soviet Union's restrictions on travel abroad and strict censorship of information in the

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

(as well as the abundance of

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

) aimed to insulate the Soviet people from Western influence. There existed non-public "ban lists" of Western entertainers and bands, which, in addition to the usual criteria of not conforming to fundamental Soviet values, were added to the list for rather peculiar reasons; one such example being the Irish band U2, the name of which resembled that of

Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day ...

, a high-altitude U.S. reconnaissance airplane. As a result, "exotic" Western popular culture became more interesting precisely because it was forbidden. Due to limited exposure, entertainers considered minor, B-list, or of low artistic value in the West were regarded as

A-list An A-list actor is a major movie star, or one of the most bankable actors in a film industry. The A-list is part of a larger guide called ''The Hot List'', which ranks the bankability of 1,400 movie actors worldwide, and has become an industry ...

in the Soviet sphere. Soviet officials called this fascination "Idol worshiping the West" ( / ''idolopoklonstvo pered Zapadom''). * Obedience to or passive acceptance of everything that government imposes (see

authoritarianism Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political '' status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...

). * In the opinion of a former US ambassador to Kazakhstan, a tendency to drink heavily: " Kazakh defence ministerappears to enjoy loosening up in the tried and true ''Homo Sovieticus'' style – i.e., drinking oneself into a stupor". According to

Leszek Kolakowski Leszek () is a Slavic Polish male given name, originally ''Lestko'', ''Leszko'' or ''Lestek'', related to ''Lech'', ''Lechosław'' and Czech ''Lstimir''. Individuals named Leszek celebrate their name day on June 3. Notable people * Lestko * Le ...

, the ''Short course'' history of the CPSU(b) played a crucial role in forming the key social and mental features of the Homo Sovieticus as a "textbook of false memory and double thinking". Over the years, Soviet people were forced to continuously repeat and accept constantly changing editions of the ''Short course'', each containing a slightly different version of the past events. This inevitably led to forming "a new Soviet man: ideological schizophrenic, honest liar, person always ready for constant and voluntary mental self-mutilations".

Critique of the term

According to the Russian scholar-educator Nikolay Nikandrov, the expression Homo sovieticus is an insulting name invented by the critics of Soviet power for the "new man" mentioned by the classics of Marxism-Leninism as part of the new historical community whose construction was declared in the

("Soviet people"). The contemporary American and Russian sociologist and

social anthropologist Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

Alexei Yurchak Alexei Yurchak (russian: Алексей Владимирович Юрчак) is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Born and raised in Leningrad, the Soviet Union, his research concerns Soviet history and post-S ...

believe that the constant reference to the expression Homo sovieticus in Western academic and publicist discourse manifested assumptions that socialism was "bad", "amoral" or "imposed", expressing ideas about the existence of socialism as such in the Soviet Union and, accordingly, about the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union. Sociologist Mikhail Gabovich compares Homo sovieticus to the original sin to which various disorder in human society is usually blamed. According to philosopher Artem Magun, the disappointment of a group of Russian intellectuals including Zinovyev and

Levada A levada is an irrigation channel or aqueduct specific to the Portuguese Atlantic region of Madeira. History In Madeira, the levadas originated out of the necessity of bringing large amounts of water from the west and northwest of the island ...

in the Soviet project had extremely negative consequences in the 1970s: elitism in the Soviet

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...

, the emergence of an anti-national and anti-populist pathos ("we are heavenly men, we think, but there is gloom and some anthropological degenerates around"). Despite the intellectuals' hypothetical affiliation with the Homo sovieticus, this approach was just a pretense, Magun concluded. Magun concludes that the hostility of the intelligentsia towards the people was the cause of its subsequent (in the 1990s) betrayal, which in turn led to the counter-attack of "Putinist populism".

''Homo post-sovieticus''

Since 1991 interest has extended to the phenomenon of ''homo post-sovieticus''. For example:

Characteristics

Critique of the term

''Homo post-sovieticus''

See also

References

Further reading