The Rise and Decline of Soviet Morality: Culture, Ideology, Collective Practices

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.106

Abstract

In the article, it is proposed that the collapse of Soviet society was presaged by a growing crisis in late Soviet morality. On the periphery of late Soviet morality, collective cultural practices are seen to have successfully functioned based on a limited ethics of virtue. In the absence of an alternative to Soviet ideology, social regulation started to draw upon values intended for the reproduction of local communities. A growing contradiction between the limited values of the new social class/corporate entities and the need to develop universal values for a big society is currently the key ideological legitimation problem facing the Russian political order.

Author Biographies

Victor S. Martianov, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia

Victor S. Martianov, Candidate of Political Sciences, Director, Institute for Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yekaterinburg, Russia). His research interests are focused on contemporary political philosophy, and theory and methodology of socio-political sciences. He has elaborated the concept of meta-language of socio-political sciences, studied the political concept of Modernity, and introduced the original approach towards the stratification of contemporary societies. The main publications include the following: The Evolutions of Russian Political Discourse: from “Western Democracy” to “the Quality of Democracy” (2005), The Decline of Public Politics in Russia: from Public Politics to Political Administration: the Depoliticization of the Regions (2007), Apologia of Modernity (2017).

Leonid G. Fishman, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia

Leonid G. Fishman, Doctor of Political Science, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yekaterinburg, Russia). Research interests: ideology and utopia, ideology and morality, political discourses in fiction, modern society transformations, the evolution of capitalism. Author and co-author of the monographs "Waiting for Ptolemy" (2004), "Postmodern Trap: The Way There and Back" (2004), "Science Fiction and Civil Society" (2009), "Russia in Search of Utopias" (2010), "Russia in Search of Ideologies: The Transformation of Value-Based Regulators in Modern Societies " (2016), " Rental Society: In the Shadow of Capital, Labor and Democracy” (2019). Нe is the author of a number of publications in Russian and foreign scientific journals.

References


  • Arkhipova, A., & Kirzyuk, A. (2020). Opasnyye sovetskiye veshchi. Gorodskiye legendy i strakhi v SSSR [Dangerous Soviet Things. Urban Legends and Fears in the USSR]. Moscow: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye.

  • Bogdanov, K. A. (2009). Vox populi: Fol'klornyye zhanry sovetskoy kul'tury [Vox Populi: Folk Genres of the Soviet Culture]. Moscow: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye.

  • Cantor, M. K. (2011). Apostol revolyutsii (V. V. Mayakovskiy) [Apostle of the Revolution (V. V. Mayakovsky)]. In S. V. Drugoveiko-Dolzhanskaya (Ed.), Literaturnaya matritsa. Uchebnik, napisannyy pisatelyami. XX vek [Literary Matrix. A Textbook Written by Writers. XX century] (pp. 195–264). St. Petersburg: Limbus Press.

  • Dobrenko, E. (2007). Politekonomiya sotsrealizma [Political Economy of Socialist Realism]. Moscow: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye.

  • Dragunsky, D. (2019, November 15). “Serzhant” ushel v otstavku [“Sergeant” Resigned]. Gazeta.ru. Retrieved from: https://www.gazeta.ru/comments/column/dragunsky/12811208.shtml?updated

  • Efremov, I. A. (2020). Tumannost' Andromedy [The Andromeda Nebula]. Moscow: AST. (Originally published in Russian 1957)

  • Fishman, L. G. (2014). Krizis morali kak krizis ideologiy? [The Crisis of Morality as a Crisis of Ideologies?]. Prostranstvo i Vremya, 1(15), 19–25.

  • Fishman, L. G., & Martianov, V. S. (2016). Etika dobrodeteli dlya novykh sosloviy: transformatsiya politicheskoy morali v sovremennoy Rossii [Ethics of Virtue for New Estates: Transformation of Political Morality in Modern Russia]. Voprosy filosofii, 10, 58–68.

  • Fishman, L. G., Martianov, V. S., & Davydov, D. A. (2019). Rentnoye obshchestvo: v teni truda, kapitala i demokratii [Rental Society: In the Shadow of Capital, Labor and Democracy]. Moscow: HSE Publishing House. https://doi.org/10.17323/978-5-7598-1913-4

  • Glinchikova, A. G. (2011). Modernizatsiya, traditsiya i evolyutsiya chastnogo interesa [Modernization, Tradition and Evolution of Private Interest]. Politiko-filosofskiy yezhegodnik, 4, 155–180.

  • Gudkov, L. (2013). Chelovek v nemoral'nom prostranstve: k sotsiologii morali v posttotalitarnom obshchestve [Man in the Non-Moral Space: Towards the Sociology of Morality in a Post-Totalitarian Society]. Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniya, 3–4(116), 118–179.

  • Ivankina, G. (2015). Sovetskaya kul'tura kak dvoryanskaya estetika [Soviet Culture as a Noble Aesthetics. Blog post]. Retrieved from: https://www.ridus.ru/news/191190

  • Karacharovsky, V. V., Shkaratan, O. I., & Yastrebov, G. A. (2015). Russkaya kul'tura truda i inostrannoye vliyaniye [Russian Culture of Work and Foreign Influence]. Moscow: Strana Oz.

  • Kara-Murza, S. G. (2005). Manipulyatsiya soznaniyem [The Manipulation of the Mind]. Moscow: Eksmo.

  • Kharkhordin, O. V. (2002). Oblichat' i litsemerit': genealogiya rossiyskoy lichnosti [Reveal and Hypocrite: Genealogy of the Russian Personality]. St. Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo Yevropeyskogo Universiteta.

  • Martianov, V. S. (2007). Ideologiya Vladimira Putina: kontseptualizatsiya poslaniy Prezidenta Rossii [The Ideology of Vladimir Putin: Conceptualization of the Messages of the President of the Russian Federation]. Politicheskaja ekspertiza: POLITEKS, 3(1), 147–175.

  • Martianov, V. S. (2017). Doveriye v sovremennoy Rossii: mezhdu pozdnim Modernom i novoy soslovnost'yu? [Trust in Contemporary Russia: Between Late Modernity and New Estate Order?]. Antinomii, 17(1), 61–82. https://doi.org/10.17506/ryipl.2016.17.1.6182

  • Orekhovsky, P. A. (2019). Struktury kognitivnosti i rossiyskiye reformy [Cognitive Structures and Russian Reforms; scientific report]. Moscow: Institute of Economics, RAS.

  • Ossovskaya, M. (1987). Rytsar' i burzhua [Knight and the Bourgeois]. Moscow: Progress.

  • Panfilov, O. (2016, March 7). Litsemeriye sovetskikh rabov [Hypocrisy of Soviet Slaves]. Krym.Realii. Retrieved from: https://ru.krymr.com/a/27593417.html

  • Ponomarev, E. (2017). Literatura v sovetskoy shkole kak ideologiya povsednevnosti [Literature in the Soviet School as Everyday Ideology]. Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye, 3(145), 120–138.

  • Rakitin, A. (2016). “Sotsializm ne porozhdayet prestupnosti”: seriynaya prestupnost' v SSSR [“Socialism Does Not Breed Crime”: Serial Crime in the USSR]. Yekaterinburg: Kabinetnyy uchenyy.

  • Rutkevich, M. N. (1998). Protsessy sotsial'noy degradatsii v rossiyskom obshchestve [The Processes of Social Degradation in Russia's Society]. Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, 6, 3–12.

  • Shubin, A. V. (2008). Dissidenty, neformaly i svoboda v SSSR [Dissidents, Informals and Freedom in the USSR]. Moscow: Veche.

  • Simonyan, R. (2011). Reformy 1990-kh godov: otsenka segodnya [Reforms of the 1990s: Assessment Today]. Rossiya i sovremennyy mir, 1(70), 113–131.

  • Sokolov, R. V. (n.d.). Istoriya kommunarstva: retrospektiva i perspektiva v kontekste obshchestvenno-pedagogicheskogo dvizheniya [The History of Communism: a Retrospective and Perspective in the Context of the Socio-Pedagogical Movement]. Retrieved from: http://www.altruism.ru/sengine.cgi/5/22/7

  • Stepanova, E. (2019). Competing Moral Discourses in Russia: Soviet Legacy and Post-Soviet Controversies. Politics, Religion & Ideology, 20(3), 340–360. https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2019.1656070

  • Stolyar, M. B. (2010) Religiya sovetskoy tsivilizatsii [Religion of Soviet Civilization]. Kiev: Stilos.

  • Voeikov, M. (2015) Vpered k kapitalizmu? K voprosu o predstoyashchey stadii sotsial'no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya Rossii [Forward to Capitalism? On the Upcoming Stage of Socio-Economic Development of Russia]. Svobodnaya mysl', 4, 126–139.

  • Volkenstein, M. (2018). Raznoobraziye i prisposoblenchestvo. Kak i v chem moderniziruyetsya rossiyskoye obshchestvo [Diversity and Adaptation. How and in What is Russian Society being Modernized]. InLiberty. Retrieved from: https://www.inliberty.ru/article/modern-volkenstein/

  • Yurchak, A. (2014). Eto bylo navsegda, poka ne konchilos’. Posledneye sovetskoye pokoleniye [Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation]. Moscow: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye (in Russian, authorized translation).

  • Zinoviev, A. (1994). Kommunizm kak real'nost'. Krizis kommunizma [Communism as a Reality. The Crisis of Communism] (Grekov L. I., Ed.). Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf.

Published
2020-10-09
How to Cite
Martianov, V., & Fishman, L. (2020). The Rise and Decline of Soviet Morality: Culture, Ideology, Collective Practices. Changing Societies & Personalities, 4(3), 372–395. doi:10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.106
Citation Formats
Issue
Vol. 4, No. 3 (2020): Special Issue “Nationalisms in Times of Change, Changes in Nationalism”
Section
Opening the Debate