What is it about?
The article looks at how today's Russian Marxists view both Soviet experiences and the reasons for Soviet collapse. It demonstrates that, while some of them see Soviet Union as a state-capitalist society, many also prefer to analyse it as a special type of post-revolutionary industrial society.
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Why is it important?
63% of Russians today say they are nostalgic about Soviet Union. This article helps to explain what frames of reference they have to analyse the significance of the Soviet experiences.
Perspectives
Soviet Union has disappeared 30 years ago, but Soviet nostalgia is still among the most important factors in post-Soviet politics. Moreover, China, a fellow party-state which was initially modelled on Soviet Union, is growing into world's second superpower now. That is why scholarly understanding of what Soviet Union actually was is so important.
Vladimir Tikhonov
Universitet i Oslo
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘The Soviet Problem’ in Post-Soviet Russian Marxism, or the Afterlife of the USSR, Historical Materialism, June 2021, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/1569206x-12341986.
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