Neo-Sovietism, sometimes known as Re-Sovietization, is the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

–style of policy decisions in some

post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also referred to as the former Soviet Union or the former Soviet republics, are the independent sovereign states that emerged/re-emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prior to their independence, they ...

, as well as a

political movement A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...

of reviving the Soviet Union in the modern world or reviving specific aspects of Soviet life based on the

nostalgia for the Soviet Union The social phenomenon of nostalgia for the Soviet Union (), can include sentimental attitudes towards politics of the Soviet Union, its politics, Soviet people, its society, culture of the Soviet Union, its culture and cultural artifacts, Sovi ...

Neo-Sovietism in Russian state policies

According to

Pamela Druckerman Pamela Druckerman is an American-French writer and journalist living in Paris, France. In fall 2013, she became a contributing opinion writer for ''The New York Times International Edition''. Education and early life Pamela Druckerman grew up i ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', an element of neo-Sovietism is that "the government manages civil society, political life and the media". According to Matthew Kaminski of ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'', it includes efforts by Vladimir Putin to express the glory of the Soviet Union in order to generate support for a "revived Great Russian power in the future" by bringing back memories of various Russian accomplishments that legitimatized Soviet dominance, including the Soviet victory against

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. Kaminski continues on by saying that neo-Sovietism "offers up Russian

jingoism Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...

stripped bare of Marxist internationalist pretenses" and uses it to scare Russia's neighbours and to generate Russian patriotism and

anti-Americanism Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment and Americanophobia) is a term that can describe several sentiments and po ...

. Andrew Meier of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' in 2008 listed three points that laid out neo-Sovietism and how modern Russia resembles the Soviet Union: *Russia was a land of

doublespeak Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs and "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is ...

. Meier claims that Russia has deliberately distorted words and facts on various subjects, particularly regarding the

Russo-Georgian War The August 2008 Russo-Georgian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Georgia,Occasionally, the war is also referred to by other names, such as the Five-Day War and August War. was a war waged against Georgia by the Russian Federation and the ...

at the time by claiming that the United States instigated the conflict and that Georgia was committing

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

South Ossetia South Ossetia, officially the Republic of South Ossetia or the State of Alania, is a landlocked country in the South Caucasus with International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, partial diplomatic recognition. It has an offici ...

. *Russia was willing to enhance its power by any means possible, including harsh repression of its own citizens with examples being

Mikhail Khodorkovsky Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (, ; born 26 June 1963), sometimes known by his initials MBK, is an exiled Russian businessman, Russian oligarchs, oligarch, and Russian opposition, opposition activist, now residing in London. In 2003, Khodork ...

and the Mothers of Beslan. *Russia remains a land in which "fear of the state—and its suffocating reach—prevails" by introducing numerous laws that limit free expression and promote

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 l ...

. Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the United States. Foun ...

, claimed that Russia was undergoing the re-Sovietization of its democratic process, together with the re-Sovietization "of the whole Russian life." Baunov theorized that "Vladimir Putin is reconstructing...the environment, the time, the impressions of his youth n the Soviet Union" noting that under Putin's administration, Russia has reverted to many of the same norms with regards to political culture, society, and statecraft as the Soviet Union during the pre-

Glasnost ''Glasnost'' ( ; , ) is a concept relating to openness and transparency. It has several general and specific meanings, including a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information and the inadmissi ...

era.

Neo-Sovietism in Belarusian state policies

In 2021, Jim Heintz of the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

described Belarus as a neo-Soviet state due to the authoritarian nature of

Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the first and only president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994, making hi ...

's government and its largely state-controlled economy. According to Belarusian journalist Franak Viačorka, Belarus “clung to the traditions, symbols, and narratives of the USSR with more enthusiasm than any other former Soviet republic.” Viačorka asserts that the Belarusian government has deliberately retained many of "the specific statecraft and economic practices of the Communist era." Examples cited by Viačorka include

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

-style political youth organizations to obligatory university studies of the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany. A study by the Trans European Policy Studies Association described the Belarusian government's economic policies as neo-Soviet, due to the country's lack of well-defined private property rights and continued domination of the industrial sector by

state-owned enterprise A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a business entity created or owned by a national or local government, either through an executive order or legislation. SOEs aim to generate profit for the government, prevent private sector monopolies, provide goo ...

s inherited from the Soviet Union. In his book ''Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship'', political scientist Andrew Wilson described the Belarusian state ideology as neo-Soviet. Wilson noted that many authoritarian institutions inherited from the

Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; ; ), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a Republics of the Soviet Union, republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 19 ...

were preserved in Belarus after independence, including the local branch of the State Security Committee (KGB). Like its Soviet predecessor, the Belarusian government also retained strong control over mass media and the press, and even produced similar state propaganda.

Separatist republics in eastern Ukraine

Andrew Kramer of the ''New York Times'' claimed that the

Luhansk People's Republic The Luhansk People's Republic (LPR; , ) is a disputed territory administered as a republic of Russia in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast, with its capital in Luhansk. The LPR was proclaimed by Russian-backed paramilitar ...

and

Donetsk People's Republic The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR; , ) is Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, occupied territory in Ukraine that the Russian Federation has claimed to annex and declared as a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia, comprising parts o ...

established by Russian separatist forces in Ukraine were neo-Soviet states. Kramer observed that the separatist legislatures were modeled after the

Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet () was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). These soviets were modeled after the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, establ ...

, local industry was nationalized and seized by the separatist governments, and Soviet era agricultural collectives were revived. He also pointed out that some of the separatist political leaders, such as Boris Litvinov, were former dedicated members of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

, and remained sympathetic towards socialist ideology.

Neo-Soviet organizations

* All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1995) * All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1991) *

Armenian Communist Party The Armenian Communist Party (, ՀԿԿ; ''Hayastani Komunistakan Kusaktsutyun'', HKK) is a communist party in Armenia. It considers itself the successor to the Communist Party of Armenia (Soviet Union), Armenian branch of the Communist Party of th ...

* Azerbaijan United Communist Party * Communist Party of Abkhazia *

Communist Party of the Russian Federation The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; ) is a communist political party in Russia that officially adheres to Marxist–Leninist philosophy. It is the second-largest political party in Russia after United Russia. The youth o ...

* Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1992) * Communist Party of the Soviet Union (2001) *

Communist Party of Ukraine The Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU or KPU) is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 and claimed to be the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine, which had been banned in 1991. In 2002 it held a "unifi ...

Communists of Russia The Communist Party "Communists of Russia" (CPCR; ; ''Kommunisticheskaya partiya «Kommunisty Rossii»'', ''KPKR'') or simply Communists of Russia (CR; ; ''Kommunisty Rossii'', ''KR'') is an Anti-revisionism, anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism ...

* Essence of Time * National Bolshevik Front * National Bolshevik Party *

Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (, PCRM) is a communist party in Moldova led by Vladimir Voronin. It is the only communist party to have held a majority government in a post-Soviet state. It has been variously described as Com ...

* Russian Communist Workers' Party of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union *

Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP–CPSU) is a federation of communist parties in the post-Soviet states founded in 1993. Gennady Zyuganov has been the organisation's chairman since 2001. He replaced ...

* Union of Communists

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neo-Sovietism Leninism Stalinism Vladimir Putin Nostalgia for the Soviet Union Political movements Political theories Post-Soviet states Far-left politics

Neo-Sovietism in Russian state policies

Neo-Sovietism in Belarusian state policies

Separatist republics in eastern Ukraine

Neo-Soviet organizations

See also

References