Alex Levant

The Soviet Union in Ruins Alex Levant

Contemporary scholarship tends to view the Soviet Union as a finished chapter in Russian and world history. However, the ruins of Soviet society continue to haunt the Russian body politic in profound ways. By examining parliamentary, street, and cultural politics, souvenirs, markets, and thinkers over a period of six months in Moscow, this book reflects on the significance of the ruins of the Soviet Union. These ruins include Soviet memorabilia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Lenin look-alikes in Red Square, the Soviet Anthem, the former speech writer for Yuri Andropov, May Day and Victory Day celebrations, as well as the work of Soviet philosophers, like Evald Ilyenkov and Merab Mamardashvili, literary theorists like Valentin Voloshinov, developmental psychologists like Lev Vygotsky, and many others. It analyzes the significance of these ruins using the work of the above Soviet thinkers and Western theorists, as well as contemporary Russian commentators, like Alexander Buzgalin and Vadim Mezhuev. This inter-disciplinary analysis should be of interest to scholars in various fields, including Political Science, Cultural Studies, and Social Theory.