Communism and Consumerism : The Soviet Alternative to the Affluent Society.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (196 pages)
- Eurasian Studies Library ; v.7 .
- Eurasian Studies Library .
Intro -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Acknowledgements -- About This Book -- Chapter 1 -- The Spirit of Consumerism in Russia and the West -- Timo Vihavainen -- The Problem of the Consumerist Mentality -- The Special Case of Russian and Soviet Consumerism -- Consumerism and Rationality in Europe -- The Birth of Consumerism as a Moral Revolution -- Rational Hedonism as the Ethical Norm in the West -- The Moralizing Anti-Hedonist Heritage of Marxism -- 'Russia's Specific Path of Development' and the Question of Consumerism -- Traditional Ideas Concerning Luxury and Opulence in a Land of Peasants -- The Antibourgeois Tradition in Early Twentieth Century Russian Culture -- Chapter 2 -- Consumerism and the Soviet Project -- Timo Vihavainen -- The Ideology: Focus on Leveling and Producing -- The Practice: From Scarcity for Everybody to Well-Being for the Best -- A Farewell to Leveling -- From 'Virtual Consumerism' to a Hunger for Goods -- Grande Finale: 'The Party Solemnly Declares: the Contemporary Generation of the Soviet People will Live in Communism!' -- 'Remnants of the Past' or Products of Socialist Society? Consumer Attitudes without Consumerism? -- Victory in the Wrong Race? -- Consumerism and the End of the Soviet Union -- 'The World Revolution of Consumerism' and Russia -- Russia - a Latecomer with a Special Heritage -- Chapter 3 -- The Ideology of Consumption in the Soviet Union -- Olga Gurova -- The Concept of Ideology -- Revolutionary Doctrine of Taste and Everyday Asceticism: The 1920s -- The Ideology of Kulturnost' and Legitimating of Consumption in the 1930s and 1940s -- The Ideology of Soviet Taste: The 1950s and 1960s -- The Ideology of Growing Materialization: The 1970s and 1980s -- After Socialism -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4 -- How and What to Consume: Patterns of Soviet Clothing Consumption in the 1950s and 1960s. Larissa Zakharova -- Evaluation of Needs and the Theory of Socialist Consumption -- Legal and Illegal Strategies of Buying Clothes -- Correlation between Socio-economic Factors and the Choice of Consuming Strategies -- Influence of the Cultural Factor on the Choice of Consumer Strategies -- Mechanisms in the Spreading of Fashion -- Conclusion -- Archival Materials -- Chapter 5 -- The Soviet Consumer - More than Just a Soviet Man -- Elena Bogdanova -- The Contradictions of Soviet Consumption -- What They Complained About -- Where They Lodged Their Complaints -- Complaints of Soviet Consumers in the Press -- The Book of Complaints and Suggestions -- Strategies Used when Writing Consumer Complaints -- Conclusions -- List of Quoted Interviews -- Chapter 6 -- Meshchanstvo or the Spirit of Consumerism and the Russian Mind -- Timo Vihavainen -- The Concepts of the Study -- The Intellectuals and the Intelligenty. Some Comparison -- The Aim of the Study -- The Techniques and the Sample -- 'Intelligent', 'Intelligentnost'' as Moral Categories -- Meshchanstvo -the Spirit of Consumerism -- Conclusion -- Chapter 7 -- Afterword -- Appendix -- Index.
This book studies the world of the Soviet consumer and the specific problems, which arose both for the consumer and the Soviet state in a command economy of chronic shortages. It concentrates on the latter half of the Soviet period, but also the longue durée of Russian consumerism is discussed.