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The New Soviet Man: Myth and Reality
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13982 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1988 |
4,198 Words |
| Author
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Dmitry Mikheyev
Dmitry Mikheyev is a former Soviet physicist who was
imprisoned for six years in a Mordovian camp for political
prisoners. Expelled from the Soviet Union in 1979, he has
since authored The Soviet Perspective on the Strategic Defense
Initiative. He is presently a broadcaster, writer, and
consultant on Soviet affairs. |
It is a long-standing tradition to characterize Russia as an "unintelligible country" or, to quote the famous dictum of Winston Churchill, "a riddle enshrined in a mystery and wrapped in an enigma." At the core of this riddle is, no doubt, the Russian national character--the so-called mysterious Slavic soul--which, in the view of both Western and Russian observers, is such a bizarre combination of opposites that it hardly lends itself to any rationally plausible interpretation. Indeed, it is difficult to construe a social-psychological frame of reference within which one could adequately account for the existence in one people, let alone in one and the same individual, of such contradictory features as cruelty and warm heartedness, curiosity and dogmatism, anarchism and adherence to social order, laziness and bursts of energy, erratic behavior and great patience, disorderliness and a passion for meticulous planning, and cautious aversion to risk-taking and foolhardiness.
This is not to say that scholars have not attempted to elaborate theories explaining such contradictions; in fact, quite a few theories have been offered. From one, we learn that the explanation of the Russian character lies in geography: the vast expanse of territory without natural boundaries or access to warm seas, the absence of convenient trade routes, monotonous forest plains devoid of inspiring diversity, inexhaustible supplies of wood as the staple building material, and so on. In another, the climate, with its multiple effects of long, cruel winters and short, hot summers, has been singled out as the key for understanding the Russians. Other candidates for this role of demystification of the Russian character include: the rigidity of the Russian Orthodox God, who invoked fear rather than love; the tradition of swaddling babies; or even, latent homosexual tendencies. Although most of these theories have fallen into oblivion after their initial moment of glory, they, and any others, have at least a grain of truth. Though incapable of individually providing an adequate conceptual framework, these theories give some insight when combined into a pattern. The problem then is not in finding a single, completely accurate theory, but in integrating all the possible concepts into a single coherent structure. It seems to me that this problem could be best solved by employing the concept of mentality.
Patterns of Perception
Mentality, in my view, is largely determined by the basic perception of the environment, life, and time--seemingly genetically based,--which develop in very early childhood and persist throughout life. Experiences in adolescence
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