Theoretical Perspectives on the Soviet Union

Over the years, the history, political, social and economic issues concerning the USSR has had a great impact on the western civilization.  It is a fact that the Soviet Union emerged from World War II as one of the world’s superpowers. Since then, the USSR maintained its position for the few decades through its powerful domination in Eastern Europe (Eastern bloc) through its use of military and economic strength as well as introducing the theories of idealism, Marxism and Leninism. Without these theories, would not have what we see Russia today. These theories provide the filter in which we view the world and help facilitate different views on how we react for the future.

 Idealism can be interpreted as the willingness to sacrifice self interest for higher moral goals which the USSR followed. For the soviets, any idea other than communism was not considered as idealism (more or less the lack of idealism). The communism idealism reflected upon the optimistic idea of achieving a perfect utopian society under self-sacrifice. In theory, communism created a classless society of abundance and freedom which was the ideal of the soviets in their time which we all know marked the beginning of the cold war. 

Along with the idealist theory, Marxist ideology had the efforts to convince people to accept and recognize its immoral truth.  Marx believed that global problems progress through five different stages, but above all believed that capitalism will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. His promises involved the inability of the world’s working class to prevent war and its rejection of internationalism for nationalism.

Finally, Leninism had become one of the dominant branches of Marxism. Leninism refers to various related political and economic theories elaborated by Vladimir Lenin. Leninism holds that capitalism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means. Reform and survival were the key aspects of his theory which in later years Russia perused.  During the period of Stalin’s rule in the USSR, Marxism-Leninism was proclaimed as the official ideology of the state which in later years Mao (China) adapted and converted into Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. All theories mentioned on the above are what shape Russia today.