The Spirit of Socialism : Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse

The Spirit of Socialism is a cultural history of the Soviet collapse.It examines the millions of Soviet people who, during the cascading crises of the collapse and the post-Soviet transition, embarked on a spirited and highly visible search for new meaning.Amid profound disorientation, these seekers found direction in their horoscopes, or behind gurus in saffron robes or apocalyptic preachers, or by turning from the most basic premises of official science and history to orient themselves anew.The beliefs they seized on and, even more, the questions that guided their search reveal the essence of late-Soviet culture and its legacy in post-Soviet Russia. To skeptical outsiders, the seekers appeared eccentric, deviant, and above all un-Soviet.Yet they came to their ideas by Soviet sources and Soviet premises.As Joseph Kellner demonstrates, their motley beliefs reflect modern values that formed the spiritual core of Soviet ideology, among them a high regard for science, an informed and gene