Daca v-ati intrebat vreodata ce este Homo sovieticus:

 Economic: An altruistic economic agent who will produce without economic incentives. This
agent is prepared to work for the sake of the common good, including overall production. At the
beginning of the twenty-first century this type of person is more mythical than real: homo
economicus is a more common species.
 Social: dubious concept, depicting the majority of communist citizens as obedient and helpless
victims of totalitarian rule in a command economy.
 Politic: a lowly creature that is still alive and is presumed to be responsible for Russia’s
throwback towards authoritarianism.
 Psihologic: “damaged” by the Soviet system, unable to bury their old ideas and practices and
refashion themselves along the western, liberal ideals
 Homo sovieticus cultural: a cultural syndrome resulting from the decades of real socialism
labeled as “civilizational incompetence”
 Ca si sindrom: the form of “spiritual enslavement” and individual incapacity to take
responsibility for life’s decisions

Based on these surveys, sociologists from the Levada group

suggested that the Soviet man was (a) simple and simplified (in a sense of

being obedient to authorities, modest and satisfied with what he/she has, living

as

“everyone

does,”

not

trying

to

stick

out,

not

trying

to

be

different

from

others), (b) isolated, (c) lacking choice, (d) mobilized, (e) hostage to the group,
and (f) hierarchical.

Furthermore, the fundamental features of homo sovieticus included a sense

Of exceptionalism, state paternalist orientations, and imperial character. These main traits, according to
Levada, resulted from a forced socialization process featuring tight control over information, vertical
social mobility mechanisms, and constant propaganda pressures. Levada also believed that this
personality type was not compatible with democratic norms and might become a break in the
transformation of post-Soviet society but he hoped that these features would go away as the social
institutions giving rise and supporting such personality type would be reformed.

Main traits: duplicity (dvoemyslie) or an ability to have double conscience resulting in a culture of
doublethink

 tolerates deception, but is willing to be deceived, and, what is more, constantly requires self-
deception
 duplicity developed as a structural result of state pressure and the violence that “produced a
total readiness to adapt in cunning ways to the system

readiness to accept paternalistic collectivism as a better form of life than risk-driven, freedom-

oriented experiences,” noting that “residual Bolshevism continues to be a

major component of the hybrid transitional culture of post-Soviet Russia

homo sovieticus, a fearful, isolated, authority-loving personality created by Communism

homo economicus (D0) ‘ECONOMIC MAN’ – the self-interested See also : altruism economic agent. In
CLASSICAL and NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS the UTILITY-MAXIMIZING objectives of individual economic
agents were taken

Rutherford, Donald. Routledge Dictionary of Economics, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/salford/detail.action?docID=1244570.
Created from salford on 2020-04-18 00:53:31

Capitalism from Ourside? : Economic Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, edited by Zentai
Violetta, and János Mátyás Kovács, Central European University Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/salford/detail.action?docID=3137338.
Created from salford on 2020-04-18 00:58:59.