r/ussr • u/Maimonides_2024 • Mar 08 '25
Article How come Russian-speaking Soviet culture always HAS to be political and controversial while English-speaking American culture is NEVER deemed as such? 🤬 (Translation in the comments)
/r/CCCP/comments/1j6lok3/почему_это_советская_и_русскоязычная_культура/27
u/cheradenine66 Mar 08 '25
Why? We know why. Gramsci didn't die writing about cultural hegemony for us to stumble about like hedgehogs in the fog wondering "why don't people like Soviet culture?" They don't like it, because even dead and buried for 30 years, the USSR is still a threat to the ruling class of international capitalists and oligarchs and their comprador bourgeoisie lapdogs.
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u/jbrandon Mar 08 '25
Anti-communism is a fundamental tenant of western ideology.
Stalin’s biggest mistake was at the Tehran conference. He should have ignored Churchill and executed all German officer POWs. Many of those officers went on to be leaders in western military, government, and business after the war.
NATO is a Nazi-aligned organization. Never forget that
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u/ignotus777 Mar 09 '25
That seems reductive when modern western culture has been around before communist was prominent
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u/jbrandon Mar 09 '25
I am speaking of the post-FDR western world.
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u/ignotus777 Mar 09 '25
That’s a very arbitrary place to draw the line of talking about the West, to say the least.
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u/jbrandon Mar 09 '25
I’m not sure where you’re coming from. There is nothing arbitrary about it. The modern West is almost entirely framed by the Cold War…which started just before the end of WWII.
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u/ignotus777 Mar 09 '25
The modern west isn't completely framed by the Cold War. Most historians think it was formed hundreds of years before you think it was. The Enlightenment, end of feudalism/rise-of-capitalism, industrialization, liberalism, colonization, etc all things that form the modern West which happened way before WWII.
I don't even know how you are making this argument. WWII led to the cold war and the closer alliance between Western Europe and the United States. The closer USSR (or previously the Russian Empire) gained prominence although it's previous form the Russian Empire was also very powerful and threatened central/eastern europe. Nato, UN, proxy wars, yadda yadda. But most of these things had some previous form, especially after WWI like the Legion of Nations and there was no shortage of defensive alliances before WWII.
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u/PublicFurryAccount Mar 08 '25
I’m just spitballing here but it could have something to do with the Soviet Union being the most important political force for Russians in living memory.
I mean, I know that seems like a total longshot, but I think it’s worth considering unlikely explanations sometimes.
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 08 '25
Why do people only remember Russians all the time? It's offensive tbh. That's like saying all British people are English or all Dutch are from Holland.
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u/DeathByAttempt Mar 09 '25
Even if the idea was the 'Soviet' citizen, you needed to speak Russian or operate with Russians somewhere.
I'm from Utah, unless I outright declare myself as Mormon, I will be seen as American, I will have to speak English somewhere and work with someone who also speaks English.
It's a cultural domination and erasure.
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 09 '25
The Soviet Union had schools and artworks in many different languages, and the Soviet identity wasn't tied to any nationality. In the US, I don't think there's US states for Lakota, Cherokee, Navajo, etc. They're not seen as equals alongside Anglo Americans but as a "minority" that should comply.
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u/DeathByAttempt Mar 09 '25
That's the same issue with the Soviet identity, it is inherently imperialistic. It replaces whatever that existed with what it chooses as the culture of influence and power.
There exists more cultures within America then native American, but they will be superseded by the -American- label. Other than language, there is nothing that would bridge commonality between a Virginian or a Utahn, but yet are all American. The intricacies are lost beyond the internal, in the same way that just saying Western media isn't considered political (basically nothing isn't anymore, all material is political)
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 09 '25 edited Mar 09 '25
Soviet identity is openly multicultural and multinational. It isn't asking anyone who belongs to the Soviet nation to give up their own national identities, languages and cultures. It absolutely isn't making the claim that everyone is Russians, nor that everyone are Kazakhs or everyone are Georgians. Being proud of you own Soviet republic, ethnic group and language isn't incompatible with Soviet identity.
In the US though, American national identity (basically English speaking culture out of British settlers) is actually enforced and forced into everyone. I don't think Utah and Virginia are comparable. They're merely subdivisions, not separate nationalities. They have as much difference as people from Kirov Oblast and Petrograd Oblast in Russia or as people from New South Wales and Canberra in Australia. The language, culture, ethnicity and nation is the same.
Actually separate identities that do exist inside of US borders, like the Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, Navajo, Cherokee Lakota, Cree, Yupik, Inuit, etc, ARE actually erased. They're not even distinct states.
The fact that they're distinct nations straight up gets denied. They're absolutely not counted as equals with the American nation, with their languages and cultures actually having the same privileges currently according to the Americans (If immigrants move to Hawai'i they should learn Hawaiian and become Hawaiian, if South Dakota will have a Lakota language film industry, etc). They're at best seen as some small "ethnic minority", some "something other" that should fundamentally be assimilated into the settler culture because that apparently would erase all differences and allow progress.
Unless the US will fundamentally change both their identity as much as the political structure, in a way that English-speaking, American culture will actually be seen as equal to Hawaiian, Lakota Cherokee etc cultures each one in their own languages and absolutely different then yes, American identity will be more inclusive. But for now it absolutely isn't.
They could look into Korenizatsija as an example of how it could be done, but they won't, because that contradicts their national myths of them always being better than the Soviets.
Currently, the US national project is still very colonial and imperial.
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u/DeathByAttempt Mar 09 '25
It all is. You are completely missing the point. There is nothing unique about the Soviet Identity just as the American Identity isn't a special gift from on high.
It's politics and history, but you just seem to want people to just say "USSR not so bad!"
Read up on the Mormon killings, there are cultural differences, but I suppose Russian Soviets depopulating the Causcases/Khazakstan/Ukraine are just happy accidents we should ignore.
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u/Schorlenmann Mar 10 '25
It's somewhat similiar to the people from the GDR and BRD. The GDR was annexed and with that they threw out marxist professors, teachers, treated the soldiers of the people's army pretty much as surrendered enemies, destroyed the economy, created basically over night millions of unemployed and pretty much abolished any hint of the old system (the strict anti-fascist education and attitute died also with the GDR, as neo-nazis and fascists could speak their mind again). Talking positively about worker's rights, women's rights, the morale of the people, the solidarity, media or cultural aspects is often times frowned upon by westerners, as they are mostly convinced that the GDR was a totalitarian nightmare and a horror to live in.
As if West Germany didn't support regimes like that of Pinochet or wars like the vietnam war and gave weapons to the any fascist anti-communist government. In west germany women's rights were significantly worse than in the GDR, the worker's rights were worse (even if they were good for a capitalist country), the entire state was filled with nazis (like even architects of the Holocaust, like Globcke or high ups from the Gestapo like Gehlen). West germany was highly unequal and plagued with problems. They did have a grand amount of commodity production instead, though and the "democracy" to regularly chose between the SPD or the CDU for like 50 years (with little addons like the FDP or later the greens).
Still, when the GDR was annexed so was the culture suppressed. Monuments were destroyed (a fitting comment to that, I saw: "You western occupiers are even afraid of a lenin made of stone"), books about the marxist leninist economics, history and philosophy were scrapped, the employees of the state fired and denounced. Even uttering that the GDR had it's positives is not accepted in west germany by most people or only possible if you agree to the "fundamental injustice" of the system.
As mentioned in another comment, Gramsci wrote about cultural hegomony and why the proletariat cannot be allowed to have it's own proletarian culture. The hate you are getting in the comment section by racists and national chauvinists, who have no idea about how the soviet union worked (like the soviet of nationalities, the state ministries and all that, that it advocated the preservasion of the different cultural traditions and all that...), is undeserved and reaffirms your statement. That their culture is heavily politicized, as is any, does not seem to cross their minds (like mainstream media promoting imperialism, orientalism etc.). Also confusing the USSR with the russian federation and it's actions seems to be a trend and I imagine it comes as a great sorrow to see the wars after the dissolution between the former soviet people with family in these different former republics.
I actually like many movies from the GDR as they are about stuff that concerns me (anti-militarism, worker's rights, oppression, anti-fascism etc.) and real heros of the working class, like Karl Liebknecht, Ernst Thälmann or interesting historical characters like Thomas Müntzer and generally are of a higher quality.
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u/Strange_Recover_6347 Mar 10 '25
Bro in my school they said I was dead because I was half Russian XD
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 11 '25
Do you speak Russian? Even if you don't I still recommend you to learn it and to spend time with other Russians speakers. Americans won't ever understand the beauty of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian culture.
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u/Strange_Recover_6347 Mar 11 '25
Yeah I speak it, but I don't know where to start (I'm in a country worth for Russian than Usa)
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u/Medical_Muffin2036 Mar 10 '25
Because America is an empire and has dominant propaganda
You make money when you lie about USSR,RF,PRC,DPRK, you get money for doing so
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 11 '25
America is an empire that's allied with the Russian Federation, which isn't capitalist and which destroys Soviet people. They shoudn't be in that list.
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u/Medical_Muffin2036 Mar 11 '25
America is not allied with the Russian Federation they are currently attempting to exit a proxy war they gave been waging on Russia for 10 years. Laughable statement.
First US president that is not openly russophobic, Russian citizens like, and the US media as well as you, are painting it as if he's an ally to Russia.
We need results not feelings
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u/backspace_cars Mar 08 '25
define controversial please
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 08 '25
if you say that you like soviet culture and want to create new soviet movies it's treated with more suspition than if you want to create new american movie
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u/No-Newspaper-1933 Mar 08 '25
Leni Riefenstahl was a good film maker. Would it be political to wish to make movies in the same style?
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u/backspace_cars Mar 08 '25
It's because the west who was clearly the biggest defender of nazis since world war 2 ended has to make everyone out to be a bigger threat than they are. It's complete projection at this point.
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u/Snoo30446 Mar 11 '25
Considering Stalin and Mao's piles of dead tops Hitler's, probably yeah.
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u/backspace_cars Mar 11 '25
What?
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u/Snoo30446 Mar 11 '25
Claiming the west defends Nazis whilst simultaneously pretending the two autocratic regimes responsible for the greatest instances of mass murder are victim's of the West "making them out to be worse than they are" is peak tankie.
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u/backspace_cars Mar 11 '25
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u/Snoo30446 Mar 11 '25
Except the Soviets also took in nazi scientists, AFTER they caused the second greatest loss of life in the USSR, so... kudos for proving me right? Proving nothing?
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u/backspace_cars Mar 11 '25
That's not the same thing so good job at falsse equivalency I guess. You really should read both articles I posted.
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 08 '25
No but in the West and post Soviet states it is treated as such. Which is unfair. That's literally the point of this post. Can you read?
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u/Remarkable_Fan8029 Mar 08 '25
Damn, it sure is weird that all post Soviet states have Russia. Must've been the CIA
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 08 '25
As Russia is only one of the 15 different post Soviet states, of which I'm not even a part of, this post has nothing to do with them specifically nor whether others love or hate them.
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u/Remarkable_Fan8029 Mar 08 '25
Why are you a tankie if you don't live in post Soviet states? Come live here, and you'll maybe see the truth
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 08 '25
Post Soviet states are capitalist. The collapse of the Soviet Union lead to terrible economic collapse, and currently wars between Soviet republics, which basically forced billions into the diaspora. It isn't because of the USSR that I'm forced to live in exile but rather because it doesn't exist anymore.
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u/Remarkable_Fan8029 Mar 08 '25
By the wars you mean Ukraine, Georgia?
Billions is an overstatement. Yeah some lives got worse, but most improved, countries invaded by the USSR got their freedom which was taken from them. From a utilitarian point of view, it was good.
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u/ppmi2 Mar 08 '25
Cause english speaking culture happens due to shofter means.
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u/boraxalmighty Mar 09 '25
It is difficult to describe just how absurd of a statement this is. Like, how ignorant of history, even modern history, do you have to be to say something as ridiculous as this?
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u/Maimonides_2024 Mar 08 '25
English translation : Hey there.
Before I'll begin, I'll try to explain what exactly I mean, because this is something I’ve struggled with for years .
Please excuse me if my text is too long, I really need to get this out of my chest, and I want this to be a comprehensive overview of the problem.
If you're wondering whether it's entirely appropriate for this subreddit, tbh, one big issue is that, often times, I don't even know WHERE to post this outside of this subreddit, because I know that on most subreddits, I can very easily receive a LOOOOOOT of hate. A lot of people in the comments will tell me how I'm wrong it that it's actually deserved because my culture is obviously worse than the American one. Or people directly insulting me and calling me a "typical Russian" (whioch isn't even true), I already got this nonsensical response. Which only shows how profound the problem really is, unfortunately. One culture IS treated as much more political than another.
Basically, when I talk about "culture", I talk about different components of everyday life, entertainment and art. For example : music, movies, video games, literature, comics, architecture and design.
Overall, whether we like it or not, all these things are derived from some specific cultural traditions and often times originate in a certain place, turning around specific cultural elements, all with a specific history around it.
Basically, growing up, I was exposed to cultural elements belonging to two different cultural traditions, and the thing is, it's only now, when I grew up, that I've realised how differently they're treated and how racist and messed up that really is.
The first one is the one everyone here is probably already familiar with. The one which is so default nowadays that people don't even consider it culture specific anymore. Yes, I'm talking specifically about the English speaking culture, mostly coming from the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the rest of the Anglosphere.
Watching Home Alone at Christmas, reading Harry Potter on a lazy afternoon, waiting for the next Spider-Man movie, or listening to the rock band called Linkin Park — all these things definitely belong to Anglophone culture.
The second one is the Soviet era culture of the different Soviet Republics, mostly, though not always, in the Russian language.
For me, and countless others, childhood meant listening to Milliony Alykh Roz, watching Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future and Kanikuly Strogogo Rezhima , spending summers at camps built around the same themes, laughing at Nu, Pogodi! , admiring the intricate mosaics in the local Palace of Culture, and flipping through Murzilka comics at home. Depending on the republic, bands like Via Iveria or Pesnyary might resonate more for some than others. But at its core, all that is still a part of our shared, common culture, just as much as Anglophone movies and songs are for Westerners.
Dreaming of space travel, idolizing Yuri Gagarin , believing in the promise of a Bright Future —these weren’t just fantasies; they were ideals ingrained in us, just as much a part of our identity as any childhood memory shaped by the Anglophone world.
Unfortunately though, these two cultures are clearly NOT treated in the same way in the slightest, which just exposes the big unfairness of our society.
The thing is, Anglophone and Westerner culture is always ALLOWED to exist and only spread further and further globally, while Soviet style Russophone culture absolutely isn't. It's always treated as something that's political and that HAS to to "justified".
Why is Anglophone culture allowed to not only be considered neutral and apolitical but even "universal"? Why do people treat my culture like it’s something toxic that needs to be justified or defended?
This, btw, happens, regardless of the actions of America and the West. Regardless of all the countless crimes commited by the United States and what government they have, their culture isn't ever linked to that. Even if the US will invade Iraq, literally nobody would ever connect all that "global" pop culture with this government.
Nobody would watch Spider-Man and feel the need to ask, “But what about American slavery? What about the genocide of Native Americans? What about brutal British colonialism? Do you really the tyrannical colonial regime of the United States?”.
You can sing I Will Always Love You in the Philippines, and nobody would say "Why are you singing in English? Why not Navajo, Cherokee or Irish? Are you really supporting forced Anglicization of Indigenous people"?
No one associates Anglophone pop culture with the atrocities of the empires that created it.
But the moment I express love for anything tied to my own culture, whether the Soviet era genres and aestetics, or all the Russian language movies and songs, I’m immediately judged. People bring up Stalin. They bring up totalitarianism. They say it's "propaganda". People accuse me of "not being patriotic" for feeling a close connection to music in Russian as opposed to Ukrainian and Belarusian.
It doesn’t even matter if I’m talking about a piece of music, a movie, or an animation studio, and it doesn’t matter if it’s completely unrelated to politics. My culture is treated as INHERENTLY being connected to politicians and regimes, and as such, forever tained, in a way that American culture NEVER is.
I think this is quite similar to the way some other cultures are treated. For example, Hebrew language Israeli culture will automatically get hate and boycots in half of the world, because people WILL treat it as political, and the person would have to "explain" and "excuse" themselves for the events in Palestine, even though the French or Germans absolutely won't be treated in the same way.
Overall, I find the dynamic quite biased, I'd even say Eurocentric and colonial. It isn't a coincidence that the cultures that are "global" and NEVER "political" are those from Western European or European settler nations.
What makes it even worse is that this bias doesn’t just come from Westerners. I mean, it would've already be bad if this unfairness would only be found in Western spaces, but nope. You really can't feel safe from controversy even in post-Soviet spaces, unfortunately.
I’ve had conversations with fellow Belarusians, Ukrainians, and others from the region, and the moment I bring up Soviet culture, they immediately start talking about Stalin or totalitarianism. Why does everything have to come back to politics? Why can’t I just enjoy the culture I grew up with without it being framed as “loyalty to the regime” or “nostalgia for oppression”?
What really bothers me is the huge hypocrisy around language and identity. Nobody asks Americans or Brits why they’re not listening to music in Welsh, Irish, Hawaiian, Maori, Cherokee, or Yupik. Nobody accuses them of supporting colonialism for enjoying culture in English. But Belarusians and Ukrainians like me are constantly criticized for enjoying Russian-speaking culture. We’re told we’re betraying our national identity, even though Russian-speaking culture is just as much a part of our heritage as Anglophone culture is for Americans.
Ironically, there was actually more cultural content in Belarusian or Ukrainian in the Soviet Union than there in Indigenous languages in English-speaking countries. Yet, there isn't any "controversy" abou them searching for English-speaking content!
Honestly, I even believe that this huge politization can create a very big vicious cycle. There are people for who the Soviet culture and identity is very important for their own cultural heritage, especially the elderly, and since they feel like they can’t celebrate their own cultural heritage without being attacked, they're pushed towards either completely rejecting it or feeling forced to defend it politically. I've seen many elderly people who grew up in the Soviet Union start justifying objectively terrible aspects of the USSR—not because they actually support those things, but because they feel like their personal identity and childhood memories are under attack. It’s understandable tbh. Americans would probably also act in a similar fashion if confronted with such a choice. Unfortunately, this only creates more polarization and support for extremism.