Authors

Discussion

In the second half of the twentieth century, the USSR was faced with the need to further update its ideological course. The achievements of the first “five-year plans” were left behind, as well as the euphoria from the victory in the war. On the other hand, the Soviet ideological system also faced difficulties — undermined authority of the CPSU and the denouncement of Stalin's Cult of Personality. All that required showing what the country had achieved under the leadership of the communist party, what kind of society it had already built and where it would lead the people next. In 1966, the new General Secretary L. I. Brezhnev set a course for “reworking” the ideology. The result was the adoption of the concept of “developed socialism” as another intermediate phase on the path to building communism. 

It must be said that the construction of communism in the USSR was based on the two main factors: the creation of a material and technical base and the cultivation of socialist consciousness. The latter was based on the basic principles of socialism: collectivism, respect for work, Soviet patriotism, socialist internationalism, etc. In Soviet historiography, the main criteria in the approach to the needs of the citizens were such criteria as “reasonableness” and “rationality”.

The new doctrine of developed socialism that was formed, in turn, strongly resonated with the concept of a welfare society that was being formed in the West at that time. Both of these ideas responded to the spirit and needs of the time. After the war, people wanted more comfort, and consumer sentiment was growing.

However, in the case of the USSR, such a focus on the material and everyday component carried the threat of creating new “bourgeois”, especially considering that L. Brezhnev was not very concerned about ideological and educational work. As a result, the USSR entered the same phase as other developed countries - the formation of a consumer society.

The purpose of this article is to explore the idea of developed socialism as a preliminary phase of the transition from socialism to capitalism. This idea served as the basis for the reforms carried out during the period of perestroika.

In the study, I draw on Ronald Inglehart's concept of modernization (Ingelhart; 1997), which emphasizes that socio-economic development is accompanied by the spread of self-expression values, which in turn contributes to the establishment of liberal democracy. This process is also associated with “the individualistic turn” described by Z. Bauman (Bauman; 2001). 

As a result, we can trace how developed socialism, without due attention to the ideological component, became a transition period from the socialist to capitalist values and attitudes in the society. And the ensuing economic crisis and the lack of a real plan to achieve communism lead the society to complete disappointment in the socialist system.