Authors

Discussion

This paper explores the intellectual history of key Soviet approaches to controlling collective behaviour in organisational and political settings. Focusing on the theories of prospective reflexivity and reflexive control, it will situate the Soviet strategic thinking in the context of the theories of performative knowledge, behaviourism and algorithmic governance. I argue that although timely and innovative, these experiments with behavioural and semiotic control disregarded the levels of complexity and overestimated the predictive power of their models. However, these models gained a lot of performative power as they were adopted in manipulative practices of political communication in the post-Soviet Russia.