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Overview

Many people wonder if humans are doomed to repeat their past mistakes. However, there are reasons why it’s important to understand our past. For example, we can learn from history and prevent certain events from happening again. Also, when we look at the future of our society, it helps us prepare for what might happen in the near future. We can also gain a better understanding of how Russia fell into an authoritarian regime after overthrowing communism and dismantling its government system during Yeltsin’s presidency because they didn’t have enough knowledge about Russian history or sociology.

This article discusses some terrible things that happened in Russia during the 1990s, such as Russian men killing each other for food and money. It also talks about why a movie called Old Songs About the Most Important Things was very popular in Russia. Finally, it mentions how a brand of cheese was viewed as homosexual propaganda by many Russians.

Big Idea #1: Russia’s lack of self-reflection put the nation at a disadvantage when society began to change in the late 1980s.

In the 1970s, Marina Arutyunyan was uncommon in Russia because she studied psychology at Moscow University. She went on to start her own practice as a psychoanalyst despite being one of very few women practicing that field of study.

To understand why we need to go back in time. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Marxism was adopted and promoted a new kind of ideal man: one who had no use for self-reflection or individuality since he found pride and purpose in being a cog in the Soviet machine. The University’s Psychological Society was dissolved, and Freudian works were placed into restricted areas of libraries because they focused on personality instead of having people be cogs in the system. By 1931, all social sciences and humanities were censored from Russian universities; however by 1968 psychology made a comeback at Moscow University due to lack of materials available during that time period.

The lack of knowledge contributed to the problems that occurred when society changed in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Most governments value sociology, especially when it comes to polling people and finding out what they want. They also poll them on how they will react to certain policies.

The Soviet Union did not conduct any research polls until 1987, and even then it was a rough start. This lack of sociological understanding was especially unfortunate in the mid-1980s when General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev began reforms aimed at opening up Russia and moving away from the terror of previous regimes. These reforms would set off decades of psychological consequences for a citizenship that leaders didn’t understand.

Big Idea #2: As the Communist Party collapsed, attempts were made to understand the typical Russian.

In 1988, Gorbachev appointed Alexander Yakovlev as his chief ideologue to help with the restructuring of the Soviet Union.

Alexander was in exile from the Soviet Union because of his criticism of past leadership, but Gorbachev’s reforms were very much in line with his thinking. However, he found it frustrating that most people were against perestroika and more concerned about how the Communist Party was falling apart.

Many government officials had spent years working their way up the party ladder and were opposed to any changes that might cause them to lose their influence. Or, if they did support perestroika, it was for selfish reasons and as a way to gain power by destabilizing higher-ups in the Communist Party.

Even though he had doubts about the future of perestroika, Gorbachev still hoped that it would succeed. However, he never thought that the Communist Party or Soviet Union would collapse in a few years.