Russia and Soviet Union

This chapter surveys the key themes in Soviet-era utopian science fiction. It begins by considering pre-Soviet themes of a better future that draw on deep cultural and religious yearnings. Addressing the impact of the Russian Revolution and noting the influence of Western models, the chapter argues that the “golden age” of Soviet speculative fiction the late 1950s–1960s merges pre-revolutionary and modernist ideas of the 1920s with Marxist philosophy, inculcated into the minds of the newly emerged class of the Soviet technical intelligentsia. The chapter examines the staple principles underlying these works: anthropological optimism, the theory of endless development of humanity, pedagogic projects that involved the cultivation of the perfect individual, and the attempt to extrapolate the ethics and attitudes of the scientific community to a desirable future society.