The Soviet Union in the narratives of political parties in modern Russia. Reasons and social foundations

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to determine the reasons and social foundations for using the image of the Soviet Union in the narratives of political parties in modern Russia. The publications of the four largest and oldest parties were taken as the object of analysis. Based on the results of the study, it was found that despite the positioning of party ideologies as irreconcilable and conflicting, nothing of thr kind is in reality. There are different versions of the same narrative, the main elements of which are as follows: the Soviet Union is a continuation of the thousand-year tradition of Russian statehood; October 1917 is an important event in Russian history, but it is not given the status of “beginning of times”; there is an overt or covert conciliatory position; rejection of revolutionary social changes in favor of reformist solutions to societal issues; focusing on the subjective factors of the emergence and disappearance of the USSR. The reason for the convergence of narratives between the ruling and opposition political parties is seen in the similarity of the social positions of their leaders (representatives).