Soviet science fiction as a means of relaying the ideology of Bolshevik expansionism in the 1920s.

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine the peculiarities of the use by Soviet propaganda of the literary genre of science fiction as a tool for promoting the idea of "permanent revolution." The author considers Soviet science fiction discourse of the 1920s not simply as an artistic movement, but as an important component of propagandistic cognitive influence on the general public in the USSR. The active use of constructivist images in literature and cinema by the creators of Soviet science fiction narratives shaped a unique ideal image of the future in the mass consciousness of the population, where the Soviet person was supposed to be the conqueror of the world. Soviet expansion was predicted to be a political, military, and scientific-technical process capable of provoking socio-political, economic, and cultural changes on a global scale. Researcher believe that Soviet science fiction and adventure cinema contributed significantly to the psychological readiness of the public to participate in the expected global military-political confrontation with Western countries. The methodological basis for identifying the political subtext of Soviet literary fiction was the application of the historical-literary method, the method of new historicism, the comparative method, and a comprehensive iconological approach to the study of visual sources.  The hidden political message in Soviet science fiction cinema was revealed by means of narrative analysis of films and by applying a historical-critical approach to the study of images. The analysis of the content of Soviet literary and film fiction allows us to conclude that during the 1920s, the cultural space of the USSR became a powerful transmitter of an ideological concept that unconditionally justified the right of Soviet citizens to interfere in global natural and socio-political processes in order to protect their own interests. The exploration of advanced technologies was propagated to be a guarantee of building an ideal collectivist society, whose strategic goal was to conquer the world and begin space expansion. The visualization of connotative political messages in science fiction works helped convince the Soviet public of the expediency of the struggle to build a communist society.