Published: 2025-12-15

Progressors. Cosmic expansion of communism in Soviet science fiction

Adam Dziuba
Echa Przeszłości
Section: ARTICLES
https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.12155

Abstract

Science fiction (SF) literature had existed in the Soviet Union since its establishment. Follow­ing its initial success in the 1920s and 1930s and subsequent degradation during the Stalin era, the SF genre reemerged after 1957 as an important part of Soviet literature and political propaganda. Research­ers’ efforts to introduce communist ideas to foreign cultures on other planets became one of the key motifs of Soviet SF. Initially, most literary works promoted the forceful implementation of this system, but over time, due to the political and ideological changes in the USSR, this concept was gradually replaced by the idea of long-term preparation of extraterrestrial civilizations for the adoption of communism. When the notion of constructing communism and creating a utopia within a tangible timeframe was abandoned in the USSR in the early 1970s, this narrative lost its validity, especially in the work of the most prominent Soviet SF writers.

Keywords:

USSR, utopia, science fiction, implementation of communism, extraterrestrial species

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Citation rules

Dziuba, A. (2025). Progressors. Cosmic expansion of communism in Soviet science fiction. Echa Przeszłości, (XXVI/2), 185–212. https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.12155

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