Sovietization

Sovietization (Russian: советизация) is the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets (workers' councils) or the adoption of a way of life, mentality, and culture modelled after the Soviet Union. This often included adopting the Cyrillic script and sometimes also the Russian language.

Latvian National Theatre decorated with Soviet symbols (hammer and sickle, red star, red flags and a double portrait of Lenin and Stalin) after the Soviet occupation in 1940. The text on top reads "Long live the USSR!"

Itself, the term soviet as a form of self-organization that arose during the 1905 Russian Revolution was positive in nature being associated with equality, justice and democracy. However, during the revolutionary period of late 1917 and the Bolshevik coup-d'état, the soviets went through transformation known in history as bolshevization of the Soviets during which the Bolsheviks or "the Reds" became the leading force in this movement, and it gradually lost all semblance of democracy. The Bolsheviks then established a one-party dictatorship, where the soviets played a role of the rubber stamp parliament. Since then, the term has been associated exclusively with communism and the Bolsheviks' state of the Soviet Union.[1][2][3]

A notable wave of Sovietization (in the second meaning) occurred during the Russian Civil War in the territories captured by the Red Army. Later, the territories occupied by the Russian SFSR and the USSR were Sovietized. Mongolia was conquered by the Soviet Union and Sovietized in the 1920s, and after the end of the Second World War, Sovietization took place in the countries of the Soviet Bloc (Eastern and Central Europe: Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Baltic states etc.).[4][5] In a broad sense, it included the involuntary creation of Soviet-style authorities, imitation of elections held under the control of the Bolsheviks with the removal of opposition candidates, nationalization of land and property, repression against representatives of "class enemies" (kulaks, or osadniks, for instance). Mass executions and imprisoning in Gulag labor camps and exile settlements often accompany that process. This was usually promoted and sped up by propaganda aimed at creating a common way of life in all states within the Soviet sphere of influence. In modern history, Sovietization refers to the copying of models of Soviet life (the cult of the leader's personality, collectivist ideology, mandatory participation in propaganda activities, etc.).[6][7][8]

In a narrow sense, the term Sovietization is often applied to mental and social changes within the population of the Soviet Union and its satellites,[9] which led to creation of the new Soviet man (according to its supporters) or Homo Sovieticus (according to its critics).[10][11]