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Genesis: Historical research
Reference:

Formation of images of the future in the USSR in the 1920s.

Glukharev Nikolai Nikolaevich

PhD in History

Senior Researcher, Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Associate Professor, Department of Contemporary Russian History, Moscow Pedagogical State University

119435, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, M. Pirogovskaya str., 1, office building 1

gluharevn@yandex.ru

DOI:

10.25136/2409-868X.2024.1.69559

EDN:

PWXOFU

Received:

08-01-2024


Published:

15-01-2024


Abstract: The article is devoted to the trends in the formation of images of the future in the USSR in the 1920s. The subject of the study is the image of the future as an object of design during the formation of a new state of society, the search for guidelines and practices of social development. Design in a broad context is considered as an active creative activity to shape the image of the future. Design may imply certain deadlines for its implementation, or it may be based on approximate calculations, on some guidelines that do not have a strict time limit. The research methods were historical-analytical, historical-comparative, historical-genetic, system-analytical. The postulates of F. Polak and E. Bloch were adopted as the methodological basis for studying images of the future. The article identifies the subjects of designing images of the future in the period under study, among whom are the leaders and ideologists of the Communist Party, as well as representatives of the urban intelligentsia. The main factors in the formation of images of the future are identified, among which are noted: the “current present”, political programs and ideological attitudes of the power elite, ideological trends of previous decades, scientific achievements, value systems. Projecting images of the future by subjects in the 1920s, experiencing the influence of various factors, led to the formation of images of a predominantly utopian nature, defining the horizons of the “expected” or “possible” future. Given the schematic and vagueness of the political guidelines for communism and the diversity of its author’s figurative variants, the future society was presented in the general categories of collectivism, science-centrism, technocratism, the ideals of a new socially determined person, and the subordination of nature to society.


Keywords:

Image of the future, communism, collectivism, science-centrism, technocratism, utopia, design, designing the future, ideology, new man concept

This article is automatically translated. You can find original text of the article here.

Images of the future are an integral part of public consciousness, formulated in concrete historical conditions and represent a complex structure combining a system of worldviews, values, discursive practices and artistic embodiments. The study of the historical projection of images of the future is important from the point of view of identifying the basic mechanisms of the emergence and figurative design of social expectations.

The early Soviet experience of working with images of the future is interesting in the context of the formation of a new state and society in the context of the multiplicity of internal and external challenges of the first half of the twentieth century. In our opinion, the post-Soviet Russian statehood faced a number of similar ideological, socio-political and economic difficulties of the transition period, actualizing the search for contours of a common future by various political institutions and a surge in multidirectional vectors of expectations from the future by different social groups.

Research approaches to the study of images of the future exist today in an interdisciplinary space, offering different interpretations of them. One of the first attempts at scientific understanding of this social phenomenon was made by F. Polak. Among his observations, an important idea should be noted that the image of the future is a synthesis of perception of reality and imagination, and a specific form is given to it by creatively gifted people who are able to "live in two worlds at the same time" — the world of imagination and the real world (prophets, philosophers, writers). However, these author's works are perceived by society, become the property of culture and worldview of entire generations, since they themselves draw material from public attitudes [12, p. 116].

The interconnectedness of the individual and the collective in the images of the future is recognized by most researchers. Based on the concepts of social consciousness by K. Marx and E. Durkheim, individual consciousness develops not by itself, but in conditions of constant borrowing, comprehension and processing of social ideas. In turn, reflections on the future of a particular person are carried out in a social context, fit into the ideas of the future of the whole society. S.I. Zheltikova considers the image of the future as an element of social reality, expressed in collective premonitions of possible directions of development of society, as a holistic picture reflecting the social expectations of large groups of people [12, p. 19].

In Russian humanities, images of the future are often studied within the framework of a constructivist approach [17].

Within the framework of the political approach, the image of the future is presented as an artificially created construct designed to modify public consciousness towards certain public ideas about the future that ensure the political interests of the state and other public institutions.

H.A. Hajiyev H.A. and I.S. Shushpanova substantiate the possibility and necessity of forming an image of the future based on the technology of political design. In this case, a political project is understood as an act, plan or program of action to create new or change existing phenomena in the political sphere in accordance with the set political goals, which, in addition to a certain technological map, contains an image of socio-political changes [7].

A. I. Shcherbinin and N. G. Shcherbinina believe that the process of forming the image of the future is realized by the power elites with the help of symbolic practices and can occur in two ways. The first one is connected with the fulfillment of an ideological order by creative intellectuals, sociologists, futurists, and political scientists, the result of which is an image of the future, represented in the future on behalf of the government. The second way of building the "text of the future" is focused on the use of ready-made social typifications and products of collective imagination that adapt to the interests of the authorities [31].

S.I. Belov uses the concept of "mounting" in relation to the initiation of the existence of a particular image of the future by government representatives and connects this process with the use of a political myth. The Russian experience of creating images of the future is based on the manipulative abilities of archetypes, elements of identification and social perception, which in myths are enhanced by symbolic complexes, rituals and a well-chosen pantheon of heroes. The author writes: "Practice shows that futuromifs built around plans for solving one super-task that is of particular relevance to society have the greatest effectiveness" [1].

          N.A. Lukyanova, S.Z. Semernik and E.M. Okhotnitskaya identify four technologies for shaping the image of the future: forecasting, foresight, planning, and design. The basis of the first two technologies is extrapolation into the future or linear projection. Design and planning can be seen as actively building the desired future. This group of technologies assumes an active position of a person who designs the future depending on his subjective preferences. At the same time, the formed image of the future has a double causality, the subjective-objective nature of its own embodiment [20].

In the literature, however, doubts are expressed about the success of purposeful formation of a collective image of the future. S.I. Zheltikova notes the possibility of creating and distributing a convincing and attractive model of the future by the ruling elites, but doubts that this picture will be "recognized" and accepted as their own vision of the future by large groups of people. The author notes that embedding collective ideas about the future in public consciousness requires knowledge of the principles of functioning of images of the future, the patterns of their existence, the leading trends in dynamics, which today still remains insufficiently studied [12, p. 116].

In our opinion, the historical experience of purposefully constructing images of the future certainly deserves close attention, as well as how such images turned out to be attractive and shared by society in a specific time period. The subject of our research is the image of the future as an object of design in the 1920s - the period of formation of a new state of society, the search for guidelines and practices of social development. Designing in a broad context is considered by us as an active creative activity to form an image of the future. The design may assume certain deadlines for its implementation, or it may be based on approximate calculations, on some orientations that do not have a strict time limit. Design "is based on what will happen and answers the question of the desired state in the future… It is conditioned by the creative development of reality. Designing does not set itself the task of directly implementing an idea. His task is to formulate, construct, and create an idea from the whole variety of available facts" [20, p. 79].

The research methods were historical-analytical, historical-comparative, historical-genetic, system-analytical. As a methodological basis for the study of images of the future, the postulates of F. Polaka and E.Bloch.

Global design has been an integral feature of the Soviet government since the first years of its existence [10, pp. 28-29]. This became possible due to the formation of the state ideology and stable mechanisms for its translation into the public space. Soviet ideology, based on Marxist philosophy, treated the future exclusively as an object of conscious design, which was facilitated by the claim to explain the universal laws of socio-historical development using the theoretical and philosophical methods of Marxism. The interpretation of Marxism in Russia was closely intertwined with the practice of social activity of revolutionary movements directly aimed at political power. The Bolsheviks and V.I. Lenin considered the future, the contours of which were laid down by Marx as inevitable, objectively conditioned, nevertheless dependent on the direct activity of progressive revolutionary forces. In Russia, the Workers' Party was recognized as such a force as the vanguard of the working class (proletariat) and the peasantry allied to it (the poorest and the middle). Ideological constructs, closely connected with political practice, appealed primarily to these categories of the population, offering images that correspond (in the opinion of ideologists) to the interests of these classes.

It is the leaders and ideologists of the Communist Party who can be considered the main subjects of designing images of the future. The official discourse within the general framework set the directions for the formation of the near and far future by other active actors. These include, first of all, representatives of the urban intelligentsia involved in active processes of state-building, cultural and scientific activities. At this level, artistic or design design of installations and ideas about the future took place, which later became part of the cultural space of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union.

The sources that allow us to capture the leading trends and images are textual and visual products of the intellectual activity of the main subjects of design: theoretical, philosophical, scientific and practical works, popular science, journalistic works, programmatic and political documents, speeches and articles by political figures, articles by journalists, artistic works by poets and writers (including fiction), works of art, architectural objects.

As noted by F. Polak and E. Bloch, it is the artistic images that most effectively represent the vision of the future – they complete the dotted pattern of "still-non-existence" to a full-fledged picture, which can subsequently become a stable element of public consciousness [3]. However, it is incorrect to talk about the exclusive role of the subject in constructing the image of the future, "where the future is considered by a person as an opportunity to change the present, since there are a number of objective factors affecting both the image of the future being formed and human activity in the present" [20, p. 83]. It is necessary to identify other factors that have a direct impact on the design of images of the future in the period of the 1920s.

S.I. Zheltikova notes that one of the decisive factors in the formation of images of the future and their specific appearance is the actual present in which these images are formed, and the problems that specific people react to [12, p. 123]. In relation to the post-revolutionary period, the problems of the socio-economic state of the country, which remained in a serious crisis, as well as the relationship between the new government and society, come first. The contradictions of the new economic policy, the problems of inequality in the city and the countryside, poverty, hunger, homelessness, the authoritarian policy of the authorities, the ideologization of public life in isolation from material reality and other problems of reality could not but leave their imprint on the attitude of society towards a possible future. It was the 1920s that were characterized by throwing from outright utopias (the desired ideal future, which eliminated the shortcomings of reality, "expectations-hopes") to dystopias (the future, exacerbating the shortcomings of the present, "expectations-fears"). The first include "The Country of Gonguri" by V. Itin (1922), "The Coming World: 1923-2123" by Ya. Okunev (1923), "Chevengur" by A. Platonov (1928), the second – "We" by E. Zamyatin (1921), "The City of Truth" by L. Lunts (1924). The artistic pro-Bolshevik utopias of the 1920s, which emerged from the realities of Civil War and economic ruin, are characterized by a desire to deny any possible chaos in the future, presented as strictly organized, without oppression, private property, hunger, disease and even death. Dystopian works, doubting the possibility of achieving an ideal communist future, paid more attention to the conflict between the individual and the state in an organized society, showing the negative sides of the dictate of collectivism, sameness, monotony.

Another important factor is the political programs and ideological attitudes of the ruling elite. Of course, they are also subject to certain transformations depending on the development of practical conditions for their implementation. However, the Bolshevik leadership set and systematically carried out the task of goal-setting, gathering society on the basis of an understandable goal of a unifying image of the future from the very first years of the establishment of Soviet power [15]. Communism as a fundamentally new social condition was declared fundamentally possible provided that the dictatorship of the proletariat was preserved and sufficient social efforts were made to implement transformations.

V.I. Lenin defined the general features of communist society in the program work "The State and the Revolution" (1917), defining the successive stages of its offensive. At the first stage in such a society, the means of production have already left private ownership and belong to the whole society, and each member of society participates in socially useful work, "receives from society as much as he gave it" [18, p. 437]. At this stage, there is still no complete equality, but the exploitation of man by man has already been destroyed. Thus, V.I. Lenin justifies the intermediate stage of socialism, in which the proletarian state will ensure public property and the struggle against classes hostile to the working people. "Our ultimate goal is the destruction of the state, i.e. all organized and systematic violence, all violence against people in general. We do not expect the advent of such a social order, when the principle of subordination of the minority to the majority is not respected. But, striving for socialism, we are convinced that it will develop into communism, and in this regard, any need for violence against people in general, for subordination of one person to another, one part of the population to another part of it, will disappear, because people will get used to observing the basic conditions of society without violence and without subordination" [18, p. 428], – wrote Lenin. This requires a new generation that has grown up in new, free social conditions, which will be able to discard the "trash of statehood." Relying on K. Marx and F. According to Engels, V.I. Lenin characterizes the final stage of communism through the description of the future correlation of productive forces and industrial relations. In the field of relations, the disappearance of the opposite of mental and physical labor (and, in general, the division of labor), the transformation of labor from a means of living into a need for life, the distribution "from each according to abilities, to each according to needs." In the field of productive forces, development should bring to a state where "all sources of wealth will flow in full", and the process of producing public goods will not present any difficulty and effort. In these conditions, the death of the state will occur, and therefore the complete abolition of social inequality. Lenin emphasizes the duration of this process, without specifying specific deadlines, while rejecting criticism of communism from the position of utopianism of the outlined society of the future: "Most bourgeois "scientists" get off with such ridicule to this day, who reveal their ignorance and their selfish defense of capitalism" [18, pp. 439-441].

The program of the RCP(b) of 1919 determined the imminent onset of the world revolution and the transition to communism. At the same time, the specific features of the communist society were not named separately, but a set of measures was proposed to prepare for the transition to this society, primarily in Russia. N. Bukharin draws in more detail the image of the communist future in his work "The Abc of Communism" (1920), published in huge editions and for a decade became the main source of dissemination of the communist program in Soviet society.

According to N. Bukharin, "the distinctive features of the communist mode of production should be the following signs: 1) it should be an organized society; it should not have anarchy of production, competition of private entrepreneurs, wars, crises; 2) it should be a classless society, it should not consist of eternally warring halves with each other, it cannot be a society where one class is exploited by another class" [5, c 51-52]. Public ownership of the means of production, as the main condition of communism, defines the economic structure of such a society as a "huge labor cooperative." Bukharin emphasizes that production in such an artel should be extremely organized, have a general production plan calculated to the smallest detail. "The comradely nature of communist production is also evident in all the details of the organization of this production," Bukharin explains, "Under communism, for example, there will be no permanent factory managers or people who have been engaged in the same work all their lives. After all, now it's like this: if a man is a shoemaker, then he makes boots all his life and sees nothing but the shoe; if he is a pie maker, he bakes pies all his life; if a man is a factory director, he manages and orders all the time; if he is a simple worker, he executes other people's orders all his life And obeys… Here, people will all receive a comprehensive education and will be familiar with different industries: today I manage, calculating how many felted boots or French rolls need to be produced next month; tomorrow I work at a soap factory, in a week, maybe, at public greenhouses, and three days later at an electric power station."[5, p. 53].

Bukharin provides a detailed explanation of the ways of government in the new society about the withering away of the state under communism: "The main leadership will lie in various accounting offices, or statistical (computing) bureaus. There will be a day-to-day accounting of all production and production needs; it will also indicate where to add workers, from where to subtract, how much to work. And since everyone will be used to common labor from childhood and understand that it is needed and that life is easiest when everything goes according to a calculated plan, like clockwork, then everyone works, depending on the instructions of these computing bureaus. There is no need for special ministers, police, prisons, laws, decrees, nothing. Just as in an orchestra everyone looks at the conductor's baton and acts looking at it, so here they will look at the calculation tables and work accordingly" [5, p. 55]. This will not happen immediately, but after the change of two or three generations who grew up under new conditions. Both the material and spiritual life of a person will change: human culture will reach an unprecedented height. A person will spend most of his time on spiritual development, freeing himself from the "chains imposed by nature" [5, p. 57].

Thus, a communist society should have two necessary components – a material base (developed production of material goods) and fundamentally new social relations between its creators, based on the concept of a "new man".

The deconstruction of programmatic and political attitudes makes it possible to identify the main categories around which most of the images of the future economic structure of society were designed: materialism, science-centrism, urbanism and technocratism.

The confidence in the primacy of matter over consciousness gave rise to many materialistic projects of "building" a socialist society in the 1920s. Scientocentrism in society was supported by the close attention of the authorities to scientists and the formation of a state system for organizing scientific activities. Science was required to develop programs for socialist construction in various areas of public life. A new proletarian science was to replace the bourgeois one, which would be integral (classless), synthesizing, and closely related to life. For example, P.M. Kerzhentsev wrote: "Instead of the armchair science of the bourgeois world, a genuine life science will appear" [16]. The entire population, especially the working people, should be involved in the process of scientific creativity, science should become a part of the daily life of the proletarian.

Images of the material environment of the future were reflected in the framework of industrial art, constructivism. Within the framework of these directions, an attempt was made to put into practice the ideas of life-building/peace-building (A.M. Rodchenko, A.M. Gan, V.E. Tatlin, etc.). To a large extent, this was facilitated by the state program of industrial propaganda (1921), in which an active role was given to art. Constructivism was especially evident in the architecture and design of a new home. The architects of this trend were inspired by the ideas of collectivization of human life, the extinction of the household and the monogamous family under the communist organization of society. A striking example of the implementation of new ideas based, among other things, on the experience of communal houses during the Civil War, can be considered the house for employees of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR in Moscow (Architect. Ginzburg and N. Millinis, 1928-1930) [6].

The complex ideal of the socialist space was embodied in the idea of an industrial city of the future. Many artistic utopias of the 1920s depicted urban paintings of communism. One of the striking examples is the newspaper novel by V. Fedorov "The Miracle of Sinful Pitirim" (1925), which paints pictures of Ivanovo-Voznesensk in 2025, shown as the third proletarian capital of the RSFSR and the second most important city of the communist Eastern Hemisphere [26].

The group of supremacists "Unovis" (the Affirmers of New Art; founded by K. Malevich in 1920) proposed a utopian program of the future, in which a new aesthetic urban environment, space satellites, and the transformation of human consciousness itself were conceived. The new world should be ideal primarily due to its construction according to the aesthetic laws of creativity. The images of the future "one world city" were embodied in the series "Prouns" by E. Lisitsky (1920s) - three–dimensional dynamic structures floating in space [6].

Many variants of the images of the future were based on the idea of technocratism – the construction and management of society based on the principles of scientific and technical and technological rationality. It was supported and promoted by both party figures (A. Gastev, A. Bogdanov, N. Podvoysky, N. Semashko, G. Krzhizhanovsky) and representatives of the scientific and technical intelligentsia. The latter include, for example, engineer P.A. Palchinsky, who outlined a society organized in accordance with the latest scientific and technical, rather than ideological ideas, suggesting replacing the Comintern with a "Techintern". Similar ideas were expressed on the pages of the journal "Bulletin of Engineers", which was published by the rector of the Moscow Higher Technical School I.A. Kalinnikov. In 1927, he organized a "Circle on general technical issues", whose members planned to develop an ideology "fully consistent with the new technical culture" [4, p. 197]. The development of technocratic ideas continued in the scientific and technical administration of the Supreme Economic Council, which believed that "the future belongs to managing engineers and managing engineers" [4, p. 197].

Much attention was paid to the organization of work in the future. The complete achievement of communism in the field of "liberation of labor" and its transformation from a duty into a need is well shown in the above-mentioned novel by Y.M. Okunev "The Coming World: 1923-2123" (1923).

 L.D. Trotsky in his work "Literature and the Revolution" (1923, section "The melting of man") wrote: "Life, even purely physiological, will become collectively experimental. The human race, frozen by homo sapiens, will again go into radical processing and become — under its own fingers — the object of the most complex methods of artificial selection and psychophysical training" [24, p. 188].

The ideas and images proposed by A. Gastev within the framework of his concept of "scientific organization of labor" had the greatest influence on the ideas about the future organization of society in the period under study. He proposed to "infect modern man with a special technique for constant biological improvement, biological repairs and alterations... I have come to believe that the highest expression in the work... is engineering. Creative engineering, applied both to organizational design work and to the work of remaking a person, is the highest scientific and artistic wisdom" [14, p. 101].

Gastev wrote on the pages of the Proletarian Culture magazine, published by Proletkult, that "the man of the future is a man of the regime, installation, organization. The ideal type of worker is one in which the complete triumph of modern machinism prevails… The mechanization of not only gestures, not only working and production methods, but the mechanization of everyday everyday thinking, combined with extreme objectivism, strikingly normalizes the psychology of the proletariat. In the future, this trend will create the impossibility of individual thinking, transforming into the objective psychology of an entire class with systems of psychological on, off, and short circuits" [8, p. 44]. Gastev was convinced that in the future the role of technology, technology will steadily increase, which will lead to the fusion of man with machine: "... The steel-clad globe around will be the cauldron of the Universe, and when, in the onset of a labor rush, the Earth will not stand up and tear the steel armor, it will give birth to new creatures whose name is already There will be no man. Newborns... will immediately move the whole earth into a new orbit, shuffle the map of suns and planets, create new floors above the worlds. The world itself will be a new machine, where the cosmos will find its own heart, its own beat for the first time" [9, p. 34].

Another futurological project of organizing society within the framework of the Proletcult was proposed by A. Bogdanov, developing the "universal organizational science" of tectology. According to his calculations, in the future there will be the creation of a collectivist culture of humanity, where individuals will merge into a single collective. In such a society, life will develop in accordance with the strict principles of planned organization "on the basis of strictly scientific planning" [19, p. 34]. The very essence of public morality will change, which will be understood only as a measure of organizational expediency.

Images of a new technocratic future reached the prospect of completely overcoming natural limitations, including gravity and even death.

In B. Pilnyak's essays, new Russia was associated with the flight of an airplane, in which enthusiastic peasants saw a symbol of "the brotherhood of workers all over the world, revolution all over the world, the will to culture, to knowledge, to victory" [21, p. 23]. V. Muravyov in 1924 developed a project of "airplane cities" with people "landowners and sun farmers." Images of the conquest of space are reflected in A. Tolstoy's "Aelita" (1922), A. Yaroslavsky's "Argonauts of the Universe" (1926), the artist K. Yuon paints canvases representing a communist paradise on a cosmic scale: "Symphony of Action" (1925), "People of the Future" (1929). As S.I. Zheltikova noted, "the image of the future as the embodiment of a social ideal in space draws a distant perspective of humanity, emphasizing at the same time its going beyond the Earth, and cardinal transformations in the field of economics, politics, social relations and culture" [13, p. 13]. In this sense, vivid images are given by N. Mukhanov's fantastic novel "Flaming Abysses" (1924), published on the pages of the magazine "World of Adventures". In it, the people of the future are able to change the movements of the orbits of celestial bodies, create artificial suns, and defeat death.

The ideas of prolongation of life, immortality and resurrection of the body in the 1920s were popular in the scientific and near-scientific environment. Laboratory research by experimenters transferred the problem of life and death from the metaphysical plane to the sphere of human earthly activity. The revision of the concepts of "life" and "death" logically implied the ability of the "new man" to create life in the future and delay death for as long as necessary. Thus, both the life and death of the "new man" turned out to be subordinated not to Divine providence or nature, but to the human will, the instrument of which is science [14, p. 156]. Images of overcoming death are reflected in the series of the artist V. Chekrygin "Resurrection" (1921-1922), V. Mayakovsky creates the image of the "Institute of Human Resurrections" in the play "The Bug" (1929).

The most utopian and vivid images of the complete transformation of nature and the subordination of the cosmos to man contain the works of cosmists, developing under the influence of not only the Soviet social experiment, but also pre-revolutionary theoretical and philosophical teachings, peace-building, god-building, etc.

For example, K. Tsiolkovsky linked the progress of mankind with qualitative changes in the physical structure of the cosmos and the structure of human mental perception (finer sensorics will correspond to the refinement of matter). In his project for the future settlement of mankind in the Solar System and other galaxies, the most important place is given to the biochemical restructuring of people based on the processing of solar energy: it will be "radiant humanity", "a single kind of radiant energy", a special cosmic consciousness spread in the Universe when the "idea" fills the space of space. N. Fedorov developed the ideas of restructuring nature and man within the framework of the concept of "common cause". He outlined the prospects of collective existence, collective morality, collective thinking, as well as the possibility of resurrecting living beings. He was convinced that the human body is a machine: "The organism is a machine, and consciousness treats it like bile treats the liver; assemble the machine and consciousness will return to it" [27, p. 199].

Consonant ideas were expressed on the pages of the journal "Biocosmist" (1922), which announced the future evolution of mankind through the achievement of immortality ("immortalism"), the expansion of individual freedoms to the possibility of movement in space, the exploration of the entire Universe by people ("interplanetarianism"), the ability to control time, victory over the "natural oppression" of natural forces nature [23, pp. 8-9].

Thus, following the material base of communism, new social relations based on collectivism and the priority of the social over the individual should develop. The image of the communist man of the future in the official discourse was presented exclusively in a social context. An important place was given to the issues of new morality, everyday life, equality between people (and even the sexes), ideas of a complete socialization of private life were expressed.

Within the framework of the political and cultural processes of the 1920s, discussions about the essence of a new person did not stop around the attitudes towards creating a new person. For example, A. Bogdanov saw a new person as a scientifically educated person collectively organized into a single whole. A. Lunacharsky drew attention to a person as a creator in whom the spiritual freedom of the individual appears as an important feature of the future communist society. N. Bukharin's new person should, first of all, ideologically and politically personify the ideals of work, be a model proletarian consciousness. L. Trotsky believed that it was possible to improve a person from the biological side, turning him into a new socio-biological type of personality, a kind of superman. A. Gastev and N. Fedorov considered it as a biological human machine. The pinnacle of the mechanical view of man was the "theory of new biology" by E.S. Yeongmen, presented by him as a "teaching" emanating from the "prophet". He radically denied the psychic in man, believing that human behavior depends entirely on biochemical reactions. In the new world, every person should have a physiological passport, which will contain reaction coefficients, according to which everyone will be given appropriate cards regulating their work and consumption. Such a society will be managed by the "Revolutionary Scientific Council of the World Commune" [11, p. 79]. The emphasis on the biological side of the human body with the destruction of all spiritual things was regarded by contemporaries as a purification from everything bourgeois and religious, a return to the true, material essence of man.

It should be noted that the nature of the projected images of the future, in addition to Marxism and official ideology, was influenced by other ideological trends of previous decades (including the avant-garde in art), and even the social utopias of past centuries. Characteristic is the testimony of A.V. Lunacharsky that the plan of monumental propaganda originated with V. Lenin in connection with the memory of T. Campanella's "City of the Sun", where frescoes were to be painted on the walls of the city, arousing civic feeling and participating in the education and upbringing of new generations [6]. The need for a rational organization of society was expressed back in the age of Enlightenment, and the principles of labor organization in production developed in the USSR went back to the economic projects of W. Taylor and G. Ford.

Scientific discoveries, inventions, and calculations have a serious impact on the designation of the future prospects. For example, many images of the new man of the materialistic future are associated with the development and dissemination of the physiology of the Bekhterev school and the reflexology of K.N. Kornilov. The images of the cosmic future were based on the constructions of K. E. Tsiolkovsky or V. I. Vernadsky. Scientific and technical romanticism is becoming widespread (as a humanistic version of technocratic ideas that does not allow the complete mechanization of human life), along with the spread of works by Zh. Verne and G. Wells [30, pp. 23-25]. It is noteworthy that G. Wells, calling Lenin a Kremlin dreamer, recognized his party as "the only organization that gave people a single attitude, a single plan of action, a sense of mutual trust..." [25, p. 37].

Researchers call the value system the formative factor of the images of the future. As E. Bloch showed, the vision of the future depends on those values and moral guidelines that are designated as the highest ideals. In this regard, the pictures of a better future that can be imagined are inevitably utopian in nature. F. Polak argued that the main sources of imagination of the future are ideas, ideals, values and norms established in broad social strata.

During the beginning of the Soviet project in the 1920s, there was a painful affirmation of modern values among the urban population with the resistance of the traditional village society. The struggle for a new system of values also unfolded in the political leadership, as evidenced by the ideological discussions about the "proletarian culture" of the "turn to the countryside", as well as the spread of revolutionary cultural and everyday practices supported by various political actors. As S.G. Kara-Murza noted, "behind this ... there were different ideas about modernization — either based on the structures of traditional society, or through the cultural revolution as the dismantling of these structures" [15].

Images of the future based on traditional values and pictures of the bright socialist future of the village turned out to be in opposition to the dominant technocratic discourse. The design of images of the village future was carried out in the genre of a retrotopia about the self-government of a village hostel, which was considered by the authorities as ideas hostile to proletarian socialism (for example, "The Journey of my brother Alexei to the country of peasant utopia" by A.V. Chayanov, 1920).

Thus, the design of images of the future by subjects in the 1920s, experiencing the effects of various factors, led to the formation of predominantly utopian images, defining the horizons of the "expected" or "possible" future. With the schematicity and lack of specificity of political attitudes towards communism and the variety of its author's imaginative variants, the future society was presented in the general categories of collectivism, scientocentrism, technocratism, the ideals of a new socially determined person, the subordination of nature to society. The issue of acceptance by the Soviet society of the proposed pictures of the future and the degree of their rooting in the public consciousness requires additional research. This will allow you to better understand the mechanisms of formation of social expectations. A.A. Salnikova's research is of interest, in which the author attempted to analyze the scenarios of the future presented in the "children's" texts of the first Soviet decade, as well as to study their specifics due to accumulated childhood experience and the new Soviet political reality[22]. It was the new generations of Soviet citizens who were considered by the authorities as the main builders of the future of communism and were the main audience for the communist education of a new person. The author came to the conclusion that children's ideas about the future of the country are often blurred: "This future is always beautiful, but shaky and ephemeral, like a dream ... Real images of the future are replaced by political slogans and appeals, and by the end of the 1920s, under the influence of political propaganda, children's "projects" of the future are becoming more utopian and fantastical features" [22, p. 45].

The ideological crisis of the late 1920s in the context of socio-economic problems and crises of the NEP, the unstable international situation of "war alarms", the divergence of the practice of real socialist construction with the slogans presented is noted by a number of researchers. Illustrating this, V.P. Buldakov cites the statement of the Bolshevik A.S. Yenukidze from May 1928: "The most fanatical Communist leaders have a creeping disbelief in the future and even mutual distrust... We are surrounded by enemies both inside and outside the state. Bourgeois examples infect a spiritless and frivolous life... They are introduced into the environment of previously reliable comrades. Reason refuses to serve us, the old guard, and we begin to lose ground under our feet" [4, p. 126].

The tasks of accelerated modernization and social mobilization of Soviet society, initiated by I.V. Stalin and his inner circle, led to a change in the nature of designing images of the future in the 1930s. The images of the distant desired or possible were replaced by a "guaranteed" future, which became part of a person's daily life: "A Soviet citizen could believe or not believe in a bright future, but could not help but know that such a thing was promised to him" [28].

Further study of the images of the future in historical perspective as objects of conscious design will allow us to take into account the experience of previous historical periods in order to develop a strategy for modern subjects of state policy of designing the future.

References
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Review of the article "Formation of images of the future in the USSR in the 1920s." The subject of the study is the image of the future as an object of design in the 1920s. - the period of formation of a new state of society, the search for guidelines and practices of social development. The author of the article explains that design in a broad context is considered as an active creative activity to form an image of the future. "The design may assume certain deadlines for its implementation, or it may be based on approximate calculations, on some orientations that do not have a strict time limit." The research methodology is based on scientific, systematic and historicism. The following methods are used in the work: historical-analytical, historical-comparative, historical-genetic, system-analytical. "As a methodological basis for the study of images of the future, the postulates of F. Polaka and E.Bloch." Relevance. The image of the future has worried and worries many people. The builders of the Soviet state attracted masses of people to their side on the images of the future, which were attractive and which were created by Thomas Campanella ("City of the Sun"), the ideas of Henri Saint-Simon, Karl Marx, etc. The study of "the early Soviet experience of working with images of the future is interesting in the context of the formation of a new state and society in the context of the multiplicity of internal and external challenges of the first half of the twentieth century," especially given that "post-Soviet Russian statehood ... faced a number of similar ideological, socio-political and economic difficulties of the transition period, actualizing the search for contours of a common future different political institutions and a surge in multidirectional vectors of expectations from the future by different social groups." Scientific novelty is determined by the formulation of the problem and objectives of the study. Style, structure, content. The style of the article is scientific with descriptive elements. The structure of the work is aimed at achieving the goals and objectives of the study. At the beginning of the article, the author reveals the relevance of the topic, the subject, the goals and objectives of the study, and research methods. It shows "what research approaches to the study of images of the future exist today in the interdisciplinary space." The article highlights the role of Dutch philosopher Fred Polak, who was one of the "first to attempt a scientific understanding" of the images of the future. Among his observations, the author notes "the idea that the image of the future is a synthesis of perception of reality and imagination, and a specific form is given to it by creatively gifted people who are able to "live in two worlds at the same time" — the world of imagination and the real world (prophets, philosophers, writers)." In Russian humanities, the images of the future, the author writes, are studied within the framework of a constructivist approach (Knyazev E.N.), within the framework of a political approach (H.A. Hajiyev, I.S. Shushpanova), etc. The author analyzes the works of Russian researchers on the mechanisms of forming the image of the future, the actors of this process, the role of futuromiphs in their formation and technologies for forming the image of the future. He notes that some researchers express doubts "about the success of purposeful formation of a collective image of the future, because to date, the principles of functioning of images of the future, the patterns of their existence, and the leading trends in dynamics have not been sufficiently studied." Analyzing the images of the future that were used in the first decade of Soviet power, the author notes that global design was an integral feature of Soviet power, starting from the first years of its existence. And it shows what mechanisms and forms were used to transform images of the future into the masses, who were the main subjects of designing images of the future, it is noted that the Bolsheviks used the ideas of technocratism to create images of the future, these ideas were supported and promoted by a number of party figures and representatives of scientific and technical intelligentsia, some images of the future were utopian and did not meet existing physical laws. The author's analysis of images of the future in the period under study leads the author to the conclusion that "the design of images of the future by subjects in the 1920s, experiencing the effects of various factors, led to the formation of predominantly utopian images, defining the horizons of the "expected" or "possible" future. With the schematicity and lack of specificity of political attitudes towards communism and the variety of its author's imaginative variants, the future society was presented in the general categories of collectivism, scientocentrism, technocratism, the ideals of a new socially determined man, the subordination of nature to society." The article highlights issues that require additional research, including "the issue of acceptance by the Soviet society of the proposed pictures of the future and the degree of their rooting in the public consciousness, which will allow us to better understand the mechanisms of formation of social expectations… Further study of the images of the future in historical perspective as objects of conscious design will allow us to take into account the experience of previous historical periods to develop a strategy for modern subjects of state policy of designing the future." Bibliography.The bibliographic list of works is extensive (31 sources) and diverse, making it possible to achieve the goals and objectives of the study. The appeal to the opponents is presented at the level of the collected information on the research topic and the results obtained. The bibliography of the work is also an appeal to the opponents. Conclusions, the interest of the readership. The article is written on a relevant topic, will arouse readers' interest, and its materials can be used in training courses, etc.
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