May 4-5, 2024: Communist Culture in the 21st Century

[In honor of May Day/International Workers’ Day, this week I’ve AmericanStudied some compelling cultural representations of communism in American history and identity. Leading up to this weekend post on contemporary communist culture!]

On two parallel yet very different types of 21^st century cultural commentary on communism.

First things first: it’s impossible to separate the question of how communism is portrayed in 21^st century American cultural works from our period’s resurgent Russophobia. To say this as clearly as I can, critiques of Putin (and thus of Putin’s Russia) are more than justified, and any attempt to stop such critiques with accusations of Russophobia is dead wrong. But we have to be able to engage both the world and ourselves with nuance, and there’s no doubt that those specific and justified critiques have the potential to morph into far more overarching and problematic prejudice (as is also the case with justified critiques of the Chinese government and the potential for sinophobia, an even more longstanding American prejudice of course). Even though communism is a separate subject from Russia, for a century now the two have been entirely intertwined in American history and narratives alike, and so it’s important to acknowledge that continued, complex connection in discussing current cultural representations of communism.

Moreover, two of the last decade’s most interesting American cultural depictions of communism have used famous historical periods in the Soviet Union as the lens through which to do so (although interestingly, and certainly tellingly, both have been in English and have used casts of mostly non-Russian actors). The satirical film The Death of Stalin (2017) makes that mid-20^th century Soviet and world historical event into an over-the-top farce, and one which I would argue is designed to appeal to American (or at least Western) narratives about the ludicrous layers of bureaucracy and power struggles that (from this perspective at least) really defined the supposedly communist and egalitarian Soviet state. Cultural works are open to interpretation, and I’m sure one could analyze Death of Stalin as equally a commentary on the U.S. government (perhaps especially in the age of our own cult-like leader). But for this viewer, the film’s most farcical elements, combined with the mostly non-Russian actors enacting them, seem to play into those existing critiques of Soviet communism as hypocritical, fraudulent, and ultimately failed.

There’s an even more stringent and serious critique of the Soviet state at the heart of another recent cultural work, the HBO miniseries Chernobyl (2019). Without spoiling every storytelling beat in a series I believe everyone should watch (although of course we all have a sense of what went down at Chernobyl!), I’ll note that the show’s final minutes have a great deal to say about the Soviet Union’s reliance on propaganda and lies, and how much those elements directly contributed to (indeed, in many ways caused) this global catastrophe. Yet Chernobyl is not a satire, and that difference from Death of Stalin is much more than just about tone or genre—at its heart, this show is about a core group of courageous and good people doing their best to do the right thing, and genuinely working together (at the direct risk and ultimate expense of their own lives) to protect their comrades and (quite literally) save the world. To my mind, that’s a pitch-perfect description of the ideals of a communist society, ideals that their government consistently betrayed but that these figures fought and died for—and ideals from which the U.S. in 2024 could learn a great deal.

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Communist cultural works, present or past, you’d highlight?