The Soviet Mentality

Having strived to reconcile numerous contradictory strands of the Soviet national character and explain Soviet people's social behavior, the author introduces a two-layered concept of mentality: a set of basic perceptions and attitudes, and a set of secondary features, many of which have been habitually ascribed to the Russian character. In the author's view, secondary features can be derived from basic perceptions and attitudes which present a person's view of the world and are very stable. In order to separate the basic perceptions from the secondary features the author analyses the process of socialization in two culturesthe Soviet and the American. He identifies main channels of influence in both cultures through which society integrates a new member and three codes of conduct based on religious ethics, law, and unwritten rules that regulate behavior in a society. They turn out to be very different in the two countries, explaining the dramatic difference in all basic perceptions of Americans and Soviets.