When the New Soviet Man Grew Old: The Meanings of Age and the Aging of Socialism, 1922-1991

Abstract

This dissertation explores Soviet views on human age, from the Soviet Union’s birth to its death, focusing on the ways in which science, politics, and society came together to create dominant norms and perceptions of chronological age and lifespan over the course of the Soviet twentieth century. Following discussions of age and aging across disparate sets of sources over the course of the Soviet twentieth century, I show that understanding the meanings of age is fundamental to understanding the Soviet zeitgeist at any moment. I explore the meanings of age in the USSR: as the “New Soviet Man” grew old, there was a disappearance of revolutionary zeal and a growing conservatism in relationships with human age and aging. What began as a celebration of youth and a revolutionary pursuit of longevity turned, over the course of one generation’s lifetime, into a distinct conservatism preoccupied with older people and care for the elderly. From the revolutionary 1920s’ to the stagnating 1970s and 80s, the Soviet relationship with human age aged alongside the first generation of Soviet youth and their ascent to the USSR’s highest positions of political and cultural leadership. And yet, this new relationship with old age was complex and nuanced, reflecting Soviet values and fears at all levels of society. I show that ideas about human age—especially old age—served as a barometer for Soviet enthusiasm about its own revolutionary future. Following a group of Soviet Ukrainian scientists who laid the groundwork for Soviet gerontology, I examine how revolutionary discourse on categories of age intersected with science in the 1920s and 30s, resulting in the widespread practice of radical life-extending operations and interventions, meant to make the elderly young again or dramatically extend human life. The dissertation explores the transition after Stalin’s death away from scientific interventions in lifespan toward scientific, political, and cultural programs that facilitated discussions on age and its meanings. I show that the original vision of omolozhenie and eternal youth failed, that the USSR had to accept old age, something which they did in ways that were both distinctly Soviet and mirrored the wider world’s relationship with the elderly. The irony was that the Soviet regime, built on the premise of rejuvenation and eternal youth, died on the watch of gerontocrats and failed the test of the new omolozhenie: by the end of the 1980s, the USSR tried to return to the ideas of political "omolozhenie" from the 1920s, but the conservative Soviet project could not survive the transformation and collapsed. Changes in Soviet thinking about age took place as the result of ideological changes and social transformations in the Soviet society, the study of which provides a unique insight in the history of the USSR as social utopia. My research makes important contributions to Soviet historiography and historiographies of age because of the dynamic historical patterns that it reveals about the relationships between age, demography, political and social power, and revolution. My work demonstrates that the ways we think about age—just as critically as gender, race, and class— have enormous bearings on the locations of power and powerlessness in society.