Heroes of the labor Donbas: was there the cult of the machine-builder?

Abstract

The question of the existence and stability of the Soviet system is one of the central topic of interest to and interested of the researchers of Soviet history. Legitimation of the regime cann`t be explained only by its repressive possibilities. Equally important role in the existence of the regime played its ideological component, the exclusive task of which was the establishment of the Soviet monopoly in society. The Soviet ideology was a kind of political religion, archaic in nature and manipulative in form.

The article is considering one of the forms of the Soviet ritual system – the instrument of political religion – the cult of labor. The paper examines the necessity of the existence of the culture of labor as an idea of mobilizing the population through labor. The author analyzes it as a manifestation of professional subcultures with their inherent elitism, the cultivation of a sense of choice, the motives of mystical revelation and esoteric knowledge, that professed the logic of power. Particular attention is paid to the cult of miner’s work, which is a classic manifestation of the Soviet labor tradition. The author considers the significance of the miner’s cult, emphasizes its characteristic features. The possibility of the author’s focus makes it possible to draw a comparative conclusion that there was no separate cult of the machine-builder (such a miner). Also, the result of the research is to find out the role and place of machine builders in the system of the Soviet modernist – archaic ritual order; the determining how relations between them and the state were formalized and how they felt in this "extent of new industrial paganism".