“It would be nice to get some kind of bonus...” The Soviet worker alone with his diary (1941–1955)

Abstract

Based on the diaries of Al. Dmitriev, this article presents an attempt to reconstruct the life-world of a Soviet worker during the period 1941–1955. In terms of his social status, Alexander Dmitriev belonged to the new type of labor aristocracy. His “I” is a fusion of Soviet culturedness and the traditions of settlement-based old Russian craftsmen. The cultural dominant of his personality is individualism armed with the techniques of survival in the Soviet environment. His strategy of conduct is built in accordance with his personal economic interest. Dmitriev has many advantageous social traits: education, profession, social status, gender, experience in urban socialization. He uses them as resources for survival and social advancement. The author concludes that the result of the Soviet cultural revolution was restoration of a petty bourgeois culture that had adapted to the Soviet way of life.