Soviet phraseology

Soviet phraseology, or Sovietisms, i. e. the neologisms and cliches in the Russian language of the epoch of the Soviet Union, has a number of distinct traits that reflect the Soviet way of life and Soviet culture and politics. Most of these distinctions are ultimately traced (directly or indirectly, as a cause effect chain) to the utopic goal of creating a new society, the ways of the implementation of this goal and what was actually implemented. The topic of this article is not limited to the Russian language, since this phraseology also permeated regional languages in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Russian was the official language of inter nationality communication in the Soviet Union, and was declared official language of the state in 1990, therefore it was the major source of Soviet phraseology.

An initial surge of intentional word coinage appeared immediately after the October Revolution. The declared goal of the Bolsheviks was "to abolish the capitalist state with all its means of oppression". At the same time, the instruments of the state were objectively, necessary, and they did exist, only under new names. The most notable example is People's Commissar/People's Commissariat which corresponded to minister/ministry (and in fact the latter terms were restored in 1946).

Ben Lewis wrote in his essay, book, and film (all titled Hammer & Tickle) that "Communism was a humour producing machine. Its economic theories and system of repression created inherently funny situations. There were jokes under fascism and the Nazis too, but those systems did not create an absurd, laugh a minute reality like communism." Soviet people coined irreverent definitions for their leaders. "Mineralny sekretar" was a nickname for General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (due to his anti alcohol campaign). "Kukuruznik" (from kukuruza, maize) referred to Nikita Khrushchev (because of his botched introduction of maize from the United States).