The Couch Potatoes of Developed Socialism

Despite the origins of Sovpunk in the "Union Maniac" community, some of its theorists and interpreters insisted on the movement's non-aggressive character.  Their ideal Sovpunk seemed to be the unlikely offspring of the highly militarized late Soviet culture and the milder aesthetic subculture it spawned in the 1980s, the Mitki (whose slogan was "The Mitiki don't want to defeat anyone). As siesit siesit puts it:  "this 'movement'i is not destructive; the subculture's goal is not overthrowing the current order and the violent return to socialism. Everyone must understand the USSR is no more and will never be again, and if something like it is every formed in the future, it will be something new, a new era." 

Siesit is making a crucial distinction here between fantasy and a political program, since he also specifically includes an alternate history in which the USSR never collapsed, but instead became a superpower greater than all others, "taking only the best from the old USSR we knew, that is, an extended and improved USSR 2.0," while also allowing for the possibility of a more "negative" alternate USSR.  Particularly noteworthy is his description of the Sovpunk's "typical hero."  Like so many of the Time Crashers we examined earlier, this hero is an only slightly idealized version of the story's imaginary reader, with a touch of socialist realism:  "A dreamer, a student, a scientist, or simply a worker; humble, a bit naive, but still dashing, but still, as a rule, without any particularly supernatural superpowers; everything he achieves is thanks to work, persistence, and knowledge." 

Perhaps this hero should have been siesit's starting point.  This hero is a Mary Sue, but only barely, capable of more than the genre's readers might be, but not with skills that are not quite unattainable.  For him to be effective, the Sovpunk world in which he operates must be, as the Russians like to put it, "vegetarian," with no room for bloodthirsty tyrants or fanatical revolutionaries.  It is a Soviet Union made to order for its hero, rather than the expression of political yearnings or the result of copious historical research. It is a USSR as holodeck program, with all the safety protocols dutifully enabled.