Space Begins at Home

By making space exploration the theme of the first competition and following it up with a mix of technological topics (the asteroid belt, cars) and more general ones (vacation in the future) , Archy13 and Felix implicitly encouraged a dual approach to science fiction.  The trappings of hard science fiction were meant to be combined with what the organizers call "social science fiction" (sotsial'naia fantastika). The result was often two competing infodumps in a single story: one about technological advances, the other providing sociohistorical background, often with a distinct ideological tinge.

While Archy13 and Felix's project is obviously based on disenchantment with the current order, their own statements are never particularly strident.  Even their guidelines for imagining a future USSR are rather moderate, both sociologically and technologically. There will be no faster-than-light travel, no aliens, no singularity, but also no collapse of America or global conquest by the new USSR.  Nonetheless, many of the contestants looked at the competition as an argument to elaborate their thoughts on geopolitics and ideology.  It is no surprise that the winning stories were published in a volume that would become part of EKSMO's series of "patriotic" science fiction, much of which was produced by writers associated with the "Liberpunk" movement.  "Liberpunk" is a Russian science fiction subgenre whose prime subject matter is liberalism as a dystopia.  "USSR-2016" is not a Liberpunk project, but it functions as a kinder, gentler fellow traveler.

Thus in Olga Bondareva's story "The Glass Dream," we learn that "the black population in the USA" continues to protest, even after the passage of the 2038 "Political Correctness" Law, which affirmed the concepts of "Afro-American," "Euro-American," and "Asian American." America is even worse in Yuri Khabibulin's "Mother's Day:" since 2025, the USA is the last country in the world to be ruled by "secret state feminism." At an international women's conference, the American representative bursts with pride at her country's rising abortion rates, at the laws restricting the rights of "aggressive and stupid" men, and about the successful propaganda of lesbianism, whose goal is to reduce men to "slaves and subhumans/" 

In his "Red Means Blood," Pyotr Nazinov's protagonist laments the plight of capitalists in the West, who are "surrounded by cruelty, perversions, and pettiness." The West, he explains, "hates us, because they are afraid. We hate them because they hate us.  They've always hated us.  Always, throughout history they've exploited and deceived us."  The West's treachery is a recurrent them.  In Miloslav Kniasev's  "Fifth Medal," we learn that Russian, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan passed national referendums to restore the USSR, after which they were immediately attacked by "the fascist countries of NATO."  It is not enough that the USSR be ideal; the West has to be on the decline.  "Now the Soviet does not look abroad to the promised land; it is the foreigner who looks to the USSR" (Yana Talyaka, "Not a Word of Lies. Gulag. Doom." In another story, the USSR's growth rate is so high that the decision to reform the USSR in 2022 was undeniably correct: "The only way the Western world could stop the USSR and keep its hegemony was through war" (Sergei Tolstoy, "The New Person").   What else could be expected from American and its allies? "the USA is run not by its government, but by secret financial clans, and they hold hostage not just the Americans, but the entire world" (Aleksei Slavin, "The Little Earth").

Still, the expansion into outer space does allow some of the writers to think more expansively about how a future USSR might manage to create a radiant future that manages not to be totalitarian.  Most of the wars that the various future Soviet Unions ware are wars of defense, rather than choice; the USSR tends to win over hearts and minds through soft power and an appealing example. In Andrei Khval'skii's "Summer Internship," which is a futuristic pastiche of the story of a familiar revolutionary story, Commander Chapaev tells the faithful Petka that the USSR is not for everyone:  "our scientists think that there are so-called "genetic liberals" for whom what we would consider an unacceptable environment is natural to them, like the swamp to a swamp creature."  The new USSR takes these poor, benighted souls into account ("We're not fascists, Petka!).  It signed the Osco Accord on the Rights of Psychos and Their Individual Psychic Climates, and has pledged to take care of these liberals while making sure they don't start an "epidemic" of mental illness."

Talyaka's "Not a Word of Lies" also emphasizes the USSR's voluntary character:  "We don't keep anyone if they don't like it. Compensate the state for your education, medical care, and everything else it's spent on you, and you're off.  Try your luck.  What's important is that the Soviet Union has not made foreign countries into forbidden fruit." Tolstoy's "New Person" uses virtually the same language: "the Soviet person may freely choose to live in communism, socialism, or try his luck in a market environment."