Homo Sovieticus

Abstract

Alexander Zinoviev is a man of contradictions. He is small in stature, yet powerfully built. Of artistic temperament, he has a razor-sharp analytical mind. An ardent individualist, he was always a conscientious member of his collective. His energy is phenomenal. In the course of his professional life he has written over two hundred books and articles on the logical structure of scientific language in an environment in which the non-scientific language of ideology was paramount. A controversial figure in philosophical circles in Moscow, he has become a controversial figure in literary circles in Munich, where he now lives. His writing likewise contains a mass of contradictions. Since the publication of Ziiaiushchie vysoty, his monumental anatomy of Communist society, he has written a further twenty-four books and countless articles on the nature of Communism, the earlier works describing its defects, the latest works defending it. Some of his works are gigantic, highly complex in their structure, polyphonic in their tone, unique in their exhaustive description of a particular way of life.