Voluntary Unpaid Labor and Late Soviet Authoritative Discourse

The theme of this study is the concept of voluntary forced labor in the context of late Soviet authoritative discourse. Voluntary forced labor as an indispensable element of authoritative Soviet discourse by the early 1970s which included extensive bodies of regulations, institutions and practices. Of great interest is the comparative analysis of late Soviet diaries as sources which are able to help in reconstruction of the attitude from below to voluntary-forced/communist labor under late socialism. As social groups, the representatives of which belong to the diary entries selected for this work, are the intelligentsia and the nomenclature. The concept of “late Soviet man” or his archetype which is based on these social groups’ points of view is fundamentally important In the context of this study, it is not the concept of “late Soviet man” (presented in the work of the opposition “intelligentsia-nomenclature”) that is considered and reconstructed, but the discursive concept of “voluntary-forced labor”, which must be contrasted with the experience of everyday life under late socialism.