Tentative People: Alexander Zinoviev on the Issue of Russians Betraying Themselve

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to fi nd the answer to the question how prominent Russian thinker Alexander Zinoviev treats the problem of the Russian people’s identity as innate communists after they failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union. What really happened to the Russian people and was it an act of self-betrayal? And what was the cause of that betrayal? And fi nally, who is to be blamed for the demise of the USSR and the tragic failure of the Russian Experiment: Russian people, Communist Party leaders or the West? In the article the author also brings up the issue of Zinoviev’s personal responsibility for the collapse of Russian communism which the thinker seemed ready to admit