Why “sovietism” is a great word
SOVIETISM — [Noun] The principles, practices, and political system that characterized the governance and society of the former Soviet Union. From Soviet (from Russian sovet, "council") + -ism (a suffix forming nouns of action, practice, or doctrine). Unlike "communism," which denotes a broad, theoretical socioeconomic ideology, or "bolshevism," which specifies the revolutionary Leninist doctrine, sovietism is the concrete institutional reality that grew from them. It is the tactile weight of an internal passport, the bureaucratic rustle of a five-year plan filed in triplicate, and the weary silence that follows a political joke told in a whisper—the total translation of an ideal into a landscape of lived accommodation.