The economic deviations citizens in post-war Soviet political discourse

The paper deals with the problem of reflection in the Soviet official political discourse of economic deviations in the second half of the 1940s - early 1950s. The post-war recovery of the country’s economy largely depended on the successful eradication of economic deviations that existed in the post-war Soviet society, among which the priority positions were occupied by various labor violations, as well as the activity strategies of citizens that cause economic damage to the state. On the basis of the analysis of the Constitution of 1936, party documents, speeches and statements of political actors, archival materials, the functions of the Soviet political discourse are revealed: information, persuasion, coercion, resistance, legitimacy, identification, manipulation, regulation. The economic deviations recorded in political discursive practices were explained through the “optics” of the “remnants of capitalism” in the minds and behavior of individual “unconscious citizens”. The limits and possibilities of political discourse in the context of overcoming the deviant economic strategies that emerged in the Soviet society after the end of the great Patriotic war are shown.