The fall of the Communist bloc as seen from the eastern side

Question

It's commonly said that Anglo-Saxon SF writers failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states — quickly, with little violence, and without Western intervention.

What was the perception of from the other side? Are there any notable trends in science fiction from the Communist bloc (Russia, Eastern Europe, China, etc.) regarding its future (how long it would last, how it would evolve or end, etc.)?

Obviously prediction is easy after the fact, so only works written before 1989 are relevant. Given the strong censorship, it would be especially interesting to consider works written but not published before 1989, or works published by emigrants.

Note that I'm interested in general trends, not that there's one particular work that got it right (or amusingly wrong). So please don't reply with a list of works — analysis is what I'm after.

Answer 1

You should check out books by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Russian SF writers. Most of their books were written in the 60's and 70's, and some in the 80's. Many good ones sat on a shelf for decades, before they could be published. Several of their books have been translated into English. They are not so much about the fall of the USSR, since virtually nobody could have foreseen that, but they offer good insights into the daily life and the mindset of the Soviet people.

They do describe a number of possible futures in their books. One series takes place in the "Noon Universe", where the people of Earth live in a Communist-like society or Star-trek like society, where poverty is eliminated, and people strive to better themselves, and to be useful. However, in those books they sometimes describe Orwellian societies of other planets (somehow also populated by humans), which are eerily similar to the realities of life in the USSR. See Prisoners of Power, aka "The Inhabited Island", and Hard to be a god.

Edit:

Since you are already familiar with the Strugatsky brothers, you should check out Moscow 2042 by Vladimir Voynovich. This is a satirical book about a possible future in 2042. The Soviet system was based on the idea of "building Socialism in a single country", which replaced the notion of the "world revolution", prevalent at the turn of the 20th century. "Moscow 2042" takes that to the extreme, and describes "Communism in a single city". Communism, of course, means "from each according to one's ability, to each according to one's needs". The catch is that one's needs are determined by the powers that be, and there are a number of "levels of needs". The book is hilarious, especially if you can read it in Russian. It is also a not-so-subtle jab at Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Answer 2

What most likely one would expect to see is books similar in nature to Moon series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, where an author leaves room for a reader’s imagination to do the work. Some people say that Apostezjon Trilogy by Edmund Wnuk- Lipinski portrays the most common anti-communism trend. And then there is also Limes Inferior by Janusz Zajdel, a novel on how would a system resulting from a mix or convergence of the main systems then competing - communism and capitalism - look like.

Answer 3

NON SCI-FI REALTED PART: If you want a little bit of "non-scifi" analysis from a former citizen of Czechoslovakia, here it is. After Leonid Brezhnev death the western countries and "insiders" in USSR like Gorbachev etc. decided to make a tranition of communist block to capitalist block, however nobody from ordinary people know about that, but what everybody saw was that more and more stupid people was added to the leading positions. It is a standard strategy if you want to make people hate their leaders to put there idiots etc. To be honest I didn't think that in 1989 the socialism will end. but after a couple of days we were sure that something will happen. Btw. it was orchestrated by western countries and "insiders" and in the end also the communist party of Czechoslovakia wanted a smooth tradition to capitalism etc.

SCI-FI RELATED PART (to some degree ;):. In former Czechoslovakia in the 80's there was a popular magazine for teenagers called ABC and there were also a sci-fi/other stories and comix specials with different stories (and interesting even now), but no stuff about the collapse of Soviet block was tolerated. So, there were basically no anti-government stories, because there was no way to publish your stories except the state owned publishers. Btw. sci-fi in the Soviet block was more like Star Trek clones, where everybody is helping the society. Individualism was seen as selfish. Collectivism was seen as the better way of enriching the humankind. E.g. check this movies for children from 1978 ;D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBAqHh55744 or this very good movie from 1955 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOIZesiXmq0 (trailer in English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg-cObCfC9g ). To make a wrap up, even if somebody write something against the "communism" or to be more correct socialism it wasn't published. Btw. socialism and communism is far more closer to sci-fi like Star Trek then capitalism is. I have heard one radio session or something with Gene Roddenberry and he told that they the TV series was accused by TV owners of too "communist" etc. ;) I guess it's maybe hard to understand for "western" sci-fi fans that stuff like Terminator wasn't possible to write/make a movie in Socialist country. It's important to know that if there were no private corporations (like in capitalism), there was no enemy. The plots was almost always about exploration, helping less developed civilizations on other planets etc. No wars or fighting except a few exceptions of course. I'm missing the more human times a little though. This capitalist regime is maybe better for faster development of technology etc. but it is much colder, cruel and non-human. Btw. did you know that in Czechoslovakia there were no homeless people. They begin to appear after 1990 because people started loosing jobs as a result of privatisation or should I say the wild wild east speculations. In USSR it was a little different though and harder then in the middle European communist countries. But I am talking about politics too much ;). Anyway, there were no officialy published anti-regime literature, movies etc. Maybe in Hungary or Yugoslavia to some extent yes, but the only TV sci-fi children series from Hungary that I know is this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E95P1VCtk so I am not sure if it was more soft there. But I asssume that at least a little softer it could be for authors to publish "contoversial" novels. Btw. sci-fi was not very respected genre in communism to some degree. Real stories (Socialist realism ;), comedies or ww2 based movies were more important and required by the regime than sci-fi. However, sc=fi was not banned at all.

Btw. I don't like capitalism. For somebody who had lived in socialism, capitalism looks like feudalism on steroids with incredible lying tactics (Even Stalin was just a little worm when compared with nowadays professional liars ;) ). I mean, now you have corporations that fight with each other (in principle the same like Kings 800 years ago ;) and instead of armies they use much sophisticated weapons like money, patents, media, pharmacy etc ;))