Sovietizing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The process of adapting or converting institutions, systems, or societies to the political, economic, or cultural principles of a specific 20th-century socialist state; implementing communist governance structures; promoting the ideology and organization associated with that regime
2. Transforming an area or group to align with a particular socialist model characterized by centralized control, collective ownership, and party rule; instating official policies and standards of that political system; encouraging loyalty to its ideology
3. Changing existing frameworks to reflect the administrative and ideological practices of an influential communist government; enforcing state authority and socialist doctrines; reshaping society in accordance with those tenets

Etymology: "Soviet" comes from the Russian "sovet," meaning "council" or "advice," and in 1905 it was applied to the workers' councils that sprang up during the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks later adopted the term for their state, so "Soviet" came to name a political system rather than just a committee. The suffix "-ize" is a long-established English way of turning a noun or adjective into a verb meaning "to make into" or "to make conform to," as in "modernize" or "Americanize." Put together, "Sovietize" means to remake something along Soviet lines, and the present participle "sovietizing" describes that ongoing process. Its meaning is strongly tied to the twentieth century, when Soviet influence extended across Eastern Europe and beyond after the Second World War, and the word became a common term for the imposition of Soviet institutions and doctrines on other societies.

Synonyms: communizing, socializing, collectivizing, bolshevizing, proletarianizing

Antonyms: capitalizing, privatizing, democratizing, liberalizing, decentralizing