From Laika to Labour: Animals in the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union's treatment of animals was driven by ideology. Animal interests were of little concern in a system which prioritised the working class.
The welfare and interests of animals were of little concern in a system which prioritised the working class. The fate of the world’s first space traveller, Laika the dog, who was sent on a one-way mission into orbit in 1957, was symbolic of official attitudes towards animals under socialism.
The Soviet Union's treatment of animals was driven by ideology and a ruthless pragmatism. After the 1917 Revolution, even simple pets were branded as "pampered" – a symbol of the bourgeois excess that contradicted socialist ideals of equality and cleanliness. This hostility was so extreme, it even led to the disbanding of the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals, which had been founded in 1865.
After the devastation of World War II, attitudes softened slightly. By the time of Stalin's death, Moscow's vet clinics cared for 36,000 pets annually. This shift coincided with a period of liberalisation, known as the Khrushchev Thaw, which led to an increased emphasis on private spaces. Animals were tolerated as pets, but they existed in a paradoxical state – their acceptance was unspoken, and their presence always demanded explanation.
The Soviet state's utilitarian view of animals wasn't limited to domestic life. Entertainment became a tool to project power. The famed Moscow State Circus was wildly popular. With exotic performing animals like Siberian tigers, the circus was more than entertainment, it was a symbol of socialist achievement, its promotion underscoring the state's ability to provide spectacles that rivalled those in the West.
Unlike their Western counterparts, Socialist zoos like East Germany’s Tierpark reinforced narratives of human dominance over nature. They had a thin educational veneer, but primarily served as reminders of the state's ability to contain and manage nature . Animal welfare was often secondary, as both circuses and zoos were first and foremost tools to project an image of power and wealth.
Animals in Service of the Soviet State
This focus on animal utility was bluntly stated in propaganda like a 1940 pamphlet declaring, "A dog is not an amusement, but the friend and helper of man at work." Perhaps the starkest evidence of the change is in a dog-care manual. First published just before the 1917 Revolution, the next edition, published just 10 years later – featured a working postal dog on its cover, reflecting the radical shift in perspective. Marxist philosophy reinforced this view, elevating humans as the only beings capable of complex goals and meaningful creation, delegating animals to an inferior status.
But if there is one animal whose destiny symbolises an inferior status, it is Laika the dog, the first space traveller in history. Laika was a stray, taken from the streets of Moscow to be trained for the space mission. Stray dogs were chosen on the grounds of their ability to endure extreme temperatures, although looks were also a factor, as a Soviet space pioneer had to be photogenic.
The Soviet leadership wanted a propaganda success to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, leaving no time for the construction of a capsule for her return journey. The Soviet government claimed that Laika that she lived for as many as ten days after the launch and was then painlessly put to death with sleeping gas. It was only in 2002 that the truth about her death was made public, she had died after only 5 to 7 hours, most likely from overheating and stress.
Testing and the use of animals to further science continued throughout the 20th century. From Pavlov’s dog conditioning experiments to the domestication of Siberian foxes. In 1959, the Soviet geneticist, Dmitry Belyaev, purchased 130 silver foxes from Soviet fur farms and began selecting them for friendliness toward humans.
His goal was to study the process of domestication in real-time. He was especially keen on understanding how dogs had evolved from wolves. He chose silver foxes instead of wolves, and kept only the most tame foxes - approximately 20% of the population - to breed the next generation.
After several generations, the foxes' traits and appearance had already changed. Their ears were floppy, they were smaller, their tails became curly, they had an extended reproductive cycle, and the shape of their skulls, jaws, and teeth changed. These traits can also be found in other domesticated species, and are now thought to be inherently linked to the process of domestication, supporting Darwin’s hypothesis in the Origin of Species.
Metaphors and Manipulation: Animal Symbols in the USSR
Despite their utilitarian and subservient status, animals were heavily exploited by Soviet propaganda to project an image of liberation and global harmony. The dove is the most potent symbol of peace and was used heavily in Soviet anti-war and fraternity propaganda posters.
However, nonconformist artists subverted this narrative, turning animal imagery into a vehicle of dissent. Birds were particularly evocative, their caged lives mirroring the constraints of life within the regime. This subtle resistance transformed animals into powerful metaphors for the longing for freedom and individuality.
One powerful example is István Harasztÿ’s 1972 installation, Like a Bird. A live parrot was trapped in a cage with doors that opened when it was perched, only to slam shut the moment the bird attempted to escape. When the work was exhibited for the first time at the István Király Museum in Székesfehérvár in 1977, the bird had to be ‘replaced’ three times during the show due to stress-induced deaths.
This piece was recognized as having heavily political overtones, as the parrot's plight offered a direct metaphor for the situation of individuals within communist Hungary. For the secret police, it was clear that: ‘The mechanism, and in particular the case of the bird, exemplifies the apparition of human freedom.’ The work's political charge was so strong that even the title was eventually changed to the less subversive Birdcage.
Animals served as powerful symbols not just in visual propaganda, but in literature too. George Orwell's Animal Farm uses a deceptively simple farmyard setting to deliver a scathing allegorical attack on the communist ideology of Joseph Stalin. Orwell, a harsh critic of Stalin and the Soviet system, described Animal Farm in a letter to Yvonne Davet as a satirical tale against Stalin.
Orwell's clear communication stemmed from his belief that political language often served as a tool for deception. Within the novel, the narrator and honest animals speak plainly, while the pigs manipulate language for their own gain. The pigs' system of thought, Animalism, a clear allegory for Communism, is corrupted as they engage in forbidden activities, mirroring the Soviet government's revision of history for control. Unsurprisingly, the book's theme and choice of pigs as the dominant class deeply offended Soviet authorities.
The Soviet system starkly reinforced the divide between humans and animals. Animals were viewed as subservient and expendable, their lives and needs secondary to the state's ambitions. This perspective, shaped by a combination of Marxist ideology and a pragmatic focus on survival, had lasting effects on how animals were perceived and treated within the socialist bloc.
