Often referred to as “Soviet Pop Art”, Sots Art or soc art (Russian: Соц-арт, short for Socialist Art) originated in the Soviet Union in the early 1970s as a reaction against the official aesthetic doctrine of the state— socialist realism, which was marked by reverential depictions of workers, peasants living happily in their communes.
Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid are credited with the invention of the term "Sots Art"; in an analogy with the Western pop art movement, which incorporated the kitchy elements of the Western mass culture, sots art capitalized on the imagery of the Socialist mass culture.[1]
According to Arthur Danto, Sots Art's attack on official styles is similar in intent to American pop art and German capitalist realism.[2]