The article attempts to outline new theoretical approaches to the study of the Soviet past, based on the cultural-anthropological research program of “the Soviet man” as proposed by N. N. Kozlova. Our assumption is that, in the implementation of her research program, Kozlova was trying to solve a double problem: on the one hand, to overcome the ideological framework posed by the concept of totalitarianism as the basic model of understanding Soviet society, and on the other, to understand Soviet society as an unintended social invention, In the framework of the model of Soviet society as an unintended social invention, classical social-theoretical views and conceptions enter into a complex theoretical alliance with the postclassical social theories of Norbert Elias, Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, and Pierre Bourdieu. The purpose of this strategy of research is to find adequate intellectual models and a basic theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between the individual and society. The qualification of the Soviet society as a social invention implies that a functional interdependent network of individuals arises in the course of common life of the individuals from the interactions between them. This network moves in a certain direction and has its own regularities, which, as specific patterns of relations between individuals, is not defined exactly by any one individual. The role of the basic model for the understanding of such a functional network of interdependent individuals does not play the model of the system, but the model of the common game and the social grammar, which is at the core of this game. Special attention is paid to the assessment of the heuristic potential of Kozlova’s hypothesis of Soviet civilization as a special type of modern society, and its importance for the studies of Soviet society and culture.