The cult of heroism in the USSR today lies at the very heart of the ideological patterns of justification, instruction, and inspiration advanced by the governors of that society. The model behavior of the new Soviet hero, as it is presented in literature, in the classroom, or in the press, is designed to drive men to the fulfillment of their public tasks and to regulate, as well, the organization of their private lives. The concept of the exemplary hero, taken as a quintessential and idealized statement of the Soviet view of human nature, touches on many currents of thought, most directly on the junction point of ethical and psychological theory, but beyond that, upon all the disciplines concerned with the condition of the Soviet individual in his society.