The kinds of figures that were lauded by Soviet propaganda were "everymen" who, because of their love of their country etc. etc., rose to do incredible things. The case in point here is Alexey Stakhanov, of the Stakhanovite movement. It would have been at odds with Soviet ideology for science-manufactured supermen to be the heroes.
To elaborate a little more: Stakhanov was a coal miner who supposedly performed way over his quota limit in the Stalin era. The Soviet propaganda organs manufactured a "movement" out of his feat, encouraging all workers to perform well above their (often unrealistic in the first place) quotas.
Another who fits this description is Trofim Lysenko, a "barefoot agronomist" who had some rather loopy ideas about how to improve crop yields (under collectivism) that were at odds with Western genetics. Lysenko's essentially peasant status was one of the things that made him appealing for the propaganda organs, and it led to denouncements of more stereotypically elite scientists as bourgeois.
My generalization is primarily for the Stalin era (1928-1953). I don't know how much flexibility there was under later Soviet premiers in their heroic archetypes. Under Stalin one of the most popular plots for films was a variation on "boy meets tractor," just to give you an indication of what Socialist Realism meant for various types of media. It does not involve space aliens who can fly, fight for peace, justice, and the Soviet way, etc., or mutants (god forbid), or science-augmented men, or anything like that. These are deus ex machinas and as we know there is know deus other than the hard-working "new Soviet man" under Marxist-Leninism!
The hero in Soviet propaganda was not usually an individual, although as already mentioned Alexey Stakhanov was one exception based on a real person, often it was the Soviet Union itself that was the hero, or the collective proletariat internationally.
The enemy was often clearly defined as stereotypical capitalists or Fascists, sometimes it was a combination of the two. There were many Soviet cartoons that depicted war, as does Captain America, but they were more likely to make it look dark and foreboding, compared to the Captain America-version where it is a chance for the hero to realize his true potential. The Soviet films more often showed the victims, and expressed sympathy for their plight, and the saviour was the combined Soviet might and the enemy was a gross caricature, such a dirty, violent pig as in Fascist Boots on our Motherland from 1942.
The cartoon from 1967, Prophets and Lessons, is a good example of the Soviet hero being the collective people of the Soviet Union. It begins with White-Russian rats being forced out by the revolution. They go to the West and find a Capitalist prophet (profit?) who preaches that they need to crush the Soviet Union, but every attempt by fascists and capitalists is easily crushed by the Soviet Hammer. The Capitalist press predict economic collapse of the Soviet Union, but the unstoppable communist worker and industry is the hero, and is unlikely to fail, "even in 100 years!"
A good example of war being the enemy is the 1972 animated film for children, Ava Maria. It begins with religious iconography on the walls of a large banquet hall with a Christmas tree, fat capitalists in tuxedos, their wives in ball gowns, and uniformed Generals, who pop a Christmas cracker and gold coins burst out and then war begins in Vietnam. American soldiers are indoctrinated by the church, in league with the capitalists, and scenes of aerial warfare are shown with religious music playing.
In one scene a little girl holds a doll up to an American soldier and he guns her down.
There is an American propaganda poster shown that says:
USA is proud of you!
Then it goes to the only scene with words, which is a voice-over on top of scenes of civilians being bombed and burning, destroyed jungles. The theme is that proletariats are the same the world over, the civilians weeping over their dead in Vietnam are equal to the working Americans who are shown weeping over coffins draped with American flags:
The land into desert the color of blood, they blight, the earth is dying with no end to this fight!
Black Boeings, like thieves in the night, steal our husbands away, far out of sight, the women weep and the children cry, somewhere across the sea, we hear them weep yet this war will not die!
Black Boeings, like thieves in the night are flying. Our husbands are killing people, and now they too are dying. And each dawn messengers call. Telling us of our own husbands' fall. We learn that our own husbands are dead. Yet this war will not end. There's no end in sight...
There is no singular hero to come and save the day, but there is a montage of news footage of American anti-war demonstrations showing babies, old people, and working-man type people peacefully marching with rows of police watching over them, and then charging into them with batons and riot shields raised, then scenes of tear gas, rioting, and police beating people.
There are also have scenes with the little Vietnamese girl who was gunned down holding her doll out with outstretched arms superimposed over the riot scenes, and the film ends with a church-like image of Jesus holding the Virgin Mary, who is holding the dead Vietnamese girl.
Apparently, the hero is the man or woman in the street willing to stand up against the capitalists.
In the 1962 cartoon, The Millionaire, a bulldog inherits his master's fortune and becomes the stereotypical Soviet-version of a capitalist, flaunting his wealth, abusing the little people, mocking peace demonstrators, and hoarding his wealth. Once again, there is no hero to save the day, just the dutiful proletariat bidding his time, while the evil capitalist is dumb as a dog, and so bound to fail.
There was a cartoon aimed at youth in 1979 called The Shooting Range (Part 1, Part 2), which could be looked at as an anti-Captain America.
The enemy is once again the evil capitalist, and the American city is his sidekick. An average guy is unemployed after his car breaks down, and the hustle and bustle of the freeway-dependent city is impossible to navigate without a car so he loses his job, after some desperate times he meets a woman and they go to work for the capitalist on his gun range. Their job is to replace the targets as they are fired on by a group of fat capitalists. They valiantly perform their duties, but it turns out their real job is to serve as targets themselves. They gain their dignity, and walk off the job, leaving the capitalist with egg on his face. However, because of the structure of the city, he quickly has another couple to replace his lost workers.
edit: spelling
hi! these posts asked similar-ish questions; you may find them of interest, especially the first one, which goes more in-depth on the cultural background
I've spent the past 6 or so years of my life studying Soviet and Russian culture, so if it's acceptable to speak in an 'amateur expert' capacity, I'd like to shed a bit of insight into why a Captain America just doesn't really fit with the Soviet/Russian mentality.
Russian culture puts a pretty high value on being an authentic, real person (in the areas where it counts). Because Captain America is a totally unrealistic fantasy, it would be kind of silly for the Soviet government to create this idealised, fictional figure with the counterparts to the most valued traits in the American mythological figure. If a boy goes to his mother and asks for a Comrade Soviet Hero-man costume for his birthday, she would look at him funny and say, "Why? You're not Comrade Soviet Hero-man, and never will be. Why delude yourself like this? Go study for your lessons or practise something you're good at, instead."
Also, Soviet (and still Russian, to a certain extent) culture didn't really look kindly upon an individual figure being so famous and admired unless he was part of the Communist Party leadership. This became even more the case after Stalin's death and the Khrushchev government's attempt to erase the traces and dangers of the 'cult of personality.' A superhero really goes against this idea; why create a myth about this hero person who can do anything and is beloved by all when this turned out so catastrophically last time?
A good Soviet citizen didn't go out and save the day; this was the job for Comrade Stalin or (later) a brilliant Party figure. A good Soviet citizen played his or her part as a cog in the great state machine.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Captain America was propaganda for the WWII period, not the cold war.
Most characters created for youth were pacifists and peaceful. There was Alisa Selezneva - time travelling space girl from communist future appearing in several books, movies and animation. She had less pacifist friends though. Apart from her I can't remember any teenage-oriented multi-franchise heroes, others were mostly for younger children (with fairy tale characters or talking animals) or too bizarre to talk about it (Investigation Held by Kolobki).
The most similar to Capitan America were probably Elusive Avengers. This is sort of Western about group of teen fighters in Russian Civil War.
There was a Soviet superhero, a fictional character, called Uncle Styopa. He was an unusually tall man, literally a giant. Worked as a policeman, a firefighter and a navy. He was a depiction of an ideal Soviet citizen: honest, brave, no-mercy for criminals, and always ready to help people in trouble.
Technically, Uncle Styopa had all features of a superhero, and even his unusual size can be considered as a "superpower".
He first appeared in Mikhalkov's 1936 childish poem, but later, in 1964, Soviets made a cartoon, which was very famous in USSR.
[youtube.com] - here is the cartoon, so you can have an insight on how it looked.
Having grown up in the USSR I don't recall any fictional superheroes and I agree with others that this would be a very anti-Soviet concept. Soviet propaganda generally trumpeted hard work, honesty, and such virtues to which the idea of someone who can achieve great feats with less effort would have been antithetical.
However I want to mention a few popular figures who haven't been mentioned yet. First is Gagarin, the first man in space. He reached an almost superhero status and many kids wanted to be cosmonauts just like Gagarin.
Second is Lenin himself who was the subject of many propaganda stories regarding his honesty, hard work, and humility. My feeling is that few people really believed these stories, but Lenin's reputation was not tainted the way Stalin's was (probably because he died so early) and this led to him being presented as the kindly father of the Soviet Union.
Third is a variety of old Russian folk heroes such as Ivan the Fool and the Bogatyrs (such as Ilya Muromets). They generally did not have magical powers themselves (according to Wikipedia Muromets did have superhuman strength) but would through honesty, hard work, and kindness recruit a variety of magical helpers to help them accomplish impossible tasks.
I don't even know if we have an appropriately credentialed historian on comic book history but it's important to understand that the basis of most American comic book heroes is an inherently fascist one.
The hero is a person of enormous power whose moral authority implicitly derives from the fact that he is powerful. He fights for truth, justice, and the American way (Ok, that's Supes) effectively establishing that as a moral canon despite any substantive assertion that it is, in fact moral.
Many of these heroes grow out of a time when those notions of moral authority were deeply ingrained in American thought. It took WW2 to make those ideas seem archaic to our modern eyes but they live on on the power fantasy that is the comic book.
Heck, "super man" is even a lose translation of Neitzches' "ubermench"
