The article dwells upon such two-component phraseological units as soviet-cliches, on example of such phraseological units as «imperialism shark» and «capitalism shark» and their transformation in the language of printed media and Internet. A monitoring of printed  media shows,  that  such  units and their transformation  is  still  actively  used  and –  as  a  part  of the«language game» – have outlived the political system that gave birth to them.