Austin, I have read unconfirmed claims that Tetris was originally imagined as being allegorical to a Russian prison camp, in which the prisoners would be required to build a wall during the day, only to have it knocked down before them by the prison wardens. While I have nothing more than stories of that claim, it has been confirmed by Russian friends of mine that such an allusion would go right along with the late Soviet Russian common mindset. Other than that, I tried to look up more about the idea behind Tetris, but the developers apparently had little to say on the subject as far as I have seen.