9
addition, it controlled the mass media in order to suppress any criticism from below. Under
such circumstances, the new ruling class tasted the fruits of the Soviet system with neither
criticism from public opinion and nor challenge from political opponents. As a result, the
tragic gap only widened between “what we had fought for and what we had run into”:
“There
are
Berezka stores in large cities … [but] the Soviet
citizen can only look and lick his lips. … In Leningrad, there is
a remarkable store on the Makarov Quay called Vneshposyltorg.
… If you visit the shop, your eyes will pop out. … After this
shop, the model department store would look like a scrape
depot. … This is where they should take tourists after the
sightseeing of the Aurora [the warship which fired the first shot
in the October Revolution] that stands nearby. That would
really show tourists something: what we had fought for and
what we had run into” (Arkhiv Samizdata Doc. No. 1198).
Though he abhorred the glaring inequalities, the famous “socialist” dissident Roi
Medvedev did not believe that there was a new ruling class in Soviet society because the
means of production were neither owned nor inherited on a private basis (Medvedev 1977
297). Glumov, however, disagreed on this point. “If parents have created a paradise for
themselves, they would definitely put their children in a garden of paradise.” After all,
“parental feelings were biological instincts” that operated “without any trouble.” As a result,
Glumov observed class inequality not only between the rulers and the ruled but also
between their children. For instance, while the Khrushchev leadership exhorted the young
generation to participate in the Virgin Land program, Glumov wondered how many of them
actually sent their own children to those harsh environments:
“Ordinary young people are persuaded to work on the virgin lands
to master fantastic Siberia or the Arctic. How many children of the
Party bureaucracy leave Moscow to live in virgin lands? Alas, the
children of the party bureaucracy take on even more difficult tasks.
They go much farther than Kazakhstan or Siberia. We cannot even
imagine how difficult it is to work in the very nest of the enemy – trade
missions and diplomatic posts in capitalist countries … How
excruciatingly painful it is to put dollars in your pocket, the symbol of
exploitation! What iron nerves one should have to see stripteases of
poor and desperate Parisienne” (Arkhiv Samizdata Doc. No. 1198).
As shown thus far, “socialist” dissidents deeply resented “the glaring contradictions”
between the socialist ideology and the dismal Soviet reality where privileges and
inequalities were prevalent not only between different classes – the ruling vs. the ruled – but
Convention