Book: The Anti-Soviet Soviet Union

The concepts of "Soviet people" or "Soviet people", derived from the form of government, look somewhat unnatural. It would also be unnatural to call any people monarchical or parliamentary, or to unite all the peoples of the countries of the common market with the name of the common market people. But still, I often use the adjective “Soviet”, because I don’t know any other common name for people of various nationalities inhabiting the USSR. And it is necessary, because the general laws, rules of conduct and conditions of existence that have been in force throughout the life of several generations, without completely destroying national differences, develop traditions and habits common to all. I don’t put any negative meaning into the word “Soviet” in this case. Among Soviet people, as among any other people, there are many smart, stupid, talented, mediocre, noble and scoundrels. But try to put a Russian, an American, an Eskimo and a Thai in the same prison cell, keep them in this cell for a sufficient number of years and you will see that all of them, with all their national and personal differences, will have the same inclinations. and habits, they will all write in small handwriting, dislike bright sunlight, and will all be claustrophobic. And if their children and grandchildren grow up in the same cell, then from early childhood they will learn to deceive the guards, hide small things in the folds of their clothes, and bread under their pillows, and even released into the wild and into a prosperous life, they will be for a very long time to keep these habits and, perhaps, to pass them on by inheritance.

It turns out that our everyday life seems mysterious and incomprehensible to Western people, like the life of beetles in a barrel.

... Americans are spoiled people.

I began to describe in books what I saw in real life, and I got into trouble, the further, the more.

Of course, he read about the Soviet camps and the Stalinist terror, but he urged me to admit that during the years of Soviet rule, Russia had gone far ahead, became a powerful industrial power and its success in space speaks for itself.

They also asked me if there are hotels and taxis in Moscow, and why do Russians need money at all, if they can’t buy anything anyway?

In the Soviet Union itself, millions of people know nothing about collectivization, Stalin's purges, and what is happening today, in the early 1980s.

This ignorance is due to many reasons. Correspondents who worked in Moscow note that Soviet society is closed to foreigners. But the thing is that it is closed not only for foreigners. The thing is that it is closed to the Soviet people themselves, especially to those who do not listen to foreign radio. Any, often the simplest, information is our secret. Individual enterprises, entire islands and cities are secret; not only foreigners, but also Soviet citizens have no access there. Secret epidemics, natural disasters, train and plane crashes. The true harvest figures and production figures in general are secret. The number of alcoholics and drug addicts is secret. The names of the writers expelled from the country and, of course, their books are secret. Even the names of the most distinguished figures of the revolution, the civil war and recent Soviet leaders are secret. In the encyclopedia, for example, there is the word "Trotskyism", but there is no surname "Trotsky".

Writers also live separately from everyone. From time to time they “to study life” go on so-called “creative” business trips, sometimes individually, but most often in teams, visit “advanced” collective farms or factories, where they are shown the front or, more precisely, the fictitious side of life and are deceived as foreigners. The vast majority of writers (and there are more than 8,000 of them in the USSR) are completely unaware of the life of their own people, and those rare ones who know and try to portray it truthfully are persecuted by the authorities, accused of aiding foreign intelligence services and sometimes punished very severely.

There are many secrets in the Soviet Union, but, as I said, the main and carefully guarded secret of this state is the real, everyday life of Soviet people.