Abstract

V. The Soviets and the Human Being

The Soviets and their individual subjects, here is perhaps the greatest paradox of all. For with the complete denial of political liberty, of the right to dissent and to oppose, yes, even to hold conflicting economic opinions in plain view, one still has while in Soviet Union the feeling that it is a land of greater individual freedom than most others. This is in large part due to recognition of the tremendous advance in the position of the Russian worker over his situation in the Czarist period, and also to the smashing of certain outworn taboos, to the frank recognition of some human conditions as to which other states and societies shut their eyes. If the day ever does come when genuine political liberty prevails in Soviet Union it will without doubt be the freest of all countries, especially as it has been spared the curse of Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy.