The Soviet Citizen

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This book reports on one of the very few research projects which have studied a large-scale industrial society primarily through the people’s own report of their experience and attitudes as they pursued the round of daily living at home, in school, on the job, at play and in politics.

In their book on how Soviet society and the individual work, and play, the authors discuss the experiences of people from all walks of life. They deal simultaneously with the whole range of activities in early family life on through school, work, marriage, recreation and politics. Among the questions asked are: Who are the people who get ahead, who lags behind in the race for success, and what are the consequences? Who gets educated, who does not, why are there differences in educational opportunities, and how do people feel about them?

It will perhaps come as a great surprise to many that there is a close correspondence between the pattern of experience and attitudes of Soviet citizens and their counterparts on the same level of education or occupation in a variety of other large-scale industrial societies having markedly different culture and history and possessed of quite dissimilar political institutions.