Open Question Details

While reading Fredric Jameson, I came across this quote by Chrystia Freeman (Sale of the Century, 2000): "Yet, at least for the intelligentsia, life in the fin de siecle USSR had its compensations. No one had very much money, but no one had to do very much work, either. The result was a whole society that acted as if it had never left college: intense, emotional, time-consuming friendships; endless hours spent drinking tea or vodka and discussing the meaning of life; the avid pursuit of esoteric spiritual or creative interests. If middle-class Russians sometimes seem perversely nostalgic for the Soviet Union, one reason is that the collapse of communism forced them horribly and abruptly to grow up" (p. 114). Feel free to problematize the related notions of "growth" and "intellectual" and "college life" at will.