ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief survey of more than a dozen articles which reflect genuine new thinking among Soviet intellectuals--a sort of “cultural revolution,” except that, being neither sponsored by the Communist Party nor inspired by Marxism-Leninism, it may rather be seen as a “cultural counter-revolution.” The policy of glasnost has created unusual opportunities for major periodicals to exert influence not only in forming independent public opinion but also in enlightening people in the ways of thinking beyond the limits of Marxism-Leninism. The ruralist world view and their attitude toward the Russian peasantry in particular is much closer to that of Solzhenitsyn than to that of either Karl Marx or Lenin. Valentin Rasputin is one of the best and most widely read Soviet writers of the ruralist school. But in spite of his great popularity among Soviet readers, Rasputin was not exactly favored by the Soviet ideological establishment because the message of his early novels was at variance with Marxism-Leninism.
