ABSTRACT
One of the researchers at the Institute of Public Opinion commented on the question in Komsomol' skaia pravda. The public opinion forming around Dudintsev's novel reflected not only readiness for a fight but formulated demands as if it were an informal social institute. In the main these demands concerned changes in the established order, which it was traditionally considered possible to criticize by reference to the principle from the top down, that is, when initiated by the higher authorities. The public atmosphere itself and the conduct of the authorities prompted people to choose the path of individual resistance, some forms of which did not necessarily exhibit the qualities of dissent. In the absence of free speech, public opinion inevitably returned to the catacomb level, and thus the Soviet dissident movement arose, fundamentally oppositionist in its attitude to the government and its policy.
