ABSTRACT
The need to reflect on the early Soviet past is undertaken to enable a clear identification of the initial deviance from the Soviet system. The exclusion of social material: non communists, religious minorities, foreigners, deemed unsuitable identifies a number of human agents who were disposed to formulating an opposing view to the harshly enforced doctrine of Soviet communism. The pain, suffering and despair, that was a re-occurring feature of everyday life in the sub-continent of northern Eurasia during the twentieth century, is only recently open to an accurate account. The residue of French hegemony that dominated the Russian upper classes, and particularly the language up to and beyond the counter-hegemonic intervention made by Puskin, ironically continued to affect Soviet cultural life. The revolutionary vanguard had by Lenin's death established an institutionalised form that demanded compliance. With the collapse of socialism the gulf between rich and poor has widened and become more obvious.
