ABSTRACT
A retrospective of the past twenty to thirty years of Soviet cultural policy indicates that there have been and continue to be many parallels developing between the treatment of culture and the treatment of the opposition in the post-Stalin period. The parts of the culture defined and labelled from either a priori or ad hoc as "retrogressive" and that are therefore discriminated against immediately started resisting discrimination when this became feasible under the liberalized conditions of the post-Stalin period. The regime's dispute with deviant tendencies concentrated throughout the seventies on the emerging oppositions, so culture was allowed to develop relatively freely within the country, even before the law. The treatment of culture as having a potential for opposition and the attempt to bring its deviant, non-conformist parts back into line only spawned opposition in the USSR.
