ABSTRACT
The re-birth in dissident activity was initiated in response to continued oppression and hardship. The ideas and beliefs that had justified the temporal state were by the 1980s untenable. The message of freedom that had inspired a revolution would be sacrificed to the mission, which would through pragmatic debate, supersede the demand for cultural autonomy. The realisation of the Soviet man, educated, hard working, displaying good common sense and epitomising the appearance of health, vitality and purity was the product of propaganda and rhetoric, not the benefit of a particular economic system. The Soviet monopoly and manipulation of the media did not simply misrepresent reality - it was to a degree, embedded in the version of the reality it espoused. The difficulties associated with foreign visits delayed an appreciation of implications of structural changes occurring in the West, which were largely unnoticed by ordinary Russians.
