ABSTRACT
From the very outset of the Soviet regime, the creation of a new culture and a new man was foremost in the minds of the revolutionary leaders. This new culture and new man were supposed to be proletarian in character, rooted in international worker solidarity. Socialist realism became the straitjacket of Soviet culture, a filter through which many works of art could never pass, and a podium for artistically inferior but politically "correct" works. The richness of cultural life contrasts sharply with the poverty of "night life" in Soviet cities. Combining dinner in a restaurant with an evening at the theater is almost impossible since nothing is offered after nine o'clock. The cultural life of Moscow and Leningrad is duplicated, albeit on a more modest scale, in provincial centers. Thus many medium-size cities have their own performing theaters, something one cannot always find in American towns of comparable size.
