ABSTRACT
For some people Russia has been a mysterious sphinx, for others an improbable monster. Few eras in the history of Russia, however, have been as obscure and enigmatic as the high-water mark of Stalinism, the period between the victory of 1945 and Khrushchev's famous denunciation of the tyrant in 1956. The majority of living Russians were born and acquired their social consciousness in the Soviet period. Alexander Zinoviev developed the idea of homo sovieticus, and Mikhail Geller reflected on the evolution of ideas that contributed to the formation of Soviet man; but there has been no concrete research devoted to public opinion of the period, patterns of thinking, and the behavior of Soviet people. The postwar period, especially its first two to three years, represents one of the key phases in the development of Soviet government and society.
