> The Soviet nomenklatura lived like the American upper middle classes -- sort of like me, equivalent of a nice house in the burbs or an OK apt in the city, a dacha in the country, a couple cars, a housekeeper (I don't have the dacha or the housekeeper myself, but I suppose I could afford them in principle.) Therewas nothing like the disparity of wealth or luxury between ordinary workers and the American super rich, some of whom I knew from college. jks
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> Barkley Rosser <rosserjb at jmu.edu> wrote:They were running around in
> Zils. At the top, they were living pretty well. Anybody want a free
> plane ride to Sochi? Barkley Rosser
Hi Barkley, good to see you back.
Justin is closer to reality here. I had experience of how top officials at Vneshtorgbank & Ministry of Foreign Trade (my clients) lived in the 80s. And these were folk who had special access to foreign stuff. It was in the range of middle middle in the West & in some material ways worse. I brought Zabar's coffee as a (very welcome) present to the top officers of Vneshbank in Leningrad!
From my experience, Doug is on the mark in saying that there was big time dissatisfaction among elites at the denial of the privilege available to the rich in the West. The very relative privileges they had no way made up for it. There were lots (none among those I knew in Vneshbank, however) who were ready to see the starving old and weak freeze to death in the streets as long as they themselves came out ahead (they call it "democracy"). Criminals. Monsters.
john mage