'""the intelligentsia and educated professionals"=the most super- exploited group of workers (paid the least proportion of their product) under Stalinism. Their "ire" was "more directed at the system" that denied them the most elementary personal and political freedoms. And constantly insulted their intelligence.'
Exploited? Oh please. The soviet intelligentsia were full of complaints, but the essence of them was that they were not accorded their proper place in the nomenklatura. In fact, that is all the intelligentsia was, those educated for positions in the nomenklatura, who, for whatever reason, did not find a position there. Never were there such a mean-spirited, superior, disdainful gang of snobs as the Soviet intelligentsia. They hated the workers, who they blamed for being over-paid and greedy, taking their rightful due from them (which of course was not true).