TT

There were definitely some similar aspects between the East and West, but also some differences. In the USSR, pacifism was not purely political — it also had implications on the everyday, mundane level. Soviet society at that time was deeply authoritarian and highly militaristic. Most of the hippies rejected these attitudes and tried to model their daily lives around values like “peace” and “love.”

That said, the hippie scene began where people had access to Western music and journals, and that of course could only happen among the elite — the only people in the Soviet Union who had access to Western goods. High-ranking officials — Communist Party members, KGB agents, etc. — could get permission to travel to Western countries, often bringing back all kinds of exotic foreign presents for their kids. The children of the elite also had more money to buy bootleg LPs, which were quite expensive. Oftentimes people formed clubs of four or five music fans who would pool their funds to buy a record, and then take turns making reel-to-reel tape copies.

So in that sense it certainly contained an aspect of social dissent, but it was also a status thing. If you had a good record collection, you had many friends. And so at least in the beginning, the hippies were often the children of powerful Soviet families. Ideologically speaking, there was certainly this idealization of the West as the “free world,” and to a lesser degree, an idealization of the free market.