Yuppies Under the Skin

By Ezra Bowen.

It seemed such a nice, harmless idea. A Moscow school principal was casting about for a topic to assign as a theme to 300 youngsters ages ten to 13. He came up with the sturdy standby: "How I Would Like to Live When I Grow Up." Perhaps there would be evidence that the students had absorbed the aspirations of New Soviet Man, an idealized citizen devoted to the good of society and for whom the Communist Party has searched since 1917. Only 18 months ago, President Konstantin Chernenko reminded the nation that "the molding of the New Man is an imperative condition in the building of Communism." Moreover, Moscow Intellectual Fyodor Bulatsky had recently argued that in Soviet society, which is thought to have done away with bourgeois values, it was time to ask what standards to expect of today's youth.

The themes provided some answers. One girl wrote that she would "travel about the country on business. Flowers, Paris, beauty. I'd spend the summer in the Crimea. I'd wear clothes made in the West. I'd have children, a car and a diplomat husband. I'd visit Poland, East Germany . . . India. I wouldn't work ! and I'd eat like a queen." A journalist's son wanted to "travel throughout many different countries; for instance, it's nice to interview a (Salvadoran) freedom fighter in the shade of a palm tree." A second boy wrote, "I will be a pilot . . . and then the director of a trust just like Dad. I'll fly abroad and bring back presents." Another girl revealed that after she married a biologist, "we'd buy a piano and sing all day long. We'd buy a Scottish sheepdog and two cockatoos." One of her schoolmates shared the happy thought that "I wouldn't work but I'd get paid just the same . . . I'd also like to have lots of different things, dresses for every day of the week, to have good jeans and lots of other things. Because clothes make a person slender and more beautiful." She concluded, "In general I'd like to live better than the others." Perhaps the most distant from New Soviet Man were two boys, one of whom noted, "A rich man knows a great deal, can do a lot and has everything: car, flat and country house. A strong man is someone who has useful friends." His tough-minded chum asserted, "You can't get by without friends or connections."

The principal was stunned. So were Moscow officials, who launched an investigation to determine how the children came by these ideological aberrations. The authorities concluded that they had been hearing such talk from their parents. But one embarrassed official admitted to TIME, "It is not a problem just with this school." Indeed it is not a problem just with the Soviet Union. A Moscow newspaper account sounded not unlike the commentary of U.S. educators, who are increasingly concerned that U.S. students have turned away from the humanities and the liberal arts to concentrate materialistically on career preparation. "If they talk about a profession," complained the Moscow editorial, "then it's only a means of getting all kinds of goods."

With reporting by Louise Branson/Moscow