Discontent with a Capital "D"

We use a capital "D" because this discontent is one toward which all regional and national, economic and cultural discontent converge. Having accumulated in the Soviet world for many decades, this discontent is represented in the indolent and tragic apathy of someone who disagrees with everything but is physically restrained from speaking out, moving freely, protesting, in short, from externalizing an effective disagreement. This has been the total discontent‑albeit mute and paralytic‑of each individual in his house, hut or hovel, where many times the family no longer exists, marriage having been frequently replaced by concubinage. This has been the discontent of someone whose children were taken more than once from the "home" and coercively given to the State which took charge of their entire education. This has been the discontent in the workplace, where laziness, inaction and boredom prevail most of the time and where paltry wages barely suffice to buy the scant and shoddy goods and merchandise‑which are the typical products of state‑owned industry in a regime of state capitalism. Comments on the total lack of quality and quantity of everything are whispered all along the lines of people formed outside the shops, where nearly empty shelves shamelessly reveal the misery. There has been discontent, above all, because everywhere there are cases of religious worship being forbidden, churches being closed, and religious instruction being restricted. In the schools the teaching of materialism, of atheism, in short, of communist irreligion is mandatory.

These evils are even more pitiful when considered as a whole than when considered individually. In other words, if complaints have been made against this or that aspect of Soviet reality, recent events evidently attest to the existence of an outburst of real furor against the whole. And, because this furor is directed against the whole, it affects the regime and inflames a the human capacities of indignation. Thus, it becomes an all encompassing discontent against the communist regime, state capitalism, despotic atheism, and, finally, against everything which is a product of Marxist ideology and its application to all the countries now in turmoil.

It is, then, truly the case to speak of Discontent. It is probably the most encompassing and total discontent of all time.