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The necessity of the parallel market is a corrupting influence in Soviet society; it weighs heavily on people who would normally be unwilling to engage in a squalid and illegal traffic. Says one young Russian Jewish scientist who recently emigrated to the U.S.: "It disturbs one's sense of human dignity and fair play. It is repugnant to take part in all these machinations, but you can't exist apart from the system." At the same time, theft and bribery often function as lubricants that make the cumbersome machinery of the official economy run more smoothly—which explains why the government reluctantly tolerates some aspects of the parallel market.
Despite the corruption, the frustrations and the shortages, the average Soviet citizen is, in most respects, better off than he was two decades ago. At the end of the Stalin era, collective farmers, when they were paid at all, earned 24 kopeks (about 60 at the time) for a day's work—enough to buy one pair of trousers in the course of a year. Now the average peasant makes about 98 rubles ($129) a month. Salaries for workers and professionals have also risen, while prices of basic commodities, even though they are not always available when wanted, have remained relatively stable. Ivan Ivanovich may not have everything he wants, but at least he can now dream of trading in his old black-and-white TV for a color set, of riding to work in a four-passenger Zhiguli instead of on the bus, of having enough rubles to buy nice toys for his son's birthday.
Life in the Soviet Union also has some agreeable surprises for outsiders. "There is little violent crime compared with the U.S.," reports TIME Moscow Bureau Chief Marsh Clark. "It is safe to walk the streets at night in Moscow.
Heavy steel locks are not needed on apartment doors. Kidnapings, which have become epidemic in Europe, are not known. There is almost no jaywalking. The cities are immaculate. People do not throw cigarette butts on the ground; receptacles are provided for such things and are expected to be used. When it snows, it seems as if every citizen comes out to clean off his little patch of sidewalk. Graffiti, that Western abomination, are unknown here. For one thing, anyone defacing a statue of Lenin or a public building would be running a very serious risk indeed.
"There is genuine, if belated, concern about the environment. Every city has large green areas and parks. Industrial polluters now receive stiff penalties if they persist. Moscow, which has banished over 300 factories in the past ten years, has remarkably clean air for a big city, and is now experimenting with a fleet of trucks powered by natural gas as a possible way of cutting down on automotive pollution. There is no pornography in public circulation in the Soviet Union. Foreign tourists carrying even such relatively innocent publications as Playboy may expect to have them confiscated by customs officers upon entry. The Soviet Union has gun laws that make the purchase of handguns very difficult. There are only occasional reports of armed robberies.