Young and socialist at Moscow State University: Dissident subjectivities in the last Soviet generation

This article explores the everyday experiences of a group of students from Moscow State University’s history department who formed a dissident circle the year after their graduation. Later known as the Young Socialists following international reporting on their arrests in 1982, these future dissidents formed close bonds of friendship while living together in a dorm room. Informed by oral history, this study examines these young intellectuals as a window onto the sources for politically engaged subjectivities in the 1970s. It explores the impact of historical studies and Komsomol-led student culture while emphasizing the influence of Latin America as a field of study and source of political engagement, which fueled anti-capitalist discourses countering those of the imaginary West. This article introduces a new perspective on the last Soviet generation that shifts focus onto its committed socialists and dissidents.