I wouldn't quite agree here. The Soviet condemnation of Pasternak and others was an orchestrated campaign from the top. The Soviet masses of that time were larg

I wouldn't quite agree here. The Soviet condemnation of Pasternak and others was an orchestrated campaign from the top. The Soviet masses of that time were largely indifferent and the common attitude toward the state propaganda was deep cynicism or apathy. Of course, there were some lay people who "haven't read Pasternak, but condemn him", but it was either naivety or posing. Nobody saw it then but in mere 30 years the USSR would collapse. I would compare what I see in USA nowadays to a different period in Russian history: the time before the Russian Revolution in 1917. It was a state of great turmoil, there were constant terrorist attacks against state officials and nobility (Lenin's elder brother was executed for attempting to kill the tzar), etc... yet somehow all this was massively supported by the "intelligentsia": the educated, well-off and sometimes very rich people. It was not a problem to give a shelter to "a revolutionary", to pass around leaflets, to help with money, to cover up robberies that were carried off by the radicals in search of funds, and so on. Almost all students were radical. Nobody paid any attention to a few dissenting conservative voices. "Russia, washed in blood", "The damned days", and "The ashen horse" are the titles of some of the books that described what followed.