Once, Communist intellectuals had theorized about producing a new soviet man or "homo Sovieticus"
共产主义知识分子还曾提出理论造就一种新苏维埃人,即“苏维埃人”的理论
a happy, hard-working soul bred and reared to serve as a cog in the Soviet state.
培养出一种快乐,刻苦工作的人成为苏维埃国家中的小齿轮
Although the concept of homo sovieticus was pushed so hard that it was taught in all Soviet medical schools, it was a joke.
尽管苏维埃人种的概念被大力推行进入所有苏维埃医学院的教学内容,事实上却是个笑话
Living standards in the cities remained poor,
城市生活水平仍然很低
and in the countryside they remained wretched — even after Khrushchev and Brezhnev made consumer goods approvements.
而农村地区的民众生活很悲惨,即便是赫鲁晓夫和勃列日涅夫对消费品的改善也无济于事
The proletarians appointed by Lenin to hold their dictatorship actually lived in cramped, miserable apartments and toiled long hours at ill-paid jobs.
列宁任命来维持独裁统治的无产阶级事实上住在狭窄凄惨的公寓里,长时间的苦作只能换来微薄的薪水
What dreams they still had were for things even poorer Westerners generally possessed:
他们所梦想得到的,甚至是贫穷的西方人一般也都拥有
radios and refrigerators, and perhaps someday a cheap little car like the 1962 Moskvich.
收音机和冰箱,可能再来辆便宜车,比如1962年产的莫斯科人牌汽车
In general Soviet city dwellers would have settled for stores stocked with good food, decent consumer goods, and no lines.
在一般的苏维埃城市里居民定居下来是因为这里有堆满食物的商店像样的消费品,不用排队
The peasants were worse off yet. Forced by Stalin into huge collective farms run by the communist party, they were expected to feed the Soviet Union.
农民的生活却还很糟糕,在斯大林的逼迫下他们不得不进入共产党办的集体农场里,辛勤劳作来养活苏联