If the crop failed, the Soviet Union would come in and take its cut first and let the peasants to starve.
如果粮食收成不好,苏联政府会先行收取粮食,让一无所有的农民活活饿死
Medical and cultural conditions were appalling likewise, and moving to the city was not only unlikely, it was illegal.
医疗和文化条件也非常糟糕,想要移居到城市里不仅不可能,而且还是违法的
Simply put, the Soviet Unions' peasants had reverted to serfdom.
简而言之,苏联的农民回到了农奴的状态
From Peter the Great's time on, Russia had embraced Western culture;
从彼得大帝时期开始,俄罗斯就开始接纳西方文化
before long Russian poets, painters, and scientists were numbered among the world's greatest.
不久之后,俄国诗人,画家,和科学家,都跻身世界前列
Lenin and most of his cohort were the well educated spawn of middle and upper classes,
列宁和他的大多数伙伴都是中上层阶级的子女受过良好的教育
effectively denied a place in public life by institutionalized Tsarist idiocy.
有效抵制了公共生活中制度化的俄国帝制言论
Many of the intelligentsia had once cared deeply about the revolutionary movement:
很多知识分子曾经非常关切革命运动
they believed that the Bolsheviks' commitment to education for all included all forms of education.
他们相信布尔什维克致力于的全民教育包括了所有形式的教育
And indeed, this was one area where Communist deeds did back up Communist words.
确实,在这方面共产主义的确
The literacy rate skyrocketed under the Soviets,
实现了自己的承诺,苏维埃政权下的识字率飞升
while thousands of people who would never have seen the inside of a lecture hall received a college education.
上千的民众原本可能都无缘走进讲堂如今却得以接受大学教育
What Soviet college students were allowed to learn, they learned very well.
苏维埃大学生将允许自己学的内容都学得非常好
Yet overall the Soviet culture, especially under Stalin, became an intellectual desert.
但是整体上的苏维埃文化,尤其是在斯大林时期,成为了一片知识的沙漠