The general perspective of the Soviet Union was that the country was a dictatorship, specifically an oppressive, brutal, top-down autocracy that guided all aspects of its people's lives. From grocery stores that mandated fixed quantities of goods, purchasable only with a ration card, to strict, pre-established work and rest times, to a censored press, the Soviet Union was truly a dictatorial state. However, the people of the Soviet Union did not just adapt to the rules established by society: they had diaries, wrote down their opinions about the government or their work, wrote detailed memoirs of their life in the USSR. The people of the Soviet Union enjoyed a certain freedom, which was even codified in the Constitution of 1936. However, scholars and most people in general still widely accept the idea that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian dictatorship. The question then arises: why did the Soviet people have the freedom, otherwise known as sociological "agency", to denounce others or to write their own opinions about society, if the country was perhaps one of the most totalitarian and dictatorial countries to have ever existed in history? human? ? By analyzing totalitarianism as scholars perceive it, as well as the Soviet system, along with examples from the people of the USSR, you will be able to realize that totalitarianism established the rules for society within the Soviet Union and provided the his people a distribution of power. power, which was used by those who understood the system and could act within the framework of the system. Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski observe in “Totalitarianism as a Unique Type of Society” that totalitarian societies have six qualities that distinguish them from others. These six qualities range from having an effect… middle of paper… and Brzezinski, Zbigniew. “Totalitarianism is a unique type of society.” In Mason, Paul T., ed. Totalitarianism: temporary madness or permanent danger? Problems in European civilization. Boston: DC Heath, 1967. Kalinin, Mikhail, Letter (reply to GS Onishchenko). January 1934. In Siegelbaum, Lewis H., A. K. Sokolov, L. Kosheleva and Sergeæi Zhuravlev, eds. Stalinism as a way of life: a narrative in documents. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Mochulsky, Fyodor Vasilevich. Gulag Boss: Soviet Memoirs edited and translated by Deborah Kaple. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.Onishchenko, Soviet President of GS Town, letter to Politburo member Mikhail Kalinin. October 1933. In Siegelbaum, Lewis H., A. K. Sokolov, L. Kosheleva and Sergeæi Zhuravlev, eds. Stalinism as a way of life: a narrative in documents. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.