Notes of an Extremist

Whoever knows that feeling of freedom that intoxicates and makes your head spin after barracks confinement will understand me. A person possessed by this feeling can move mountains and turn rivers, if only someone would set such a goal before him.
The problem not only of the unattainability but also of the danger of social utopias, responding with the bitterness of disillusionment or the senseless cruelty of a new totalitarianism, is read in Kurchatkin’s фантастическая повесть Notes of an Extremist (1990), which tells of enthusiasts who voluntarily, despite bureaucratic obstacles, went underground to build a metro, whose labor turned out to be not only unnecessary, since during that time an elevated road had been built in the city, but also harmful, because the harsh construction conditions gave rise underground to an even more rigid social structure than the one the enthusiasts had once rejected.