The impression one gets from reading the Soviet press is that your young people are ideologically motivated. Is that so?
If by ideology is meant something incompatible with material benefits, then the answer is "no". A careful reading of the Soviet press will bear that out. Work under socialism is remunerated in ac-
cordance with its quantity and quality. So there is no such thing in the USSR as ideological motivation as opposed to material well-being. Of course, it does happen that a person will leave a well-paid job for another which pays less but which interests him more. It also happens that a young person will leave the amenities of city life for the taiga or tundra and join work teams building factories or power stations there. In both cases they are prompted by ideological motives, but it would be wrong to say that their decisions are devoid of all material considerations.
When a person moves to a job that interests him more, he is confident that sooner or later he will make good in it and both promotion and higher salaries will come his way. In making a decision he may not be thinking about the material aspects and has in mind the ideological aspects only. But that does not change the actual state of things.
The same applies to people who go to unknown and uninhabited regions where new construction projects are being started. Apart from the fact that what they do there is important to the nation, earnings there are higher. The idea of working for the good of the country cannot be isolated from material benefits. In Soviet conditions the good of the state is the good of its people.
Helping to build up the nation's economic potential means improving the life of the people. And a person is aware of this not only because of his bigger wage packet, but also because of the bigger volume of services and benefits which he and his fellow countrymen receive free of charge. All that the people have created by their labour is used to benefit them. No one can appropriate the fruits of another's labour.