Through the lens of the Cold War, jazz in the Soviet Union appears as a struggle between conservative party bosses and a rebellious youth striving for freedom and democracy. Michel Abesser’s talk addresses Soviet jazz culture and debates after 1953 and argues for a more complex understanding of its protagonists, discourses and practices. Such a focus can expand our ideas of youth, social stratification after Stalin’s death, and the hybridity between professional and amateur culture.