I understand that the average soviet citizen was much less wealthy than the average American and thus having a large segment with the idle time

There was more time because the Union made a point of having fewer working hours has any country of the «capitalist» west and while even at «work» you had little incentive to actually work. Lack of time was not a problem.

Regardless of your «wealth» you were always obliged to go to work. Starting with Khurshchev there were luxury wares intended as a money-sink and there was a black market for stuff smuggled from the west. Otherwise «wealth» didn't matter.

There were hippies around in the USSR, as well. And they did same stuff as in the West, that is dressing up and listening to hippie music.

During the Prague Spring student protesters were dealt with much more brutally than in the west, no matter how tame. But recognized artists were allowed to speak their mind.

The Afghanistan War spawned the same load of anti-war cinema, music and journalism as Nixon era America