Soviet Union had one sort of middle class ("western like"), mainly composed of artists, doctors, scientists fonctionnaries and managers, ambassadors and staff. They lived quite well for the standarts in Soviet Russia, but less than western middle class. (I speal of the Soviet Union under later Khrouchtchev and early Brejnev).

Food was quite easy to come by, even high grade, like caviar, provided by "state services" accessible to the "elite" (not so the middle-class), food that you can eat in restaurant, take as a package, or to by delivered to you residence. Some "undergound" shopsand other not so (like big shops in Moscow) selling western good as well. Ambassadors and staff going to the west could also bring back some stuffs and sell it afterward, or send them as gifts.

Housing was less confortable than in the west, the Russians usually had smaller habitable surface, but you could have a dacha in the countryside, but can't live in there all year, those houses needed to stay "holiday only".

Possession of a car was a luxury, and the delay was very important (years), but middle class people could easily have access to drivers and "company cars", especially if their roles need it (like director of a factory).

As for culture, you could have afforded some books, as going to movies and exhibitions.

Sources: MERVYN Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet Union: A study of elite life-styles under communism, London, Allen and Unwin, 1978.

I can recommend this book https://id.hse.ru/en/books/123555846.html which gives an excellent answer for the first part of the question.

In 1960s–1970s many publications heavily criticized the very definition of "middle class" in the West, claiming it to be "revisionist and lying". That was because Marxist ideology divides classes by political characteristics, while West defines classes only by material wealth. The idea of depoliticized classes was claimed to be false, and "despite that so-called Middle Class is 30-45% of Western population, this class is no more than feudalism relic".

What was used in official narrative (by doctrinist Yuri Arbatov), is "Middle Layer", opposed to Proletariat layer. Middle Layer is teachers, doctors, engineers, artists etc. That is more or less what Andrew Grant wrote in "Socialism and the middle classes" https://books.google.es/books/about/Socialism_and_the_middle_classes.html?id=6zhYAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y which was highly praised in USSR as a book about political classes.

I assume that by middle class you mean "western" middle class - people who had a car, home and could afford something more than basic needs. There is no official data about it since it was against ideology to even define people as a middle class. But we have estimates by modern historians:

• Academic Starikov defined middle class by income level, car ownership, and good living conditions, by 1989 it was 13,15% of the population.
• A. Zaychenko defined middle class only by car ownership, which was 11,2% (This is questionable metric, since cars were in deficit, so many people could afford car but never were able to buy it)
• N. Naumova estimate middle class to be 20-30% of the population.

Did they support Socialism? Obviously, we don't have any poll data, and estimates are very, very subjective and lead to more speculation. I can't answer this question with any reliable proof.

Q: Were the Kulaks considered as a middle class in a way?

Serious question: I thought the type of government was Communism, not Socialism? Did the Soviets view their governmental policies as Socialism?

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