In the 1970s, several factors led Kabakov to become more conceptually oriented. The first was the Soviet intelligentsia’s adoption of the structuralist theory from France, which helped shift interest from art object to its context. Next, perhaps in part due to the influence of structuralism, the intelligentsia began to question the friend-or-foe attitude toward Soviet ideology. Dissident artists and intellectuals began to be seen by Russian structuralists as supporting the gulf within society and between the industrialist societies of the East and West. In the 1970s, rather than be anti-Soviet and pro-Western, many artists took a neutral position that would allow them to question and analyze the perceived gap between the ideologies.