The article on the basis of state symbols and a collection of letters to the authorities of the civil war period explores the category of “freedom” as the highest value and resource on the basis of which the early Soviet identity is formed. The method of indicative coding, interpretative and comparative methods revealed that freedom was a sign concept of public discourse. The understanding of freedom by the bulk of the population of Soviet Russia included: the unconditional recognition of pre-revolutionary society as unfree, the desire to see in the Bolshevik revolution a breakthrough to freedom and the desire to evaluate the Soviet system as a freer and fairer society. But the analysis of letters to the authorities revealed a contradictory combination in the Russian discourse of traditional and liberal understanding of freedom. Gradually, social optimism is replaced by the bitterness of unfulfilled hopes, a sense of deception and a desire for a universalist understanding of freedom. It was these sentiments that determined the transition from the civil war to the NEP.