--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > That's a huge change from 5 years ago, no? You
> used
> > to say often that G was
> > reviled in Russia and only respected by
> Westerners.
> > Is he again a respected
> > figure inside Russia today?
The following bears on the subject:
Window on Eurasia: Russians Miss Soviet Empire, Not Communist System Paul Goble
Vienna, January 2 – Three out of every four Russians say that they now regret the end of the Soviet Union because it represented the collapse of “a great state,” while only one in four mourns the loss of “the achievements of socialism” as a result of the USSR’s demise, according to poll results released at the end of December.
Moreover, 57 percent of those polled by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) said that the disintegration of the USSR was something that could have been avoided, a position that only 34 percent of the sample said they did not agree with (http://www.wciom.ru, December 21).
And Russians overwhelmingly said that the end of the Soviet Union had removed from the scene a country “in which many people believed and were proud” (76 percent), while only 15 percent were inclined to agree with the statement that “in the entire 70-year history of the USSR is little that we the citizens of Russia could be genuinely proud of.”
This combination of pride in the Soviet Union as a great power and the lack of any desire to restore the communist system which held it together both reflects and helps to explain the current statements by and policies of the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Two other samplings of Russian public opinion provide context for that conclusion and suggest some of the constraints within which any Russian government is likely to have to operate at least in the immediate future.
A second VTsIOM poll released on December 20 asked Russians to compare the contemporary Russian elite with its Soviet predecessor. According to that survey, 42 percent of Russians thought the country’s elite had changed for the worse, while 17 percent said that it had improved and 26 percent said it had not changed.
This sample was asked whether components of today’s elite were acting more in the interests of the country than their Soviet-era predecessors. Sixty-one percent of Russians said that Soviet-era politicians and economic leaders did so more than do contemporary Russians. Only 16 and 20 percent respectively took the opposite view.
Roughly the same divisions obtained in Russian assessments of scholars and leaders of the force structures. Indeed, the only part of the Russian elite which Russians rated equal to its Soviet predecessor were media figures, with 36 percent saying Soviet media types acted more in the country’s interest and 35 percent saying current Russian ones do.
This poll also found that Russians today say that the Soviet elite as a whole was more patriotic (57 percent to 6 percent) and more responsible (39 percent to 8 percent) and that the contemporary Russian elite is more cosmopolitan and subject to foreign influences (39 percent to 12 percent), more selfish and corrupt (44 percent to 7 percent), and more incompetent (25 percent to 16 percent).
Russians sampled in this poll were also asked to identify up to three sources of the current Russian elite. Thirty-seven percent of the sample – the highest figure -- said the current elite came from the Communist party nomenklatura. Among other sources, 26 percent said its members came from “criminal groupings,” and 18 percent said they were from the security agencies.
Meanwhile, a third poll, this one conducted last month by the new Moscow Institute of Religion and Politics, sought to measure how university students there feel about Arabs and Americans. Sixty third-year students were asked not only what they associated these groups with but also what dominant qualities of each are.
The Moscow students associated Arabs “with Islam, the war in Iraq and terrorism,” and they associated Americans “with McDonalds, the White House and the stars and stripes flag,” according to a summary posted on the Islam.ru website on December 30.
According to this survey, the Russian students view Arabs as aggressive, impulsive and clever but lacking in such qualities as tact and openness. At the same time, they view Americans as despotic and self-confident and lacking in modesty, generosity and intelligence.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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