RUSSIA: Unwrapping the Enigma

What do Russians really think of life under the Soviets? Last week Harvard University scholars (supported by U.S. Air Force funds) published the most exhaustive outside study to date of contemporary Russian attitudes. Their findings were based on interviews with 3,000 Soviet citizens who left their country during and after World War II, many of them driven involuntarily from their homeland, as P.W.s or workers, by the Germans. Some conclusions: ¶ "For the average citizen of the U.S.S.R. political loyalty to the regime is a strange compound of apathy, passive acceptance and cynicism. Despite the high level of dissatisfaction and discontent, there seems to be only a relatively small amount of disaffection and disloyalty. There is scant evidence for the view that more than a very tiny part of the population would, except under conditions of extreme crisis, take appreciable risks to sabotage the regime or to aid Western democracy." ¶ The police terror is what Russians hate most, the collective farms next. ¶ In general, Russians like the welfare-state aspects of the system—health services, government support of the arts and public education—but they dislike the regime's insistence on getting politics into the schools. They are proud of the industrial growth and military strength of the U.S.S.R.. and accept the idea of central control of heavy industry. But they would release the consumer-goods industries and the farms to private initiative. ¶ "It is almost impossible to exaggerate the ignorance of the outside world prevalent among Soviet citizens." ¶ The refugees show "intense hatred for the Soviet regime. Between two-thirds and three-fourths of all groups advocate violent death for the Soviet leaders if they are overthrown." ¶ "Clothing is the source of greatest complaint, housing follows, and food is last . . . The main complaint against urban housing was not so much the actual crowding as the resulting lack of privacy." ¶ Russia is divided into two groups: the masses, "warmhearted, impulsive, given to mood swings, contradictory in behavior," and the disciplined, driving "new Soviet man. The attitude of those who attain elite status is often one of contempt for the ordinary citizen." ¶The peasant is the "angry man" of the system. The young and the white-collar class are the most satisfied. ¶ The Russian Orthodox Church "is strictly at the service of the regime," and "indications are that the Christian religion will lose strength steadily. The intelligentsia and white-collar groups have steadily become more irreligious." ¶ "This is a mobilized society, existing in a state of perpetual emergency. The characteristic Soviet approach to problems is that of 'storming,' that is, tackling (on the domestic scene) one or a limited number of objectives at a time and hitting them hard, largely ignoring side effects ... of cost and consequence." ¶ "The discrepancy between the official code and what actually goes on is particularly glaring." To make the rigid system work, Soviet citizens resort to blat—the use of "good connections" to obtain goods and services not readily available through official channels.