Flight From Freedom: What Russians Think and Want

Richard Pipes

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004

Summary:  Critics decry Vladimir Putin for turning Russia into a one-party state. But polls suggest that Russians actually approve of his actions by sizable majorities, caring little for core Western principles such as democratic liberties and civil rights.

Richard Pipes is Professor of History, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He was Director of Eastern European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council in 1981-82.

REJECTING RIGHTS

The current mood of the Russian population can be determined from opinion surveys. The leading polling organization is the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, which is based in Moscow and directed by Iurii Levada (VTSIOM and VTSIOM-A). Its in-depth analyses of attitudes on a variety of subjects provide invaluable insight into the Russian mind. Polling is also conducted by the Institute of Complex Social Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKSI), and Validata, a center for market and opinion research headed by Maria Volkenstein. Results of these surveys frequently appear in the Russian daily newspaper "Izvestiia."

These sources suggest that modern Russians, like their ancestors, feel estranged from both the state and society at large. Their allegiance is to family and friends, those they address familiarly as ty (as opposed to the more formal vy), and they feel little affinity with any larger community. Trust of outsiders, the basis of civilization in the West, is still largely absent in the country.

Russians openly identify with a "small fatherland." When asked, "What do you connect most directly with the idea of our nation?" in a 1999 poll, 35 percent replied, "Where I was born and grew up," whereas only 19 percent opted for the "state in which I live" (1/17).**(see endnotes)** Russians are far more asocial and apolitical than their Western counterparts, tending to withdraw into private worlds where they feel in control. They are said to live "in trenches," surrounded by enemies (10). Comparing citizens' attitudes toward their government in Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden, Validata surveys concluded that Americans and Swedes display the highest trust in the state, whereas Russians "don't trust the state at all" (3/20).

Democracy is widely viewed as a fraud. There is a prevalent perception that Russia's politics have been "privatized" and are controlled by powerful clans. Seventy-eight percent of respondents in a 2003 survey said that democracy is a facade for a government controlled by rich and powerful cliques. Only 22 percent expressed a preference for democracy, whereas 53 percent positively disliked it (9). Asked in another poll whether multiparty elections do more harm than good, 52 percent of respondents answered "more harm" and a mere 15 percent said "more good" (5/91). Political parties are also unpopular, and most Russians are quite amenable to living in a one-party state. According to a recent survey by the Center of Sociological Studies of the University of Moscow, 82 percent of Russians feel they have no influence over the national government; 78 percent say they even have no influence over local government (13).

Enhancing personal freedoms and improving civil rights do not attract much support. When asked to choose between "freedom" and "order," 88 percent of respondents in Voronezh Province expressed preference for order, seemingly unaware that the two outcomes are not mutually exclusive and that in Western democracies they reinforce each other. Only 11 percent said they would be unwilling to surrender their freedoms of speech, press, or movement in exchange for stability. Twenty-nine percent, meanwhile, were quite prepared to give up their freedoms for nothing in return, because they attached no value to them (14). A survey conducted in the winter of 2003-4 by ROMIR Monitoring, a sociological research unit, found that 76 percent of Russians favor restoring censorship over the mass media (15).

Such opinions led Alexander Yakovlev, a principal architect of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, to bemoan his compatriots' penchant for authoritarian rule. In an interview with the "Financial Times," he observed that none of the winning parties in the December 2003 Duma elections "had even once mentioned the word 'freedom' [;] all the slogans were about banning, locking up and punishing" (6).

The judicial system is held in contempt as both corrupt and subservient to the state, especially since Putin took over the presidency. In August 2003, the "Financial Times" reported that Russia's leading businesses had set up an arbitration system to bypass courts that they accused of lacking independence. Court rulings, a businessman claimed, were "swayed by local authorities, government, or businesses 'just paying' for their decisions. We have a new phrase in Russia: 'court auctions.' ... 'Whoever pays more, wins.'"

Russian attitudes toward private enterprise and property rights are hardly more positive. Here, too, the prevailing mood ranges from indifference to cynicism to outright hostility. Eighty-four percent of those surveyed in a poll published in January 2004, for example, said that wealth in Russia can be acquired only through connections. Four out of five respondents stated that the inequalities in wealth in modern Russia are excessive and illegitimate, and most blamed the country's widespread poverty on an unjust economic system (16).