SOCIETY TRANSFORMED?RETHINKING THE SOCIAL ROOTS OF PERESTROIKA

by

Donna BahryDepartment of Political Scienc e

University of California at Davi sDavis, California 9561 6

Final report to the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, in fulfillment o fcontract 804-21 with the University of California at Davis . I would like to thank th eNational Science Foundation, and the College of Letters and Science, University o fCalifornia at Davis, for research support ; Alex Inkeles, Fred Wyle, and Joe Berliner for thei radvice on locating and interpreting materials from the Harvard Project on the Soviet Socia lSystem ; Adam Ulam for his assistance in making the materials available ; and Carol Bowmanand the Times Mirror Center for People and the Press for allowing me to use their data.

CONTENTS

Executive Summary i

Introduction 1

Roots of Social Transformation : From the SovietCitizen to Perestroika 3

Models of Social Transformation 5

Data 7

Public Values and State Control of the Economy 1 0

Social Welfare and Social Justice 1 2

Civil Liberties 1 4

Public Values and Social Cleavages 1 5

Implicationa 1 7

Endnotes 23

Tables 3 0

Appendix (Surveys Used in the Analysis) 45

Appendix Tables 47

SOCIETY TRANSFORMED?RETHINKING THE SOCIAL ROOTS OF PERESTROIKA

Executive Summary

Since the early days of perestroika, explanations for the opening to reform hav e

emphasized the critical role of post-Stalin social transformation . Rising levels of education ,

changing patterns of social mobility and a widening generation gap seemed to creat e

individual values that defied old political formulas . If the initiative for restructuring cam e

from the upper reaches of the political hierarchy, the pressures for change seemed to come

from below .

In contrast, events since the Soviet collapse imply the opposite conclusion : support for

the old system appears to be far more durable in the face of mounting costs of reform ,

especially in Russia and Ukraine . Either the sweeping social changes of the post-Stalin era

were quickly reversed, or their impact on political values has been exaggerated .

How much did individual values shift? While a substantial literature now analyzes th e

various changes in Soviet society, few authors agree on the precise political impact . Where

some studies find dramatic changes in public views, others find more continuity . Some hav e

discovered that modernization led to more support for the core values of the Soviet system :

some, that it led to less support . Data on the impact of generational change and of risin g

educational levels are no clearer .

Given the dearth of longitudinal surveys, the controversy is understandable . Most

studies of change in individual values have relied on cross-sectional data from the Gorbachev

era. If these reveal support for democratic institutions or for economic reform, th e

assumption is that such values must be the product of social changes unleashed years earlier .

This report offers a different view, based on newly available data on Russia an d

Ukraine from three critical turning points in Soviet history -- the end of the Stalin era, th e

end of the Brezhnev years, and the last year of Gorbachev's rule . It uses Inkeles and

Bauer's classic The Soviet Citizen as a baseline to track the direction and degree of change in

public attitudes .

The results suggest that arguments about post-Stalin social transformation overstate

change on some key issues :

- On questions of the government's role in the economy, aggregate public value s

have in fact been relatively consistent over time . Clear majorities from the late Stali n

era onward favored a mixed system reminiscent of NEP . People did not lose

enthusiasm for state-dominated farming and consumer goods production through the

years -- they had reservations from the beginning .

- While public values also consistently favored what Peter Reddaway has labeled th e

"nanny state," preferences shifted over the years from more to less comprehensiv e

social guarantees. The ideal welfare state by 1991 had more room for privat e

initiative.

Perceptions of the reward system also changed: the sense of inequality grew while

differences in rewards diminished . People interviewed in the late Stalin era had felt tha t

everyone, from intellectuals to collective farmers, received too little for their contributions t o

society . Only party officials were seen as being overpaid . These early interviews also

showed that the higher one's status in society, the more egalitarian -- the greater th e

inclination to say that everyone deserved more . Workers and peasants felt that the y

themselves received too little, but they were somewhat less charitable toward higher strata .

In later years, the near-universal sense of deprivation gave way to perceptions o f

more unequal treatment of different groups . While some were still seen as receiving les s

than their due, others were now perceived to be getting as much or more than they deserved .

Ideology had also reversed among the relatively privileged . If they favored a mor e

egalitarian system to protect the manual classes in the Stalin years, their counterparts unde r

Brezhnev and Gorbachev now had markedly less enthusiasm for this key tenet of th e

workers' state .

Questions about individual rights prompted the most disagreement through the years .

In each era, most people desired more freedom, and limits on the government's intrusion s

into their lives . Yet they were at odds over the rights they would grant and the role the y

would allow to the state .

ii

Thus there was indeed a constituency for political liberalization and economic reform

in 1985, but it was hardly of recent vintage . It dated at least back to the late Stalin era .

Still, values did shift among particular segments of the population, in two senses .

First, cleavages by generation and by education that had been modest in The Soviet Citizen

had reversed and widened into major fault lines . In the early 1950s, it was the "relics" o f

the Tsarist system, the old and the less educated, who objected most to Soviet rule . The

young and college-educated were the most supportive of key elements of the Soviet order .

By the Brezhnev and Gorbachev years, the same cohorts were still the most positive ; but

their sons and grandsons had come to be far more critical .

Support for the Soviet order thus peaked with the cohorts who came of age from th e

1920s to the wartime era . The generations who came before and after took a much dimmer

view of the Soviet system's basic values, and had different reference points for judging it .

Equally important, the nature of discontent with the system shifted over time .

Isolated criticisms of individual sectors of the economy, or of controls on individuals gav e

way to alternative ideologies . While people in the late Stalin years found much to condemn

in the regime's abuses of civil liberties, they were far from consistent in defining the types o f

rights they would grant. The same was true for questions about the proper mix of state an d

private ownership of the means of production : endorsement of private solutions in clothin g

factories or on the farm did not necessarily mean support for private ownership in steel or

machine-building.

By the 1980s, public values had crystallized around alternative visions of state-societ y

relations . People who endorsed broader freedom in one sphere, be it press or publishing o r

the right to strike, were now also more likely to call for less state control in other areas .

Soviet society's "revolution of the mind" was not simply a shift toward greate r

dissatisfaction -- it was a shift in the way people saw linkages between discrete issues .

iii

SOCIETY TRANSFORMED ?RETHINKING THE SOCIAL ROOTS OF PERESTROIKA

Introduction

Openings to economic and political reform in authoritarian states typically occur fro m

the top down. Cleavages among ruling elites erode the old governing coalition, paving th e

way for system renewal . In the Soviet case, analysts from both East and West have als o

emphasized the critical role of broader social changes in sparking reform . Rising levels o f

education, increasing urbanization, and changing patterns of social mobility by 1985 seemed

to create a new set of values and expectations at odds with the Soviet system's traditional

controls . If the initiative for reform came from above, the pressures for change appeared t o

come from below .

In contrast, assessments since the Soviet collapse imply far less of a shift in public

values. With the costs of reform mounting, calls for an "iron hand" and local resistance t o

market mechanisms suggest widespread doubts about both capitalism and democracy . Some

data have even pointed to public backing for a new coup in Moscow .' Either the grand

social and political transformation that unleashed perestroika was quickly reversed, or it s

impact was exaggerated .

In either case, we are left with a fundamental question : how much did individual

values change? As Remington observes, arguments about Soviet society's gran d

transformation generally leave the political side of the equation unfinished .2 Few analyst s

agree on which values shifted, by how much, and why . If discontent increased, did it focu s

primarily on the regime, as the authors of The Soviet Citizen had contended, or on th e

system itself?' If it did focus on the system, was that due to the "triumph of modernizatio n

theory" or to the failure of the old social contract? 4 Was disaffection common across the

board, or was it concentrated chiefly among new generations with only a dim memory o f

past sacrifices ?

The available evidence offers few clear answers . Depending on the data one selects ,

modernization either led to more support for the core values of the Soviet system, or i t

undermined them . The impacts of generational change and of rising educational levels ar e

1

equally ambiguous . Measuring change is especially difficult, given the scarcity of reliable

data on individual attitudes before the Gorbachev years . Most studies have had to rely on

cross-sectional data, chiefly from the end of the Gorbachev era . If these reveal support fo r

democratic institutions or for economic reform, the assumption is that such values must be

the product of social changes unleashed years earlier .

I argue here that extending the analysis back in time yields a very different set o f

conclusions . In the aggregate, the desire for reform under Gorbachev was similar to that o f

the late Stalin years on many questions . However, the composition of the refor m

constituency changed over time, and relative consensus on core values in the Stalin era gav e

way to increasing disagreement. Arguments about post-Stalin social transformation thus ten d

to understate earlier support for reform, and to overstate the magnitude of value change sinc e

then.

My analysis draws on newly available data to assess three critical turning points i n

Soviet politics -- the last years of the Stalin era and the transition to collective leadership, th e

end of the Brezhnev period and the onset of reforms, and the final year of the Soviet er a

itself. I concentrate on basic elements of the Soviet order -- state control of the economy, th e

maintenance of political controls, and the provision of social welfare and social justice . These

were the key issues addressed in Inkeles and Bauer's seminal work on The Soviet Citizen ,

and they offer a unique opportunity to trace individual values from Stalin to Gorbachev .

In keeping with The Soviet Citizen, the geographical focus here is on Russia and

Ukraine . While they are not necessarily representative of attitudes in other republics, thei r

size and political importance make it especially critical to understand the dynamics of mas s

support in these two new states .

The discussion begins in section two with an outline of The Soviet Citizen's finding s

on individual values in the Stalin era, and a review of later theories and empirical researc h

on support for the Soviet system . The following sections then explore the evidence o n

attitudes toward state control of critical economic sectors ; social welfare and social justice :

and political controls . 5 The concluding section offers an appraisal of alternate models o f

social change .

2

The Roots of Social Transformation : From The Soviet Citizen to Perestroika

In their pioneering study of daily life under Stalin, Inkeles and Bauer concluded tha t

the Soviet public accepted many of the system's most fundamental norms . The Soviet Citize n

found a strong constituency for state control of the key means of production, a

comprehensive welfare state, and a paternal but benign government that would regulat e

political life for the good of its citizens . Even refugees who said they would "keep nothing "

if the Soviet system were dismantled still agreed with its basic principles . Inkeles and Bauer

concluded that the "crucial change in Soviet society is that now the main outlines of th e

system seem to enjoy the support of popular consensus ."'

People shared more of the Soviet mindset than images of totalitarian society ha d

implied . The youngest cohorts and intellectual and white collar workers were especiall y

supportive of the Soviet order . They were most inclined to say that they had been in favor o f

the system, and they were more convinced that life in the USSR would be better if only a

different leader (such as Bukharin) had come to power .' The young -- particularly amon g

the intelligentsia -- were also more egalitarian and collectivist, and more favorable to the ide a

of government control of industry (though there was much less acceptance of state control i n

sector "B" than in sector "A") . 8 Generational differences emerged, too, when peopl e

explained how their attitude toward the regime changed over time . Older respondents wh o

had once favored it grew disaffected over Bolshevik policies, especially collectivization an d

the purges. The young mostly did so when they were able to see life outside the USSR .

Inkeles and Bauer saw these cleavages as a natural product of both socialization an d

of social change. The young and the professional and intellectual classes had been expose d

more thoroughly to the agents of official socialization, and appeared to take the system as a

given . They also reflected the impact of modernization -- from rapid industrialization an d

greater social mobility to unequal material rewards . Their acceptance of the system prompted

Inkeles and Bauer to conclude that support for the Soviet order would increase with the ris e

of new generations and the expansion of higher education .

Harvard Project interviews did reveal a variety of grievances, but Inkeles and Baue r

found that most focused on highly specific issues -- reducing the arbitrariness and harshness

of the terror, improving living standards, and upgrading welfare state programs . Material

3

deprivation was an especially sensitive question : respondents from all social groups felt that

every group, from the intelligentsia to the peasantry, received too little reward for thei r

contributions to society . And few people saw either the regime, its leaders, or the party in a

favorable light .

When complaints focused on the system, they implied a mixed agenda for reform .

Almost everyone wanted some political liberalization, though they disagreed on exactl y

which rights they would expand . Virtually all interviewees credited the system for its succes s

with rapid industrialization, but approval of the Soviet economic setup did not extend acros s

the board . If people believed that the state should control the "commanding heights" of the

economy, they were also convinced that light industry and especially agriculture should b e

mostly private . The desired economic model was not Stalinist, but NEP .

Harvard Project interviews also highlighted other tensions in state-society relations .

New generations had aspirations for higher education and higher-status jobs that could not al l

be accommodated by the post-War economic system . Moreover, higher education and higher

status meant different values .' Workers put a premium on increased material rewards an d

job security, while the intelligentsia and professionals valued greater autonomy .

Inkeles and Bauer contended that a regime intent on maintaining political control i n

these circumstances would do best to strike a "deal" with blue collar strata . Higher living

standards and improved working conditions would yield measurable increases in workin g

class support . Investing in peasants would have a similar return . Since their hostility to th e

collective farm system was couched in terms of poor working conditions, long hours, an d

low and insecure pay, an improvement in their material circumstances might go far i n

boosting regime legitimacy in the countryside . 1 0

The authors of The Soviet Citizen thus all but predicted the social agenda of th e

Khrushchev and Brezhnev years . The results appeared to be a success : the public into the

1970s seemed to accept the basic outlines of the Soviet order . Broad social guarantees ,

modest increments in living standards, and a retreat from earlier campaigns to remake societ y

appeared to mute the discontents that had emerged in Harvard Project interviews ." By the

end of the 1970s, however, analysts came to argue that growing dissatisfaction had eroded

4

the old "bargain."12 As Gorbachev acceded to power, many concluded that social change s

unleashed after Stalin had undermined public support for the very system . 1 3

Models of Social Transformation

Yet despite the consensus on society's grand transformation, there is little agreemen t

on which values changed, or on the mechanism that transformed them . The most widely

accepted explanation projects a shift in values due to modernization : a highly educated ,

urbanized and mobile public appeared unlikely to tolerate the old system's heavy-handed

controls . 14 Rising levels of education would presumably breed a population less and les s

willing to accept one-sided arguments or facile logic, and more inclined to question wha t

they were told.15 Increasing social differentiation would make it ever more difficult for th e

regime to rely on old formulas to generate political support . 1 6

Alternate models focus on regime performance and on generational change . If the

social contract of the post-Stalin years promised economic security and a quiet life i n

exchange for political quiescence,17 then faltering economic conditions would threaten th e

state's store of political capital ." The "deal" might vary for different strata, however: for

workers, higher wages and social guarantees in exchange for political acquiescence ; for

professionals and intellectuals, whose numbers outpaced the availability of good jobs ,

competition and insecurity . 19 If the "bargain" did rest chiefly on benefits to blue colla r

strata, then the old social contract would lose its appeal for the regime as the proportion o f

blue-collar workers diminished over time . 2 0

The decline in public support could also be traced to the emergence of ne w

generations . If political and economic conditions shifted radically over time, new cohort s

would come of age with fundamentally different values . 21 On the other hand, they could be

less accepting of old orthodoxies simply because they were now more educated than their

fathers and grandfathers . 22

These arguments are persuasive but incomplete . None specifies which values should

have changed, and none distinguishes among levels of support . The standard assumption, fo r

example, is that modernization would breed a demand for greater political freedom ; bu t

would it make people more or less favorable toward public ownership of the means o f

5

production? The decline of the state's ability to deliver on its social contract should promp t

greater discontent, but would that lead people to reject the idea of the welfare state, or onl y

to demand improved implementation?

The empirical evidence raises even more questions . In the case of modernization ,

certainly rising levels of education and professionalization were dramatic under Khrushchev

and Brezhnev. Yet the process had been equally (if not more) dramatic under Stalin . Social

transformation then led Inkeles and Bauer to conclude that modernization had generated

support for the system. The final chapter of The Soviet Citizen argued that the creation of an

urban, industrial state had done much to generate public acceptance of the basic features o f

Soviet socialism . Inkeles and Bauer also demonstrated that higher education and professiona l

advancement did not necessarily make people more critical of the system and its principles :

the "modern sector" was typically less critical .

In the case of the social contract, the impact of the new consumerism after Stalin an d

the changes in living standards was hardly clearcut . Evidence from the Brezhnev era

suggested that the least privileged felt the most satisfied with their lives and the most wedde d

to Soviet values; people with higher status and more material benefits ranked among the mos t

discontented . '

These questions aside, the evidence is simply at odds over how much individual

values actually changed . Some analysts have demonstrated, for example, that relatively littl e

shifted from The Soviet Citizen to the 1970s . Under Brezhnev, as under Stalin, emigran t

interviews showed widespread support for a strong but benevolent state -- with public contro l

over the means of industrial production, extensive social welfare programs, and some limit s

on civil liberties . 24 People felt disaffected from the regime and anxious to have more

political freedom; but they also wanted a state that would guide its citizens for their ow n

good. Interviews also pointed to generational change : the young by the 1970s expressed les s

support for the system than their predecessors in the Harvard Project had shown . 2 5

Later research found greater disaffection . Surveys of those who left the USSR at th e

end of the Brezhnev era and in the post-Brezhnev years revealed less backing for stat e

control of the economy, or for restrictions on civil liberties . They also showed that younger

generations were not simply less enthusiastic than their counterparts in the Harvard Project ,

6

but openly critical of the Soviet order . The major cleavages in the Stalin era had bee n

reversed : the groups who had been most supportive of the system under Stalin now were th e

most inclined to reject it. 2 6

More recent interviews from the former USSR have extended the debate . For

example, Gibson, Duch and Tedin find significant backing for political reform . from

competitive elections to other key political rights, 27 while Miller concludes that the demand

for change was still relatively limited even in 1990 . More people in Russia and Ukraine were

supportive of the old regime than were hostile to it . 28 Finifter and Mickiewicz contend that

levels of support depended on the issues at stake . 2 9

Changes in values among key subgroups are also controversial . While most analysts

confirm the existence of a political generation gap, some see it as a sign of true generationa l

replacement, while others see it as the result of rising levels of education among younger

cohorts . 30 The impact of higher education is even more controversial . For Silver, highe r

education generally means greater acceptance of private, rather than state involvement . 3 1

Finifter and Mickiewicz find the opposite: education increases support for collective, rathe r

than individual, solutions . 32 Still other evidence yields a third conclusion : higher education

means significantly more backing for privatization, but only in Russia and Tadzhikistan . In

other republics, higher education seems to have no effect . 3 3

There is, then, much more agreement about the fact of social transformation than

about its political legacy . If the evidence shows that modernization both increased and

decreased support for the Soviet system, and that rising levels of education generated bot h

less and more support for collectivist policies, then our models of change in public value s

need to be reassessed .

Data

Data for this analysis come from several surveys . For the Stalin era, the data are

from one of two sets of interviews used in Inkeles and Bauer's The Soviet Citizen : 331 Life

History interviews of the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System (referred to here as

HP) . 34 The survey was conducted with Soviet refugees in Europe and the U .S . during

1950-51 . The original datacards were lost ; the interview transcripts have been recoded an d

are reanalyzed here. For the Brezhnev era, the analysis relies on 1856 interviews from th e

7

Soviet Interview Project General Survey I (referred to here as SIP I), conducted during 1983 -

84 with people who left the USSR from 1979 through 1982 . A followup Soviet Interview

Project Survey (SIP II) was conducted in 1986 with 572 people who left the USSR fro m

1982 through 1985 . For the Gorbachev era, the data come from 1709 interviews conducted

in Russia and Ukraine during the spring of 1991 by the Times Mirror Center for People an d

the Press ("Pulse of Europe") . Some data are also derived from a survey of 1728 people i n

eight regions of Russia, conducted in November-December 1991 ("Russia-91") . Since all o f

the surveys address many of the same basic issues, they help to pinpoint changing value s

among key groups . An overview of these datasets and the sample characteristics is provided

in Appendix A .

Can data from the USSR and from emigrant surveys be compared? The results ar e

encouraging, since all of the surveys reveal the same underlying trends . The same

generational differences emerge, for example, in both "local" and in emigrant interviews .

These data suggest that respondents in the emigrant surveys were not unrepresentative of th e

society in which they had grown up, gone to school, worked, served in the army, married ,

and begun their families . They had come to accept most of the basic elements of the Sovie t

system . Inkeles and Bauer demonstrated, for example, that many Harvard Projec t

respondents wanted to "change everything" when asked what they would keep or change o f

the Soviet system; but when asked about specific features of the system, they voted to kee p

the basics largely intact -- from state ownership of heavy industry and welfare programs t o

limited controls on civil liberties . Interviewees of the same generations and social strata i n

the Soviet Interview Project General Surveys I and II responded much the same.

This is not to say that there were no biases. Rather, the biases were predictable an d

controllable . The SIP surveys, for example, had a preponderance of Jewish respondents . Yet

the impact of differences in nationality depended very much on the question asked . Russian

and Jewish respondents did diverge in their evaluations of nationality policies, but their view s

of economic and political institutions were remarkably similar . 35 Emigration effects were

also relatively minor . That is, the fact of being in the West did not necessarily lead people t o

reject the key elements of the Soviet system . 36

8

For comparability, this analysis starts from the core questions posed in The Sovie t

Citizen, using the same measure of generational differences and the same explanator y

variables . 37 My approach differs from The Soviet Citizen on two counts, however . While

Inkeles and Bauer focused primarily on occupational class cleavages, I rely instead on leve l

of education to capture distinctions in social status . This is a necessity due to a lack o f

information about how "class" had been coded in the Harvard Project . 38 The impact of

education is also central to the current debate about post-Stalin social change in the USSR ,

and to recent empirical work on public values . In addition, where The Soviet Citizen

employed complex crosstabulations among different variables (performed with punch card s

on a countersorter), I rely on multivariate analysis to control for the varied persona l

characteristics such as gender, residence in a big city, material dissatisfaction, that mediat e

the relationships between generation, social status and individual values .

Several other issues also deserve mention . First, given differences in samples and i n

question wording across surveys, the analysis focuses primarily on the degree of conflict an d

consensus within each sample . Responses are analyzed across samples where the question s

are in fact substantively the same .

Second, surveys conducted in other years might yield different results . Such

fluctuations should be relatively modest, though, where survey questions ask abou t

fundamental values (rather than, say, approval ratings of an incumbent leader) . Nor is there

much evidence to suggest that public attitudes actually did vacillate significantly in the year s

between surveys on the questions analyzed here . To take one example, our data reveal tha t

over 3/4 of respondents in 1950-51 and 1991 called for state control of heavy industry . It i s

unlikely that these percentages somehow declined and then increased again in the intervenin g

years . In fact, other studies show that responses on this question remained stable . The trends

in between surveys can therefore be gauged against what our theories and our other evidenc e

would predict.

Finally, I should note that page limits require some selectivity in the data that can b e

presented here. The analysis itself covered each key issue from each survey for all three tim e

periods ; but it generated more results than can be included in the confines of a single article .

9

I excluded tables that yielded the same basic conclusions as those presented here . These

additional findings are cited in the text and notes .

Public Values and State Control of the Economy

One of the cardinal values defining the Soviet system's claim to legitimacy wa s

industrial transformation . When Harvard Project interviews were conducted in 1950-51, rapi d

industrialization appeared to have near-universal backing . 39 Yet the striking feature of

attitudes toward public ownership then was not widespread support for state control of th e

means of production -- but a consensus on a mixed economy . People were nearly unanimou s

on preserving the state's role in heavy industry, but they were also convinced that farmin g

and most light industry should be private (Table 1).40 Some would allow collectives i n

agriculture, but only if they were voluntary .

If social transformation after Stalin did indeed erode the old base of support, w e

should see substantially less willingness to endorse state control in sector A over time. The

data, however, indicate more continuity in public values (Table 1) . Even by 1991, th e

preferred model of the economy was still a variant of NEP (Table 1) .41 Data from the

intervening years point to much the same picture . 42 Brezhnev-era data showed widespread

backing for state control in Sector A, and little or none for state control in farming . 4 3

Equally important, support for key features of the economic system went hand i n

hand with calls for reform over time . For evidence, we can look to questions about what

elements of the Soviet system people opted to keep and change . When Stalin-era respondents

were asked which elements they would keep, 52 .9 percent named the economic system .

When asked which elements they would change, 70 .9 percent said to change it. And it wa s

precisely the people voting to "keep" the economic system who called for reform (Table 2) .

Their preferences were quite explicit : they wanted heavy industry, banking, transport and th e

like under state ownership, while allowing private activity in agriculture and consume r

goods. Later surveys yield much the same conclusion . Although fewer people mentioned th e

economic system as something to keep (see the notes to Table 2), those who would "keep" i t

were, again, also the ones wanting to retain state ownership in the commanding heights o f

industry and privatize agriculture (Table 2) . 44

1 0

However, the aggregate consensus on a mixed economy through the years masks a

critical shift among key subgroups of the population . Where the young and the most highly

educated were more positive toward government control of major industry before 1953, ne w

and educated cohorts of the Brezhnev and Gorbachev years proved to be the most negativ e

toward it . 45 They did not necessarily want to privatize sector A ; most favored a mix o f

public and private ownership. In contrast, older and less educated interviewees proved to b e

more accepting of state ownership in farming and consumer goods under Brezhnev and

Gorbachev than they had been under Stalin (Figure 1) . 46

Thus there was indeed a constituency for economic reform by 1991, but it ha d

emerged well before the Gorbachev era . Relatively few people in any survey from the Stalin

years onward endorsed exclusive state control of the farms or of light industry .47 Even the

people most inclined to "keep" the economic system wanted to see it reformed . The renewed

public discussion of NEP in the 1980s was more than academic ; it resonated with publi c

views of the most desirable economic system . In fact, when people said they favored a

market economy, "market" generally implied NEP . Among people who "approved" o r

"strongly approved" of the adoption of a market economy as of 1991, over 3/4 would stil l

keep heavy industry under state control (Table 3) . Similarly, of those interviewees who

disapproved of a market, 11 .3 percent would nevertheless make light industry private, an d

another 47.7 percent favored a mix of state and private control in that sector ; 68.1 percent

would make farming private . Virtually the same picture emerged when people were aske d

whether they favored or opposed the sale of land (see Table 3) .

NEP's appeal was not difficult to understand . As Harvard Project interviewees

explained, the risk of huge private monopolies dominating economic life was far greater i n

the commanding heights of industry than in consumer goods or farming . State ownership i n

steel, machine-building and the like also seemed more effective . The huge new factories tha t

went up under Stalin offered visible proof of creating new capacity, in contrast t o

collectivization and the squeezing of the consumer sector . Even after conditions on the farm s

and in the stores had improved, heavy industry was still portrayed as functioning better (at

least in terms of plan fulfillment), while farming and light industry seldom seemed t o

measure up .

1 1

The "success" of heavy industry appeared to be less salient for each new generation ,

however. While people who came of age in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s could still see th e

tangible evidence of economic transformation, younger generations had no such clea r

reference point . Rather, they saw an ongoing domestic debate about declining growth rates

and partial reforms, widening problems in the Fast European economies, and often doubtfu l

results when Soviet-style public enterprise and planning were adopted in the Third World .

They also had more opportunities to see and evaluate some of the alternatives .

Social Welfare and Social Justic e

Along with the transformation of heavy industry, the Soviet state's welfare program s

also garnered widespread support in the Stalin era . Health, education, welfare and

employment guarantees ranked among the key elements of the Soviet order that people woul d

keep (Table 4) . Individual views differed, however, when it came to specifics . The idea of

state-supplied jobs found near universal backing, but calls to eliminate inequality were muc h

less popular (Table 5a) . Most people also ranked economic security below personal freedom .

On these issues, social transformation after Stalin did relatively little to alter publi c

belief in the state's obligation to care for its citizens . Individual values in later surveys also

leaned consistently toward what Peter Reddaway has termed the "nanny state ."48 Social

welfare ranked at the top of the list of elements to keep (Table 4) . Later surveys indicate

more disagreement, though, about specific social guarantees . While most people wanted th e

state to insure food and shelter for its citizens, many were now more willing to say that th e

government should allow unemployment (Table 5b) .

Perceptions of the system's ability to deliver on social justice also shifted over time .

Under Stalin, the system appeared unjust to virtually everyone ; in later years, it seemed fa r

more selective in its treatment of different social strata . The change is evident from questions

about which groups in society received too much or too little for their contributions t o

society : respondents in the Stalin era answered that everyone --from peasants to professionals

-- received too little . Only party and state officials were perceived as reaping more than the y

deserved. All social strata shared a common sense of deprivation, even though rewards wer e

highly differentiated (Table 6) . Within this broad consensus, however, people did differ i n

1 2

their willingness to increase rewards to others . Those with the highest social status were the

most egalitarian -- the most inclined to say that everyone got too little . Workers and peasant s

felt that they themselves received too few rewards, but they were somewhat less charitabl e

toward "higher" strata . 4 9

By the 1980s, the sense of universal deprivation had diminished . Most people still

believed that the political elite was overpaid, but they were now less inclined to see everyone

else as under-rewarded . Only certain groups (farmers, workers, doctors) were singled out a s

receiving too little (Table 7a) .50 Almost identical patterns emerged when the questions wer e

repeated in late 1991 (the data are not shown) . 51 And the old egalitarianism among higher -

status groups had diminished: people with a college degree were most concerned wit h

increasing rewards to professionals and intellectuals, and cutting them for the authorities . The

old ethic of redistribution had begun to lose its appeal .

As on economic policy, questions about social welfare and social justice revea l

increasing disagreement by generation and education through the years . By 1991, the young

and highly educated were much more willing to endorse private, rather than state ,

responsibility for some elements of individual welfare (Table 5b) . Thus while people

continued to approve of the most basic features of the welfare state in general, new cohort s

and the college-educated came to take a more restrictive view of what government should d o

to protect the population. The youngest generations also came to be the most negative towar d

wage leveling : they were the most willing to raise wages for professionals and lower the m

for blue collar workers (Table 7b) .

The disagreements went beyond the perceived fairness of rewards: differen t

generations and social groups came to have divergent standards for judging the rewar d

system itself . Over time, younger and more highly educated interviewees felt mor e

dissatisfied with the same material conditions . They were the most likely to say that basi c

consumer goods were in short supply (the data are not shown) . And when asked whic h

period in Soviet history witnessed the greatest gap in privileges, they were most likely to see

their own era as the worst . 52 In effect, they had different patterns of consumption and

higher expectations than their older and less educated counterparts .

1 3

Thus perceptions of inequality had grown while differences in rewards diminished .

Over the years from Stalin to Brezhnev, the popular meaning of "social injustice" seems t o

have shifted in emphasis from absolute to relative deprivation . And while there was

widespread agreement that the system was unfair, different strata had very different notion s

of what a "fair" system would provide . Ideology had reversed among key groups : if the

young and relatively privileged strata of the Stalin years favored a more egalitarian system to

protect the manual classes, their counterparts under Brezhnev and Gorbachev now ha d

markedly less enthusiasm for this key tenet of the workers' state .

Civil Liberties

Questions on the preferred model of the economy and on basic social welfare

guarantees emphasize growing dissensus in Soviet society over the years . In contrast ,

questions on civil liberties always provoked disagreement . Virtually everyone endorsed some

degree of liberalization in every time period, but people were divided over which rights t o

grant, and how much of a state role to retain . They called for expanding civil rights i n

general, but also wanted to retain controls when it came to particular situations . "

Disagreements were all too visible among Stalin-era respondents . People were almost

evenly split on questions of freedom of the press, speech, and religious teaching (Tabl e

8) . 54 Some of the same ambivalence about which rights to protect also emerges in late r

surveys . Even in the early 1990s, over half of all respondents still would ban a book wit h

dangerous ideas from the schools and over half would ban some political parties (Table 8) .

At the same time, these issues too evoked growing cleavages by age and education .

The differences had been modest at best under Stalin : the young and highly educated the n

were not significantly more liberal or conservative than anyone else . While they endorsed

broader rights on some issues, they wanted to see limits on others (Table 8) . 55 By the time

of perestroika, cleavages had widened : the post-Soviet Citizen generations -- especially th e

ones with a college degree -- were markedly more liberal across the board on individua l

rights (Table 8) . 5 6

The cleavages are especially clear where the questions are comparable across differen t

surveys -- for example, on controls over the media . The generations interviewed in the

14

Harvard Project give strikingly similar answers in 1950-51 and 1991 . Roughly half opted for

control of the press under Stalin ; after the introduction of glasnost', nearly as many opted fo r

an increase in press censorship (see Figure 2) . In contrast, younger generations by 1991 - -

both with a college degree and without -- once again proved to be far less enthusiastic abou t

the state's role . Education also made a substantial difference, but chiefly among olde r

cohorts .

Every survey, then, reveals both discontent with, and disagreement over the state' s

political controls on its citizens, from Stalin to Gorbachev . People called for a degree o f

liberalization even in the Stalin years, but they were at odds on the specifics . By 1991, they

were still at odds ; but their disagreement now had a more pronounced generational cast to it .

Public Values and Social Cleavages

All of the evidence thus points to fundamental and growing cleavages by generation

and education after Stalin . The tables, though, do not tell us whether these relationships ar e

independent -- whether the "generation gap" actually reflected rising levels of education o r

real differences in life experiences among successive cohorts . Nor do they indicate whether

the effects of either age or schooling hold independently of other influences, from the impac t

of urbanization to gender to dissatisfaction with living standards . To untangle these rival

effects, Tables 9 and 10 present multiple regression results for support of state economic an d

political controls ."

Several other factors are included as explanatory variables . To capture the impact o f

urban life, each set of results includes a measure of residence in Moscow or in another majo r

city.58 Interrepublic differences are captured by a dummy variable for residents of Ukraine .

In addition, variables have also been added to capture the effects of gender, occupation, an d

level of material dissatisfaction .

The results confirm, first, the critical role of generational change . Across the board ,

from the state's economic role, to social welfare, to political freedoms, cohort differences are

dramatic . Those who came of age and began their careers under Stalin proved to be the mos t

supportive of the state's role in industry, in every survey . Both earlier and later generation s

had less enthusiasm for government controls (Tables 9 and 10) . Put another way, it was onl y

1 5

the generations who came of age under Stalin who seemed to buy most enthusiastically into

the Soviet model of economic control . Yet even they did so only partially . If they accepted

state ownership of steel, machinery, and the like, they were much less certain about th e

state's role on the farms . They were generally negative on this issue, even under Stali n

(Table 9) . 5 9

The effect of generational replacement shows just as clearly in questions on individua l

rights . As noted earlier, age differences were rather modest under Stalin : people wanted

some liberalization, regardless of age . It was the successor generations who came to b e

significantly more negative toward the state's controls . And it was not simply linear age that

set people apart, as the dummy variables for different cohorts reveal (Table 10) . Those born

after World War II, and especially after 1950, had fundamentally different values from thei r

elders .

Higher education had a less consistent impact. Under Stalin, the college-educated

were no different from other groups in their views of the state's role in industry ; but they

were more supportive of its role in agriculture . They were more likely to endorse collective s

-- albeit voluntary ones . Later, however, the impact of higher education shifted: the college-

educated came to be more negative, and the less educated, more positive toward state

controls in both the factories and the farms (Tables 9 - 10) .

The effect of education also shifted with respect to individual rights . People with a

college education were not significantly more or less inclined than others to endorse broa d

civil liberties in the Stalin years . 60 But later generations with higher schooling were far

more liberal in their views of individual rights, especially by 991 (see Table 10) .

Differences between Russia and Ukraine also appear to be somewhat mixed . While

respondents from Ukraine showed more inclination to endorse the state's role in heavy an d

light industry as of 1991, they had less enthusiasm for controls over individual rights .

One other factor deserves mention as well . Material dissatisfaction proved to b e

critical in every survey : the less the satisfaction, the less the support for either political o r

economic regulation . Yet even material dissatisfaction was strongly colored by generationa l

differences . For the Stalin years, younger interviewees felt slightly (though not significantly )

more satisfied with their basic material conditions (Appendix Table A3) . Under Brezhnev and

1 6

Gorbachev, the same cohorts remained the more satisfied . Succeeding generations, i n

contrast, were significantly less content . So, too, were urban residents, and people with lo w

incomes . Despite the claim that money did not matter much to individual citizens under the

traditional Soviet order, a higher income meant greater material satisfaction .

Along with the growing differences by generation and education, individual values

also came to be more consistent over the years : if people endorsed mixed or privat e

ownership in light industry, they were now more likely to do so for heavy industry too .

Their counterparts in Stalin's time had viewed the question of public versus private contro l

separately for each sector, with less consistency in their answers (Table 11) . Attitudes on

individual rights also came to be more closely connected . For the late Stalin years, there wa s

little correlation among answers on controls over media, speech and religion ; by 1991 ,

answers on specific questions were all related .

Similarly, there had been little coherence or "constraint" in individual views on

economic policy and on civil liberties in the Harvard Project : people who backed a broad

state role in the economy were not necessarily more or less inclined than others to call fo r

limits on individual rights . By the Brezhnev and Gorbachev eras, the answers reflected mor e

consistency across issue-areas (Table 11) . If the Stalin era witnessed isolated discontents wit h

particular types of state controls, the public of later years had come to have a much mor e

sophisticated view of the interrelations between various issues . '

Implications

This paper began by noting a paradox . Under Gorbachev, analysts contended that a

profound social transformation had undermined support for the old Soviet system . After

Gorbachev, the constituency for the old system has appeared to be much more durable .

Neither interpretation quite fits the evidence . On questions of the government's role in the

economy, there was less of a sea change in core public values than the arguments abou t

social transformation have implied. Clear majorities from the late Stalin years onwar d

favored a mixed system reminiscent of NEP . People did not lose their enthusiasm for state -

directed farming and consumer goods production -- most had reservations from th e

beginning .

1 7

Public values also consistently favored the welfare state, though preferences shifte d

over the years from more to less comprehensive social guarantees . The ideal welfare state b y

1991 had more room for private initiative . Attitudes towards civil liberties also remained

"consistent" over time -- in the sense that the public disagreed in each era over the rights

they would grant and the role they would allow to the state . Most people desired more

freedom, and limits on the government's intrusions into their lives ; but many also wanted to

retain some controls .

Thus political liberalization and economic reform did have mass support in 1985, bu t

the demand for change was hardly of recent vintage . It dated at least back to the late Stali n

years . As Frederick Starr notes, public values never entirely fit the mold o f Stalinism.62

The constituency for reform had, however, changed by the time Gorbachev emerge d

as general secretary . Cleavages by generation and by education that were modest in Th e

Soviet Citizen had reversed and widened into major fault lines . Equally important, the nature

of discontent with the system changed over time . Isolated criticisms of individual sectors o f

the economy, or of controls on individuals gave way to alternative ideologies . While people

in the late Stalin years found much to condemn in the regime's abuses of civil liberties, the y

were far from consistent in defining the types of rights they would grant . Nor was there

much correspondence between answers on state control of the economy and controls ove r

individuals .

By the 1980s, public values had crystallized around alternative visions of state-societ y

relations . People who endorsed broader freedom in one sphere, be it press or publishing or

the right to strike, were now also more likely to call for less state control in other areas .

Soviet society's "revolution of the mind" was not simply a shift toward greater dissatisfactio n

-- it was a shift in the way people saw linkages between discrete issues . 63

These results suggest a number of conclusions . One is the durability and insight of th e

Harvard Project's basic findings . Where questions are substantively the same in late r

surveys, they reveal a good deal of continuity in the answers of different cohorts through th e

years . Inkeles and Bauer's observations about the post-Stalin regime's social contract also

held remarkably well over time . As they anticipated, the highest payoff from the new

consumerism after Stalin would come in increased blue collar support . The Soviet Citizen

1 8

highlighted too the critical distinction between opposition to the regime and support for th e

more basic elements of the Soviet system . Later evidence showed the same pattern o f

dissatisfaction with the party and its leaders, but continued approval of key parts of the

Soviet model.64

Still, some of the standard interpretations of the Harvard Project's findings need to b e

reassessed . It was not true, as is sometimes asserted, that the Harvard Project foun d

widespread support for the Soviet system under Stalin ." Interviews then actually revealed

more backing for the Soviet order of the 1920s, from NEP's mixed economy to its

marginally greater tolerance in political and social life (in comparison with the high Stali n

years) . Nor was it true that the Stalinist system had managed to socialize new generation s

and the most highly educated into accepting its fundamental values . Support among these

groups was far too selective to be simply the product of schooling or indoctrination . If they

favored some political controls, they were nonetheless anxious to have a more libera l

political order . They took pride in the achievements of rapid industrialization, but they had

no such enthusiasm for collectivization or the takeover of the consumer sector . In fact ,

people who were the most favorable toward the basic outlines of the economic order were

also the ones to call for reforms .

The higher levels of support among the Stalin era's young and highly educated impl y

that they judged the system less by what they had been taught than by its visible and tangibl e

results . This is especially apparent on questions dealing with the economy . On the les s

visible and tangible issues, such as individual rights, they were more ambivalent .

The evidence also casts some new light on the models Western analysts hav e

employed to explain the social roots of perestroika . The most compelling explanation i s

generational change: all of the data underscore the distinctiveness of new cohorts . In the

Stalin era, it was the "relics" of the Tsarist order, the old and less educated, who objected

most to the new one. Younger and more educated cohorts then, the prime beneficiaries o f

rapid development, proved to be the most positive toward the Soviet system, and the y

remained the most positive from the Stalin years onward . The generations who came before

and after took a much dimmer view of core Soviet values, and had different reference points

for judging them ." The old social base of the system thus had a limited lifespan .

1 9

The uneven pattern implies that the divergent views stemmed from generationa l

replacement, and not simply changes over the life-cycle . As figures 1 and 2 illustrate ,

support generally followed an inverted "U" -- with Stalin-em cohorts almost always the mos t

positive about the traditional system . The age differences hold, moreover, independently o f

education: the generation gap did not arise simply from differences in schooling .

If the oldest people in the Harvard Project compared the system unfavorably with it s

predecessor, later generations came of age as the system was becoming discredited and as th e

USSR moved away from its isolation under Stalin . Their formative years witnesse d

Khrushchev's attacks on Stalinism and more open and pointed discussion about the need fo r

reform. They not only gained more opportunities to see how other countries lived, they saw

increasing debate about the effectiveness and relevance of the communist model amon g

Soviet client states . And over time, they were exposed to increasing feedback that the mode l

was flawed . They also witnessed the reversal from thaw to political "freeze" under Brezhnev ;

closing off even modest political liberalization heightened the sense of contradiction between

public and private life .

The change in the regime's claim to rule played a role as well . The transition from

building communism in the 1920s and 1930s to welfare-state authoritarianism in later year s

brought a shift from sacrifice to entitlement -- and a corresponding change in the criteria ne w

generations would apply in judging the system .67 The decline in support for redistribution ,

and the increase in discontent with the same material conditions testify to the rise of differen t

standards .

The evidence presented here helps, too, in rethinking arguments about the impact o f

the social contract under Brezhnev . Less educated, blue collar strata then proved to be more

satisfied, and more positive toward the basic elements of the system (i .e., state economic

controls) . But their numbers were diminishing relative to professional and white-colla r

workers. The "decline" of the social contract thus appears to have been a decline in the valu e

of blue-collar support to the leadership . In fact, Gorbachev's reforms seemed to ai m

precisely at forging a new "deal" with a constituency of professionals and intellectuals ."

Arguments about modernization are more difficult to untangle . Some are undoubtedly

true -- for example, with respect to the impact of increasing subjective social differentiation .

20

The surveys employed here reveal growing disagreement over a variety of issues, from th e

state's role in the economy to the guarantee of "social justice ." The spreading dissensus no t

only made old political formulas less effective, it also complicated life for reformers -- sinc e

no single reform plank was likely to satisfy all or even most constituents .

On the other hand, my analysis highlights several problems in relying on

modernization theory to explain the opening to reform . It would be difficult to argue that

support for economic restructuring grew out of social transformation under Khrushchev and

Brezhnev. Preferences for reform in the 1980s and early 1990s were too similar to those in

1950 under Stalin . 69 In each era, the desired model was a mixed economy . And in each

era, those people who endorsed key elements of the system (state ownership in heav y

industry) were the same people who called for reform (in farming and consumer goods) .

The desire to limit state economic controls did intensify among new and more highl y

educated generations . Yet even among these groups, the economic model of choice

resembled NEP . Few even in 1991 were willing to hand the commanding heights of industry

over to private ownership . Moreover, since younger and more highly educated generation s

had been more positive toward the state's monopoly in heavy industry under Stalin, it i s

difficult to see how modernization alone could explain both the rise and the decline o f

support for this key Soviet precept . 70 The fact of increased education, in particular, did no t

automatically produce a more critical stance toward the system . 7 1

At a minimum, then, the evidence raises some doubts about the modernizatio n

argument . Social transformation implies broad-gauged changes in values, but support for ke y

elements of the Soviet order has been much more selective .

These results should not be surprising, given the poor showing of modernizatio n

theory in explaining other cases of regime transition . 72 They point, rather to a mix o f

deligitimation and a narrowing of the regime's social base . An authoritarian regime may, as

Robert Dix notes, establish a claim to rule as a government of exception, one that seeks t o

solve pressing national problems as it abrogates individual rights . But its legitimacy is

contingent on the ability to solve the problems it used to justify the takeover . 73 Breakdowns

occur when the regime fails to deliver on its own goals ; and when its supporting constituenc y

narrows .

2 1

Finally, the analysis here helps to put some of the political choices after 1985 i n

perspective . Our data show public values at the end of the Soviet era poised between the

partial reforms of the Gorbachev years and the more radical platform of El'tsin and Gaidar .

Most people supported political liberalization and at least limited economic change along th e

lines of NEP . It is not necessarily true that they were wedded to the old Soviet system ,

though they might welcome the stability of the Brezhnev years over the chaos of the post-

Soviet transition . Still, a public desire for limited change confronts reformers with a

dilemma. It may impose a less radical agenda, but the impact cannot easily be containe d

within prescribed limits or only selected institutions . Instead, changes develop a momentu m

that can overwhelm even well-intentioned reformers -- as the Gorbachev era demonstrated al l

too well .

22

NOTES

1 . In one 1992 poll for Russian television, some 58 percent of respondents indicated that they would supporta new putsch ; 68 percent thought an authoritarian government would mean a higher standard of living, an d65 percent thought it would mean a lower crime rate . Cited in RFE/RL Research Report, 1 (July 17, 1992) :80 .

2 ."Regime Transition in Communist Systems: The Soviet Case," Soviet Economy 6 (1990) : 160-90.

3.Alex Inkeles and Raymond Bauer The Soviet Citizen : Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge :Harvard University Press, 1961) .

4 .Lucian W. Pye, "Political Science and the Crisis of Authoritarianism," American Political Science Review84 (1990) :3-19 .

5. Throughout this paper, I use the terms "values," "attitudes," and "preferences" interchangeably. In al lcases, they refer to fundamental beliefs about the desired relationship between state and society . Theyreflect what Inkeles and Bauer viewed as the "system ." The "regime," in contrast, represented the leader sand institutions responsible for day-to-day administration . Cf . David Easton, A Systems Analysis of PoliticalLife (New York : Wiley, 1965), and "A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support,' British Journalof Political Science 5 (October 1975) : 435-57 .

6 .The Soviet Citizen, 397 .

7. This generation gap in support for the system was also emphasized by Harvard Project respondent sthemselves : many noted explicitly that it was the young people in the USSR who favored the Soviet order .

8. Alice S. Rossi Generational Differences in the Soviet Union (New York : Arno Press, 1980) ,295-97. This was a dissertation, based on data from the Harvard Project and completed in 1957 ; it was late rpublished in Arno Press's dissertation series .

9. Inkeles and Bauer report, for example, that questions about parents influence on children's career choice sreflected a substantial shift . Cohorts raised after the revolution were encouraged to give more emphasis t oself-expression and self-determination ; earlier generations had been encouraged to choose according t ofamily traditions . Similarly, those in non-manual occupations reported much less emphasis on traditiona lvalues . The Soviet Citizen, 226-8 .

10 .Rossi, Generational Differences, 363-4 .

11 .Walter Connor, "Dissent in a Complex Society," Problems of Communism (1973) : ; "Generations an dPolitics in the USSR," Problems of Communism (1975) : ; Seweryn Bialer, Stalin's Successors : Leadership ,Stability, and Change in the Soviet Union (New York : Cambridge University Press, 1980) .

12.John Bushnell, 'The ' New Soviet Man' Turns Pessimist," Survey 24 (1980), no . 2 : 1-18 ; Gail W. Lapidus ,"Society Under Strain," The Washington Quarterly, 6 (spring 1983) : 29-47 .

23

13.Moshe Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenomenon : A Historical Interpretation (Berkeley : University o fCalifornia Press, 1988) ; Blair Ruble, The Soviet Union's Quiet Revolution," in George W . Breslauer, editor ,Can Gorbachev's Reforms Succeed? (Berkeley: Berkeley-Stanford Program in Soviet Studies and Cente rfor Slavic and East European Studies, 1990) .

14 .S. Frederick Starr, "Prospects for Stable Democracy in Russia," (Columbus : Mershon Center OccasionalPaper, Ohio State University, 1991) ; Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenomenon .

15.Jerry F. Hough Soviet Leadership in Transition (Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution, 1979) ;

16. Blair Ruble, The Social Dimensions of Perestroyka," Soviet Economy 3 (1987) : 171-83. Remington, i n"Regime Transitions," contended that it was not the progress of modernization, but its discontinuities, tha tprompted change. Higher education, for example, had swelled far more rapidly than the job marketwarranted -- and had thus led to substantial underemployment .

17.George W. Breslauer, "On the Adaptability of Soviet Welfare-State Authoritarianism," in Soviet Societyand the Communist Party (Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 1978), 3-25) ; Khrushchev andBrezhnev as Leaders : Building Authority in Soviet Politics (Boston : Allen and Unwin, 1982) .

18.Bushnell, The New Soviet Man'' ; and Lapidus, "Society Under Strain . "

19 .Victor Zaslavsky, The Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity and Consensus in Soviet Society (Armonk,N.Y . : M. E. Sharpe, 1983) .

20 .Peter Hauslohner, "Gorbachev's Social Contract, " Soviet Economy 3 (1987) : 54-89; Janine Ludlam ,"Reform and the Redefinition of the Social Contract Under Gorbachev," World Politics 43 (January 1991) :284-312 .

21 .Bialer, Stalin's Successors ; Jerry F . Hough, Soviet Leadership in Transition (Washington, D .C . : BrookingsInstitution, 1980) ; Donna Bahry, "Politics, Generations and Change in the USSR," in Politics, Work and Dail yLife in the Soviet Union (New York : Cambridge University Press, 1987), 61-99.

22.Jeffrey W. Hahn "Continuity and Change in Russian Political Culture," British Journal of Political Scienc e21 (1991) : 393-421 .

23.James R. Millar and Elizabeth Clayton, "Quality of Life : Subjective Measures of Relative Satisfaction," i nPolitics, Work and Daily Life, pp. 31-60 ; and Brian D . Silver, "Political Beliefs of the Soviet Citizen : Sourcesof Support for Regime Norms," in Politics, Work and Daily Life ,

24.Stephen White, "Continuity and Change in Soviet Political Culture: An Emigre Study," ComparativePolitical Studies 11 (October 1978) : 381-95 ; Political Culture and Soviet Politics (New York : St. Martins ,1979) ; Zvi Gitelman, "Soviet Political Culture : Insights from Jewish Emigres," Soviet Studies 29 (1977) : 543 -564 .

24

25.White, "Continuity and Change" ; and Political Culture .

26.Donna Bahry, "Politics, Generations and Change in the USSR" ; William Zimmerman, "Mobilize dParticipation and the Nature of the Soviet Dictatorship," in Politics, Work and Daily Life in the Soviet Union ;and Silver, "Political Beliefs . "

27."Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union," The Journal of Politics 54 (May 1992) :329-71 .

28.Arthur Miller, "In Search of Regime Legitimacy," in Public Opinion and Regime Change: The New Politic sof Post-Soviet Societies (Boulder : Westview, 1993) 95-123 .

29.Ada Finifter and Ellen Mickiewicz, "Redefining the Political System of the USSR : Mass Supportfor Political Change," American Political Science Review 86 (1992) : 857-74 .

30.See Gibson, Duch and Tedin, "Democratic Values" ; Finifter and Mickiewicz, "Redefining the Politica lSystem" ; and Hahn, "Continuity and Change . "

31 .Silver, "Political Beliefs . "

32."Redefining the Political System . "

33.Darrell Slider, Vladimir Magun, and Vladimir Gimpel'son, "Public Opinion on Privatization : RepublicDifferences, " Soviet Economy 7 (July-September 1991) : 256-75 .

34. The Soviet Citizen also relied on 2718 written, or "paper-and-pencil" questionnaires ; on most questions ,the two overlapped, and the findings were much the same . For a description of the two, see Appendix A .

35. Donna Bahry, "Surveying Soviet Emigrants : Political Attitudes and Ethnic Bias," Soviet Interview ProjectWorking Papers, 1989, no. 50 . Similarly, Russian and Ukrainian interviewees in the Harvard Project were atodds over nationality policy and ethnic relations in Ukraine ; but they had virtually the same values when thequestions turned to economic organization, individual rights or social welfare .

36. Harvard Project respondents, who had emigrated and had been exposed to systems of privateownership of industry in the West, continued to endorse basic government controls of major economicsectors a la NEP. And although they had seen the greater political freedom in the West, they were by n omeans anxious to import it wholesale to the USSR . Rather, they preferred a benign state that would retai nsome political controls for the benefit of the citizenry . The same was true for interviewees in the Sovie tInterview Project : respondents rejected some political controls, such as residence permits, but accepte dothers -- such as state controls on the media .

37. Actually, Inkeles and Bauer and Rossi used several different age breaks to measure generationa ldifferences . In some parts of their analysis, respondents were divided into two groups, under 35 years ol dand 35 or older ; in other parts of the analysis, the age break is 40 or 45 . Rossi also relies on fine rcategories, based on 10-year intervals, and that is the approach I use here .

38. None of the Harvard Project materials indicated how occupational class had been coded . Thus theoccupation-based categories in The Soviet Citizen could not be replicated precisely enough to make the mthe basis for the entire analysis . Harvard Project papers deposited in the Harvard Archives did include a

25

partial list of the actual codes used for some respondents, and judging from these, assignment to particula rcategories was closely related to a respondent's education .

39. Rossi noted that the high rate of approval for state control might in fact be simply an endorsement o fthe traditional values of the Tsarist state . However, the oldest and most traditional elements of th epopulation were least supportive of a broad state role, and that suggests that it was not simply "tradition "which led people to support public ownership .

40. For example, a Russian chief bookkeeper from Rostov (LH case 1493) and a kolkhoznitsa from Poltav a(LH case 1719) offered essentially the same answer on government economic controls : "I would keep stat eownership of heavy industry, mines, factories (large ones), railways, utilities . . . .Small and medium factorie sI think the government could give to cooperatives or rent them to individuals . . . .) would liquidate the collectiv efarms and "sovkhoz" [sic] and would promote individual ownership of the land" (LH case 1493) .

41 .The question in the 1991 survey used a slightly different term ("fermerstvo" rather than "sel'sko ekhoziaistvo") for agriculture, and this appears to skew the answers somewhat toward the private in the Puls eof Europe Survey . A similar question asked in a USIA-ROMIR study of Russia in June 1992 revealed thatroughly a third of respondents would keep agriculture in state hands. Also, note that the question formatsvaried across the surveys used here . Harvard Project questions on heavy and light industry were open-ended, and on agriculture, closed-ended with several possible answers . In the 1991 Pulse of Europe survey ,the questions posed two possible answers -- "mainly state" or "mainly private;" answers of "mixed" or "both"could be volunteered but were not read to respondents . This format does not appear to have biased th eresults ; they tend to be nearly identical when the same question is asked with additional, intermediat eanswer categories . Thus, the June 1992 USIA-ROMIR survey showed that 82 percent of respondents woul dkeep heavy industry "exclusively" or "mainly" under state ownership . I would like to thank Steve Grant andRichard Dobson for pointing this out .

42.Questions in the Soviet Interview Project asked people whether heavy industry and agriculture shoul dbe exclusively state-run or exclusively private, with answers arrayed on a 7-point scale of 1 = private, 7= state .For heavy industry, the average score was 4 .5 (among 1674 respondents) ; and for agriculture, it was 2 .2 .

43.Stephen White's interviews with emigrants to Israel in 1976 revealed an identical pattern : there was near -unanimous agreement that heavy industry should be in state hands, and complete unanimity that agricultur eshould be private. See "Continuity and Change," 386-87 .

44. Other surveys suggest that people also judge the need for state versus private ownership based on thesize of enterprises, preferring to keep larger ones under state control . See, e .g., Boris Z. Doktorov ,

Perspektivy razvitiia predprinimatel'stva vSSSR (Moscow : Mezhdunarodynyitsentr obshchechelovecheskiikhtsennostei, 1991), 16 .

45.This is also borne out by the results of a survey of economic values by sociologists at the St . Petersbur gbranch of the Institute of Sociology. Respondents with higher education were markedly less supportive o fthe justification for collectivization, the termination of NEP, equalization of wages, or of detailed planning Se eV. V. Safronov, "Massovye ekonomicheskie predstavleniia : istoricheskii aspekt," in Teoretiko-empirichesko eizuchenie ekonomicheskogo soznania na puti k tipologizatsii (Moscow : Institute of Sociology, RussianAcademy of Sciences, 1992), 106 . I am indebted to Boris Doktorov, of the St . Petersburg branch of th eInstitute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, for bringing these findings to my attention .

46. One possibility is that this change is an artifact, because the workers and peasants in the HarvardProject sample were unusually negative toward the system . In fact, Inkeles and Bauer concluded thatworkers and peasants were the most hostile to the Soviet order, based on a "hostility index" the y

26

constructed to determine whether people would refuse to credit the regime even for its basic achievement sin areas such as health care and cultural facilities. They found workers and peasants the least likely to sa ythat there had been improvements in these areas . However, this measure is ambiguous ; the achievementswere in fact most visible and accessible to higher-status urban groups . Blue collar strata were simpl ydescribing the reality of the pre-war Soviet system. Nor did the workers and peasants in the HP sampl ehave experiences or backgrounds (such as a higher incidence of trouble with the party or police) that woul dmake them more negative toward the system than other interviewees . Note, too, that their criticisms of theeconomic system -- especially of the collective farms -- focused on the low wages, long hours, and hars hworking conditions. Since these were ameliorated under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the modest increas ein support for state/collective farming makes sense.

47.David Hoffman offers archival evidence on this same point . See "The 'Peasantization' of the SovietWorking Class : Peasant In-Migration, Political Socialization, and the Decline of Labor Protest in the 1930s, "International Working Papers Series 1-91-16, The Hoover Institution, 1991 .

48.Peter Reddaway, "The End of the Empire," New York Review of Books (November 7, 1991) : 53-59.

49. This part of the analysis rests on differences among occupational classes, because the data on thesequestions for the Stalin era are available only from published Harvard Project results .

50. Since questions in the later survey asked about people in specific occupations, it might be that th eanswers reflect only judgments about those occupations and not the broader social categories named i nthe Harvard Project . However, a factor analysis of the responses confirms that even when questions askedabout specific occupations, people tended to group them in broad class terms (the data are not shown) .The results yield three factors, for "authorities" (party, KGB, military), "workers, farmers, employees "(kolkhozniki, retail clerks, factory workers, doctors), and "professionals and intellectuals" (industria lmanagers, professors) . Thus the question taps the same perceived social cleavages as did the comparabl equestion in the Stalin era. Only doctors seem to defy this class divide, apparently because of their relativel ylow pay and longer hours, and the perceived value of their work .

51. There are, however, a few differences : after the collapse of the consumer sector, more open corruption ,and rising inflation, retail sales clerks were no longer rated as being underrewarded . And by late 1991 ,"obkom first secretary" was no longer a salient category . Instead, the survey asked about a "deputy to th eSupreme Soviet ." The answers proved to be very similar ; most people felt that deputies were overpaid .

52.Bahry, "Politics, Generations and Change . "

53.Cf. Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, 246-48 .

54. Many people, for example, wanted more and diverse sources of information -- a "free press ." However,they also believed that the state should have its own media in order to explain its policies and educate th emasses, and wanted to insure that the government would punish people or newspapers that "spread fals einformation and attack morals or the government" (LH case 1493) .

55. Rossi shows that the young were more inclined to allow people to say things detrimental to the stat eBut they were also much more likely than others to approve a ban on meetings held to attack th e

government . Generational Differences, 304-5 .

56. The same cleavages emerge in data on the late Brezhnev era (the data are not shown) .

27

57. Given the relatively small sample from the Harvard Project, I report multiple measures of the level o fsignificance for individual coefficients . Also, since the data from the 1991 "Pulse of Europe" survey areweighted, the effect might be to inflate significance levels . This does not appear to be the case : when th eregressions in Tables 9 and 10 are run on a smaller sample of the cases, they still yield the same basi cconclusions . Note that questions on social welfare are excluded from the regression analysis, since the r edata from the Stalin years are not available on these issues .

58.1 also ran the same analysis using a dummy variable for residence in a rural area . The results ar e largelythe same, except that higher education proves to be somewhat less significant .

59. Inkeles and Bauer, and Rossi suggest that young peoples' negative views of collectivization were i nmany cases acquired in the displaced persons camps, based on the stories they had heard . Yet manyrespondents in the 30-to-40 age group did see collectivization for themselves, making them doubt that it ha dbeen worth the enormous costs . Younger people recounted stories they had heard from family and friend sat home.

60. They were somewhat more inclined to grant greater freedom of speech (see Table 10) . Note, though ,that the question on speech is open to different interpretations, since it asked whether a communist orato rshould be allowed to speak undisturbed . It may be that people were responding to the fact that the speake rwas a communist when they were judging whether to let him speak .

61 .These correlations -- or the lack of them under Stalin -- were not limited to the specific questions listedin Table 11 . The same patterns also obtain on other items related to state economic and political controls .Data on the Brezhnev era reveal much the same pattern of correlations among issues as under Gorbachev .Nor are the increasing correlations among individual questions over time a product of changing questio ncontent or format . Each survey included multiple questions with different formats for each of the issue sexamined here, and the results are similar whatever the format . Thus the changes in individual consistenc ycannot be attributed to the questions themselves .

62."Prospects for Stable Democracy . "

63.Cf. Ruble, The Soviet Union's Quiet Revolution" ; and Ellen Carnaghan, "Revolution in Mind: Publi cSupport for Democratization in the USSR," Ph .D . dissertation, New York University, 1992 .

64.See Donna Bahry and Brian Silver, "Public Perceptions and the Dilemmas of Party Reform in the USSR, "Comparative Political Studies 23 (1990) :

65. Inkeles and Bauer were far more careful in their conclusions than common interpretations of their wor kgenerally acknowledge . They did emphasize the basic acceptance of many regime norms -- something thatwas unexpected given the nature of their sample . But they also devoted a good deal of attention to th elimits on public support .

66. Katerina Clark offers a similar argument about generational change among the intelligentsia : the newgenerations who emerged under Stalin as the arbiters of intellectual life had "reduced intellectual horizons "given the isolation that accompanied Stalin's revolution . Unlike their counterparts in the 1920s, they ha dless experience or knowledge of the world beyond Soviet borders . See "The 'Quiet Revolution' in Sovie tIntellectual Life," in Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitch, and Richard Stites, editors, Russia in the Er aof NEP (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1991), 210-30 .

28

67.See, e .g ., Breslauer, On the Adaptability" ; James R . Millar, The Little Deal : Brezhnev's Contribution t oAcquisitive Socialism," in Soviet Society and Culture : Essays in Honor of Vera S . Dunham (Boulder:Westview, 1988), 3-19 .

68. See, for example, Tatyana Zaslavskaya, The Second Socialist Revolution : An Alternative Soviet Strategy(Bloomington, Ind . : Indiana University Press, 1990) .

69. Questions asked in the SIP I survey showed that people did not necessarily ascribe goods shortage sor other economic problems to public ownership per se . They tended to view such lapses in terms o fplanning failures or other errors .

70. The Harvard Project did find that younger and more highly educated cohorts had a greater desire forautonomy on the job and for more creative or meaningful work, values typically associated with modernizin gsociety . Yet the young and the college-educated were not demonstrably more critical toward state control s(except in agriculture, and then only among the young) .

71. The growing gap between the less- and more-educated over time might, of course, reflect changes i nthe nature or quality of education, or political selectivity -- i .e ., the people who obtained advanced schoolingin the Stalin years may have done so because they were more supportive of the regime on key issues . Yetsome of the evidence belies these arguments . In the Harvard Project, higher education meant greate rsupport for the Soviet system as a whole, even among people who had obtained their degrees before therevolution . When people were asked if they had once favored the regime, or had always been opposed ,it was the most highly educated of all ages who said they had once favored it (the data are not shown) .

72 .See, e .g ., Peter H . Smith, "Crisis and Democracy in Latin America," World Politics 43 (1991) : 608-34 .

73.Robert H . Dix, The Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes," Western Political Quarterly 35 (1982) : 554-73 .

29

Table 1 . Support for State Control of Means of Production, Stalin and Gorbachev Era s

(X preferring state control )

Light Agri -

(M) Industry (M) culture (N )

(185) 16.1 b (137) 0 .7c (297)

(51) 10 .3 (39) 0 .0 (73 )

(44) 14 .7 (34) 3 .1 (65 )

(52) 24.3 (37) 0 .0 (81 )

(38) 14 .8 (27) 0 .0 (78 )

(61) 13.0 (46) 0 .0 (119 )

(57) 22.5 (40) 1 .2 (86 )

(67) 13.7 (51) 1 .1 (91)

Heavy Light Agri-

Gorbachev era :

Industry

(N) Industry

(N) culture

(M )

Total e 82 .6 (5312) 25 .5 (5387) 6.2 (5220 )

By year of birth :

1900 -

10 100.0 (25) 49 .9 (25) 36.6 (27 )

1911

-

20 94 .7 (269) 47.2 (268) 19.2 (269 )

1921

-

30 95.2 (716) 37 .6 (720) 10.9 (690 )

1931

-

40 94.6 (861) 32 .3 (887) 10.1 (851 )

1941

-

50 85 .5 (755) 28.4 (747) 2 .8 (756 )

1951

- 60 75 .8 (1073) 16.8 (1095) 3 .2 (1083 )

1961

-

70 72.3 (1283) 18.2 (1314) 3 .3 (1303 )1971

-

73

By education :

69.3 (330) 12.4 (331) 1 .4 (332 )

< secondary 92 .4 (869) 48.2 (889) 18 .5 (870 )

Completed secondary 83 .1 (3175) 24 .2 (3215) 4 .1 (3181 )

Completed higher 76 .1 (1246) 13 .1 (1260) 2 .7 (1238 )

aThis was posed as a probe for the question of what respondents would keep or change in the Soviet system

(for the question wording, see Table 2) ; thus it was open-ended, with no predefined response categories .Here, the percentages represent those people who favored keeping heavy industry under state ownershi p

and/or control . Other responses were coded as favoring either a mixed system, or one of privat eownership/control

.This question, too, was a probe in the item on what to keep/change . The percentages indicate those

respondents favoring state control/ownership of light industry .

cThe question was "Suppose we had a government that would work only for the welfare of the people and

would want to organize agriculture in a way most desireable to everybody . Which do you think would bebetter : collectivized agriculture or private farming?" In this table the percentages indicate those whofavor collectivized agriculture . For this item, even those favoring "collective farming" felt that it should

e voluntary .

Age breaks have been selected in order to replicate the findings in Rossi, GenerationalDifferences .

eThe question is "As I read from a list tell me if you think this activity should be mainly run by the state ,

or mainly run privately?" 1=state ; 2=private . People who volunteered answers such as "some of each" o r

"both" were assigned a code of 3 . The data here indicate the percentage choosing "state" . The percentages

saying "private" were 2 .9 for heavy industry; 20 .4 for light industry ; and 77.5 for agriculture . Numbers i n

parentheses are weighted numbers of respondents . Since weights were typically greater than one, they increasethe reported N's .

Sources : Harvard Project Recode (1950-51) ; Times Mirror "Pulse of Europe" Survey (1991 )

Heavy

Stalin era :

Industry

Total :

86.5a

By year of birth : d

< 1900

76 . 5

1900-10

95 . 5

1911-20

86 .5

1921-30

89 .5

By education:

< secondary

85 . 2

Completed secondary

84 . 2

Completed higher

89 .6

30

Table 2 . Support for Political and Economic Change, Stalin and Brezhnev Eras . 3(% saying 'keep' and 'change' )

(M)

KeepPoliticalSystem

(M)

ChangePoliticalSysteme (M )

(316) 10 .9 (293) 68 .4 (316 )

(76) 8 .1 (74) 68 .4 (76 )

(68) 11 .1 (63) 64 .7 (68 )(88) 12 .2 (82) 68 .2 (88 )(83) 12 .2 (74) 72 .3 (83 )

(128) 8 .0 (113) 71 .1 (128 )(89) 10 .8 (83) 64 .0 (89 )(98) 14 .6 (96) 68 .4 (98 )

71 .9

Keep Change Keep ChangeEconomic Economic Political Political

Brezhnev era:e System

(M) System (M) System (M) Systeme (M )

Total 6 .0

(752) 46 .6 (797) 19 .9 (752) 65 .0

(797 )

By year of birth :

1905

-

10 23 .1

(13) 26 .7 (15) 7 .7 (13) »0 .0

(15 )1911

-

20 9 .4

(106) 51 .8 (112) 23 .6 (106) 61 .6

(112 )1921

-

30 4 .3

(116) 43 .4 (129) 20 .7 (116) 64 .3

(129 )

1931

-

40 6 .7

(194) 46 .4 (209) 19 .6 (194) 68 .9

(209 )1941

-

50 4 .4

(229) 48 .7 (238) 19 .2 (229) 64 .3

(238 )1951

- 6 0

By education :

4 .3

(94) 43 .6 (94) 19 .1 (94) 67 .0

(94 )

< secondary 3 .4

(117) 46 .1 (128) 19 .7 (117) 50 .8

(128 )Complete secondary 5 .9

(339) 47 .4 (359) 20 .9 (339) 65 .5

(359 )Complete highe r

Of those saying 'keep,' % alsosaying 'change' :

7 .1

(296) 46 .1 (310) 18 .9 (296) 70 .3

(310 )

Economic system 70 .3Political system 66 . 3

Keep

ChangeEconomicEconomic

Stalin era :

System ') (M)

Systemi c

Total

52 .9

(293)

70 .9

By year of birth :

< 1900 52 .7 (74) 65 .8

1900-10

58 .7

(63)

79 . 41911-20

56 .1

(82)

75 . 01921-30

44 .6

(74)

65 . 1

By education :

< secondary 46 .9 (113) 70 .3Complete secondary

49 .4

(83)

67 . 4Complete higher

63 .5

(96)

75 . 5

Of those saying 'keep,' % alsosaying 'change' :

Economic system

80 . 0Political system

31

Notes to Table 2 :

°The questions were : "Let us suppose that the Bolshevik regime were removed and a new government came to power . What things

in the present system would you allow to remain? What things would you be sure to change?" Up to three items were coded fo r

each respondent . Percentages here are based on number of respondents giving a valid answer . Note that questions abou tkeeping and changing the economy were not spontaneous ; interviewers probed to obtain answers about what respondents would d o

on the economy. When the answers were spontaneous, in response to the same question in the Harvard Project's self -

administered Paper-and-Pencil Questionnaire, between one percent (among older blue-collar workers) and 21 percent (younge r

blue-collar workers) of respondents opted to keep the economic system . Responses here on elements of the political system t o

beep are spontaneous, and are in line with the results reported in Rossi, GenerationalDifferences, 455 .Elements of the "economic system" to be kept include any response about central planning, state ownership or control o f

means of production and distribution, and the like . They do not include responses about personal incomes, or changes i nconsumer goods . Most responses in this category to keep refer to heavy industry, natural resources, banking and transport .cAs with items to keep, responses here refer to planning and ownership . They do not include references to personal welfar eor consumption . A majority of the responses call for allowing private property and private enterprise .

"Government, political system" includes communism, the political system, the constitution, the system of soviets, "order . "

e The questions : "Think for a moment about the Soviet system with its good and bad points . Suppose you

could create a system of government in the Soviet Union that is different from the one which currentl y

exists . What things in the present system would you want to keep in the new one? Anything else?" [LIS T

UP TO THREE ITEMS.] "What things in the present Soviet system would you be sure to change?" [LIST UP TO

THREE ITEMS .] These were asked of a random 1/3 of the full sample . All of the responses are spontaneous ; no probe s

were used to ask about specific features of the system . Thus the number of people mentioning the economic system is muc h

lower than that for the Stalin era presented here .

Sources :

Harvard Project Recode (1950-51) ; Soviet Interview Project, G1 Survey (1983-84)

Table 3 . Attitudes Toward the Market and Toward State Control of the Means o f

Production, Gorbachev Era .a

Of People Who :

Approve/Disapprove

Approve/D iAdoption of b

Sale of LaMarket Economy

Approve

Disapprove

Approve

Disapprove

Preferred ownership o fMeans of Production (%) :

Heavy Industry

State 78 .8 85 .8 71 .8 94 . 7

Mixed 17 .2 12 .7 23 .8 4 . 2

Private 4 .0 1 .4 4 .4 1 . 1

Total % 100 99 .9 100 10 0

N (2884) (1761) (2668) (2133 )

Light Industry

15 .7 41 .0 14 .8 37 . 5StateMixed 56 .8 47 .7 56 .6 50 . 3

Private 27 .5 11 .3 28 .7 12 . 2

Total % 100 100 100 .1 10 0

N (2938) (1784) (2699) (2152 )

Agriculture

State 2 .1 12 .8 1 .5 11 . 6

Mixed 13 .9 19 .0 13 .8 18 . 8

Private 84 .0 68 .1 84 .7 69 . 6

Total % 100 99 .9 100 100 . 2

N (2938) (1722) (2713) (2069)

a 0f those who approve/disapprove of adopting a market economy and of the sale of land, the percent wh o

favor state, mixed or private control in each sector .

The question : "Overall, do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove, or strongly disapprove of

efforts to establish a free market economy?' 1=strongly approve ; 2=approve ; 3=disapprove ; 4=strongl y

disapprove . Entries here are collapsed so that "approve" includes answers 1 and 2 ; "disapprove" include s

answers 3 and 4 .c The question was : "Do you favor or oppose farmers being able to sell land that they own?" 1=favor ; 2=oppose .

Source : Times Mirror "Pulse of Europe" Survey (1991) .

33

Table 4 . Salience of Welfare State Programs, Stalin, Brezhnev and Gorbachev Eras .

% Saying Keep

Welfare StateProgramsa Stalin (N) Brezhnev

(M) Gorbachev

(M )

Total 62 .0 (284) 63.7 (529) 69 .1 (1068 )

By year of birth :

< 1900 61 .4 (70)

1900-10 56 .5 (62) 50 .0b (10) - -

1911-20 61 .3 (80) 56 .6 (76) 76.5 (17 )1921-30 68.1 (72) 68 .8 (80) 46 .1 (89 )

1931-40 62 .5 (144) 63 .0 (146 )1941-50 64 .5 (166) 70 .9 (230 )1951-60 69 .8 (53) 71 .9 (285 )1961-70 73 .0 (248 )

By education :

57.8 (109) 57.8 (64) 48.3 (151 )< Secondary

Completed secondary 70 .7 (82) 67.0 (233) 72 .1 (628 )

Completed higher 58 .7 (92) 62 .1 (232) 73 .4 (286)

aThe figures indicate the percentage of respondents voting to keep education, health care ,social welfare and job security in response to the question of what should be kept of theSoviet system (for question wording, see Tables 1 and 3) .

his group was born between 1905 and 1910 .

Source : Harvard Project Recode (1950-51) ; Soviet Interview Project General Survey1 (1983-84) ; Russia-91 (1991) .

34

Table 5a_ Attitudes Toward Economic Security and Social Welfare, Stalin Years a

Government

Shoul dGuarantee

Work

GovernmentShouldForbidInequalityc

PreferJob Security

Over

Advancement d

Prefe rEconomicSecurityOver

Freedome

% saying :

By Social Status and Age f

Peasants

> 50 89 (35) 25 (12) 86 (35) 26 (34 )

41-50 81 (75) 30 (23) 72 (68) 14 (66 )

31-40 85 (101) 26 (30) 72 (90) 26 (82)

< 30 86 (83) 44 (34) 73 (76) 15 (74 )

Workers

83 (98) 24 (34) 84 (89) 24 (80 )> 50

41-50 84 (169) 33 (60) 77 (155) 13 (147)

31-40 89 (229) 42 (77) 77 (224) 12 (215 )

< 30 94 (128) 48 (36) 73 (124) 12 (113 )

White collar

83 (199) 45 (115) 84 (191) 15 (189 )> 5 041-50 80 (147) 25 (89) 75 (149) 15 (139 )

31-40 94 (161) 41 (76) 68 (162) 15 (155 )

< 30 89 (55) 55 (24) 65 (52) 17 (54 )

Intelligentsia

74 (129) 38 (89) 80 (123) 8 (128 )> 5 0

41-50 86 (135) 43 (93) 69 (134) 12 (126 )

31-40 86 (173) 32 (107) 48 (168) 13 (164 )

< 30 84 (81) 34 (40) 43 (76) 9 (80)

job do you prefer ?

secure, but offers little opportunity for advancement, or a jo b

but offers good opportunities for advancement? "

eThe question: "What kind of government do you prefer? A government which guarantees

freedom, such as the right to criticize the government, worship freely, etc ., but does not assur e

you a job, or a government which guarantees a decent standard of living but does not assure you o f

these personal rights? "The definition of social status

the questionnaire was fielded i nin this paper .

Source : Rossi, Generational Differences, 298-300 .

aThese data are from the Harvard

by social status .

bThe question was :of this or agains t

cThe question: "Should a

such inequality? "The item was : "In general ,

"I n

it?"

some countries the government guarantees work for everyone . Are you in favo r

government permi t

what kind o f

Project's Paper-and-Pencil Questionnaire, and are available only

some people to be rich and some poor or should it forbi d

A job that pays fairly well and i sthat pays less and is not secur e

persona l

and the age breaks used here are those adopted by Rossi . Since1950-51, the age breaks are nearly identical with thos e elsewhere

35

Table 5b. Attitudes Toward Economic Security and Social Welfare, Gorbachev Era .

% saying:

Prevent

Unmploymenta (N)

State Should

GuaranteeBasic LivingStandardsb

(M)

PreferEqualityOver

Freedomc (N )

Total 31 .6 (5132) 84 .0 (5304) 39.3 (4752 )

By year of birth :

1900 -

10 63.1 (10) 93 .5 (27) 66 .2 (23 )1911

-

20 76.6 (249) 95 .5 (287) 66 .3 (218 )1921

- 30 58.6 (710) 90 .9 (702) 60 .2 (573 )

1931

- 40 41 .5 (867) 82.7 (849) 45 .8 (799 )1941

-

50 24.4 (687) 86.4 (742) 33 .6 (652 )1951

- 60 19.9 (1042) 79.1 (1064) 30.1 (996)1961

- 70 20.0 (1254) 82.0 (1304) 32.4 (1202 )1971

-

73 7.7 (313) 79.7 (329) 29 .7 (311 )

By education :

63 .3 (838) 90 .6 (866) 60 .3 (783 )< Secondary

Completed secondary 29 .5 (3038) 85 .6 (3174) 37.4 (2818 )Completed higher 15 .4 (1234) 75 .7 (1249) 29 .8 (1151)

aThe question: "Some people feel that there should be no unemployment in our country, even if it meansthat our economy will not be improved and modernized in the near future. Others feel some unemploymen tin our country is acceptable, if that's what it takes to improve and modernize the economy . Generally ,which position comes closer to your point of view?" 1=no unemployment ; 2=accept some unemployment .

he question is : "The state should guarantee every citizen food and basic shelter ." 1=agree completely ,2=mostly agree, 3 =mostly disagree, 4=completely disagree . Here, the percentages indicate those wh ocompletely or mostly agree .CThe item: "What's more important in our society -- that everyone be free to pursue their life's goal swithout interference from the state or that the state play an active role in society so as to guarante eequality?" 1=freedom; 2=equality .

Source : Times Mirror "Pulse of Europe" Survey (1991 )

Table 6. Perceptions of Distributive Justice, Stalin Era : Which Groups Receive

Less Than They Deserve?*

As Rated by :

Class (1) (2) (3) (4) (5 )

Receiving All Intellect- White- Workers Peasants

Less Than uals Collar

Deserved Workers

Intellectuals62% 74% 72% 51% 50%

White-colla rworkers 74 83 88 66 59

Workers 93 93 93 93 9 4

Peasants 98 99 99 98 97

N (2347) (623) (659) (727) (338)

*These data are from the Harvard Project Paper-and Pencil Questionnaire . Thequestion was : "In each society each social class has a definite investment i n

the well-being of society, and in its turn receives a definite reward from society .Certain classes get more out of society than they deserve ; some classes less, an d

others just what they deserve. Below is cited a list of classes in Soviet society .We would like you to indicate which of these you think receive more, which less ,

and which receive what they deserve . Check the line which you think correct for each . "

Source: Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, 301 .

37

Table 7a . Perceptions of Distributive Justice, Brezhnev Era : Which Group s

Receive Less Than They Deserve? a

As Rated by (%) :

All Intellect- White- Workers

uals/Professionals

CollarWorkersGroup

Receiving

Less thanbDeserved :

Workers . Peasants . Employees

Collective farmer

88 .8 89.8 87 .8 88 . 1

Doctor

89 .2 93.5 86.4 82 .8

Salesclerk in dept .store

71 .5 71 .1 70.9 72 .5

Worker in auto plant

62 .8 58.4 66.5 68 .4

Intellectuals .

Professional s

Professor at MGU 20 .0% 23.4% 20.0% 15 .2%

Industrial manager 7 .8 9.4 6 .0 5 . 2

Authoritie s

Colonel

in military 4 .5 3 .7 5 .1 5 . 6

Colonel

in KGB 1 .5 1 .1 1 .5 2 . 0

Obkom 1st secretary 1 .6 1 .5 1 .1 1 .9

aThe question: "Did each of the people listed receive the pay they deserved ,

or did each one receive too much or too little?" what they deserved=1 ;

too much=2 ; too little=3 .bSince the question focuses on income rather than overall rewards or benefits ,

it might be that a question on total rewards would yield somewhat different

results. However, this seems unlikely: the ratings presented here for income

earned are highly correlated with those for identical questions on influence an d

privilege . In other words, "income" is seen as closely connected with the more

general distribution of rewards in society .

Source : Soviet Interview Project General Survey I (1983-84) .

Table 7b. Perceptions of Distributive Justice by Generation and Education, Brezhnev Eraa

Groups Seen as Receiving "Too Little"

"Authorities"b"Workers,"Professiorels"d

Farmers ,

Employees"C

Factor Scores by :

Year of birth :

1905 -

10 -0 .03 (26) 2.92 (26) -0 .81 (26 )

1911 -

20 0 .28 (161) -1 .14 (161) -1 .87 (161 )1921 - 30 -0 .16 (192) 2.35 (192) -1 .24 (192 )

1931 - 40 -1 .24 (354) 0.44 (354) -0 .13 (354 )

1941 - 50 1 .08 (413) -0.15 (413) 0 .52 (413 )1951 - 60 -0.10 (180) -2 .43 (180) 2 .17 (180 )

Education :

3 .28 (134) -1 .31 (134) -3 .96 (134 )< secondary

Completed secondary 1 .14 (587) 0.61 (587) -1 .06 (587 )

Completed higher -1 .83 (605) -0.30 (605) 1 .91 (605)

aThe entries are average factor scores (multiplied by 10) for each category, derived

from responses to the questions in Table 7a . The original factor scores have a mean of 0 anda standard deviation of 1 . The higher the score, the more the group is perceived as being

underrewarded . Since the question focuses on income rather than overall rewards or benefits ,it might be that a question on total rewards would yield somewhat different results . However ,

this seems unlikely : the ratings presented here for income earned are highly correlated wit hthose for identical questions on influence and privilege . In other words, "income" is seen

as closely connected with the more general distribution of rewards in society .

Including obkom first secretary, colonel in the KGB, colonel in the military .

c lncludes auto worker, collective farmer, department store clerk, and doctor .

dincludes professor at MGU and manager of industrial enterprise .

Source: Soviet Interview Project General Survey I (1983-84) .

39

Table 8. Support for Political Controls, Stalin and Gorbachev Eras (% Supporting Controls )

Stalin era :

The Pressa

(M)

Teaching"incorrect"

Religious

Beliefs

(M) Speech (N )

Total 51 .8 (253) 59.0 (200) 52 .2 (268)

By year of birth :

< 1900 58.4 (53) 57.7 (45) 56 .6 (60 )

1900-10 52.8 (53) 65 .7 (45) 54 .2 (59 )

1911-20 51 .4 (70) 55 .8 (52) 46 .5 (71 )

1921-30 46.8 (77) 56 .9 (58) 47 .4 (78)

By education :

47.0 (100) 57 .3 (75) 57.7 (111 )< Secondary

Completed secondary 55 .6 (72) 54.7 (64) 52.7 (74)

Completed higher 55 .1 (80) 66.7 (60) 43.9 (82)

Gorbachev era :

Ban Bookd

(M)

Increase

Newspaper

Censorshipe (M)Limi tPartiesff (N)

Total 63 .0 (5019) 26.0 (4922) 61 .5 (4755 )

By year of birth :

1900 -

10 100.0 (15) 42 .1 (10) 42.7 (11 )1911

-

20 86.8 (245) 64 .2 (210) 87.6 (222 )1921

- 30 84.6 (658) 42 .9 (585) 80.1 (565 )

1931

- 40 74.4 (813) 35.0 (822) 69.5 (813 )1941

- 50 63.2 (708) 29.0 (712) 54 .5 (673 )

1951

- 60 60.5 (1028) 18.3 (1006) 56.1 (984 )1961

-

70 45 .1 (1240) 14.2 (1261) 54 .0 (1195 )

1971

-

73 46.6 (314) 10.3 (316) 49 .0 (292 )

By education :

83 .2 (800) 46.3 (738) 81 .3 (733 )< Secondary

Completed secondary 61 .4 (3016) 24 .3 (2928) 59 .0 (2769 )Completed higher 53.9 (1181) 18.5 (1234) 56 .3 (1231 )

40

Notes to Table 8 :

a The question in the Harvard Project was : "What should the government do about the press?" The percentage srepresent respondents who favored at least some government controls .

b This question followed several others : "What do you think the relation between church and state should be ?A . Do you think that the state should ever interfere in matters of religion? B . For example, how about peopl ewho hold beliefs which are incorrect : should they be permitted to teach them?" Percentages in the table ar ethose people who would impose at least some restrictions on religious teaching .

c The question: "A group of English students were walking through a public park singing songs . They approached

a place where a Communist orator was addressing a crowd . A policeman stopped them and asked them not to sin g

while passing the crowd since this would disturb the speaker . Do you think the English policeman was right i n

protecting the Communist orator from being disturbed?" Responses focused on the right of the orator to speak ,and the conditions under which respondents would allow him to do so . The data here are the percentages who woul dimpose at least some restrictions on the right to speak .

"The question : "Books that contain ideas dangerous to society should be banned from public school libraries ."1=Completely agree, 2=agree, 3=disagree, 4=completely disagree . The percentages here mare those people who agree o rcompletely agree .eThe question was : "Would you approve or disapprove of placing greater constraints and controls on what newspaper s

print?" 1=approve; 2=disapprove . Percentages here are those who approve .The item was : "Some people feel that in a democracy all political parties should be allowed, even those that d o

not believe in the democratic system. Others feel that even in a democracy certain political parties should b eoutlawed. Generally, which position comes closer to your view?" 1=allow all ; 2=outlaw some . Percentages in thetable are those who would "outlaw some . "

Sources :

Harvard Project Recode (1950-51) ; Times Mirror "Pulse of Europe" Survey (1991) .

Table 9. Regression Analysis of Support for State Control of th e Economya

Stalin Era

Brezhnev Era

Gorbachev Era

(1)

(2)

(3)

(1)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3 )

Big city

.041

- .086

.009

.015

.013

- .089**

- .200**

- .157**

Ukraine

.054

.020

.066**

.026**

.010

Materia l

dissatisfaction

.036

- .059

- .120*

- .232**

- .208**

- .092**

- .018

- .009

Occupation - Professional /Intelligentsia

.239**

- .028

- .121*

.015

.02 3

Education :

Completed secondary

- .070

.097

.229**

- .067*

- .052b

.029

- .173**

- .206**Completed higher

- .038

.093

.186**

- .086**

- .068*

- .043**

- .283**

- .219**

Year of birth :

<

190 01901 - 10

.169*

.042

.0091911 - 20

.073

.101

115 b1921 - 30

.157*

.063

- .101

.028

- .031

- .018

- .027

- .120* *1931 - 401941

50

.057

- .003

- .012

- .042*

- .114**- .076**

.006

- .086**

- .007

197**1951 - 60

083**

.029

.159**

- .103**

- .186**1961 - 70

1971 - 73- .219**

- .153**

- .231**

- .170**

- .149**

- .162**

Female

- .063

- .075

- .060

.084**

.062**

.101**

.095**

- .027* *

R 2

.041

0

.053

.101

.043

.093

.137

.09 3

N

163

121

265

1639

1752

5158

5209

5147

*

Significant at p < .1 0** Significant at p < .0 5

a Equation 1 refers to support for state control of heavy industry; equation 2, to state control of light industry, and equation 3, to state control of farming . Thenumbers are standardized regression coefficients ; high=support state as opposed to private control . For questions in the Stalin and Gorbachev eras, see Table 1 ; forthe Brezhnev era, see Appendix A2 .

b Significant at p < .1 5

Independen t

variable

42

Table 10 . Regression Analysis of Support for Limits on Individual Rights a

Stalin Era Brezhnev Era Gorbachev Era

Independent

Variable

Contro l

Press

Control

Speech

Contro l

Religion

Censo rmedia/art

RequireResidence

Permits

Increase

Censorship

Ban

Book

Ban Som e

Parties

Big city - .075 - .075 - .191** .026 .027 - .257** - .087** - .181* *

Ukraine - .189** .023 - .101* - .077** - .172* *

Material dissatisfaction .032 - .088 .064 - .074* - .177** - .245** - .063** .01 7

Occupation - Professional/.050 .024 .118 - .003 - .070**Intelligentsi a

Education :

.089 - .010 - .103 - .041 - .051b 197** 080** 243**Completed secondar y

Completed higher .039 - .070 .033 - .090 - .038 - .437** - .180** - .344* *

Year of birth :

< 1900

1901 -

10 - .121bb - .010 .00 1 43

1911 -

20 - .096 - .064 .069

1921 - 30 - .113 - .073 .117 .008 - .075** - .360** - .021 - .234**

1931 - 40 - .090b - .096** - .526** - .080** - .475**

1941 -

50 - .142** - .089** - .628** - .166** - .746**

1951 - 60 - .194** - .061** - .808** - .212** - .649* *

1961 -

70 - .084** - .359** - .711* *

1971 - T3 -1 .308** - .236** - .888* *

Female .013 .141** - .058 .136** .017 .227** .068** .082**

R2 0 .018 .020 .110 .050 .157

% predicted 76 .0% 62.0%

N 240 249 188 566 1783 4793 4893 4634

*

Significant at p < .1 0

** Significant at p < .0 5

aEquation 1 - support for state controls on the press ; 2 - controls over right to speak ; 3 - state should prohibit teaching of incorrect religious beliefs . For th e

text of the questions, see Table 8 . Equation 4 - state should censor art and media with undesirable content ; 5 - state should require residence permits . For the

questions, see Appendix A2 . Equation 6 - increase state controls on media ; 7 - state should ban books with dangerous ideas from schools ; 8 - state should ban some

parties . Text of the questions is provided in Table 8. The numbers in equations 6 and 8 are logistic regression coefficients, since the dependent variables ar e

binary. All others are standardized ordinary least squares coefficients .

Significant at p < .15

Table 11 .

Correlations Among Issues*

Stalin Control Control Control State Stateera press speech relig . own

agr .

own

heavy

ind .

Control .048speech (247)

Control .013 .055

relig . (187) (193 )

State own - .041 - .150* - .028agr . (241) (253) (190 )

State own .317* .068 .002 .00 1

heavy ind . (151) (157) (117) (176)

State own .045 .037 - .079 .236* .048light

ind . (112) (113) (89) (130) (129 )

Gorbachev Ban Ban some Increase State Stateera book parties medi a

controlsownlight

ind .

own

heavyind .

Ban some .126*parties (271 )

Increase .287* .318*medi a

controls(276) (266)

State own .230* .159* .358*light

ind . (302) (280) (289)

State own .235* .063 .106 .224*

heavy ind . (304) (280) (290) (323)

state own .121* .153* .197* .276* - .052agr . (295) (274) (285) (316) (316)

The data are two-tailed Kendall correlation coefficients ; those significan tat p< .05 are indicated with an asterisk . To reduce the possibility o finflating significance levels because of differences in sample size, thecoefficients for the Gorbachev era were calculated for a random sample of 35 0respondents out of the total in the Pulse of Europe Survey . Number of cases islisted in parentheses below each coefficient .

44

Appendix A

Surveys Used in the Analysi s

The Harvard Project (HP) interviews were conducted in the United States and Western Europe wit h

respondents who last resided in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and early 1940s . The project allowed Inkele s

and Bauer to draw on data from two sets of respondents, 2,718 of whom completed a "paper-and-penci l

questionnaire" and 331 of whom completed an in-depth life-history (LH) or personal interview . Respondents

hailed from both urban and rural areas, and were overwhelmingly Russian and Ukrainian . (The survey did

not ask respondents to identify the specific place where they had resided in the USSR ; however, thei r

descriptions of work and home life frequently referred to homes in Russia and Ukraine) . The paper-and--

pencil questionnaire had mostly closed-ended questions ; the life-history interview was entirely open-ende d

and typically extended over several days . In both cases, the data cards generated from the original Harvard

Project coding have been lost . The original paper-and-pencil questionnaires were also destroyed . However,

the transcripts of the 331 Life History interviews were preserved, and were recoded at New Yor k

University . '

Although the LH interviews were much longer, they overlap substantially with the data from th e

Harvard Project's closed-ended paper-and-pencil questionnaire . Inkeles and Bauer, for example, reporte d

several parallel analyses of individual values drawing on both datasets, and the results are virtually identical . ''

Harvard Project analysts also examined the overlaps more systematically, by administering both the Lif e

History interview and the paper-and-pencil questionnaire to 46 respondents, one month apart . The results

showed high rates of agreement between the two surveys .' On demographic data (defined in the Harvar d

1 Donna Bahry , "Methodological Report on Recoding of the Harvard Project Life History Interviews ." Sovie tInterview Project Working Papers, No. 46, 1988 .

''Cf. views on civil liberties in The Soviet Citizen, 248 .

'The results are reported in Edward Wasiolek, Responses by Former Soviet Citizens to a Questionnaire vs .Life History Interview, Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, Report to the Director, Officer Educatio nResearch Laboratory, Maxwell Air Force Base, mimeo, (July 1954) .

45

Project's report as sex, year left USSR, nationality, party membership, Komsomol membership, and highes t

educational level), the rate of correspondence was 98% . Other types of questions, especially hypothetical an d

evaluative ones, evoked almost as much consistency, with the level of agreement at 80% or higher .

Respondents in the Life History interviews proved more inclined to give answers that would flatter America n

interviewers and themselves, and they tended to be somewhat more negative toward the USSR . Also,

respondents were more likely in person to admit that they had belonged to the Komsomol . It appears tha t

the LH data were the more accurate on this count : data from the LH interviews on Komsomol membershi p

by age cohort and gender are virtually identical with later surveys .

The Soviet Interview Project General Survey I (SIP G1) interviews were completed by 2,793 forme r

Soviet citizens who had arrived in the United States between January 1, 1979, and April 30, 1982, and wer e

between the ages of 21 and 70 on the date of their arrival . The interviews were conducted between March ,

1983, and January, 1984 ; questions focused on respondents' "last normal period of life in the USSR," the tim e

just before their lives changed in connection with the decision to emigrate . The average length of the inter-

views was three hours . The field work was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) .

The sample was basically from small and large cities . The SIP General Survey II, conducted in 1986 ,

repeated most of the same questions among 572 people who had left from 1982 through 1985 . While

respondents hailed from virtually all 15 republics of the USSR, the analysis here is limited to those from

Russia and Ukraine .

The Times Mirror "Pulse of Europe" survey was conducted in the spring of 1991 by republic-wid e

stratified random sampling in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania. The total sample sizes were 1123, 586, an d

501, respectively . The study was conducted by researchers at the Institute of Sociology in Moscow, Lugans k

University, and the University of Vilnius . Only the data on Russia and Ukraine are included here .

The eight-region survey of Russia was conducted in November-December 1991 by Best Marke t

Research in Moscow, and coded and cleaned at the University of California - Davis . The 1728 interviews

were self-administered . The sample was a multi-stage stratified design, including Moscow, St . Petersburg,

Novgorod, Omsk, Tambov, Nizhegorod, Irkutsk oblasti and Krasnodar krai . In each case, the oblast center

was included along with a sampling of rural areas within the oblast .

Appendix Table Al . Surveys Used in the Analysi s

limber

Date(s)

Areaof

of field

coveredcases a

work

Recoded Harvar dProject Lif eHistory PredominantlyInterviews 331 1950-51 Russia/Ukraine

Soviet InterviewProject Genera lSurvey I 1856 1983-84d

Russia/UkraineC

Times Mirro r"Pulse ofEurope "Survey 1709 d 199 1

Russia/UkraineeRussia - 91 1725 1991 Russia

a Respondents were included in this analysis from the Harvard Project Life History Interviews, th eTimes Mirror "Pulse of Europe" Survey, and the Russia-91 survey only if they were 18 years of ag eor older at the time of the survey . In the case of the Soviet Interview Project survey, respondent s

were included only if they were 18 or older before they had made plans to emigrate from the USSR .Respondents were included in the sample only if they had emigrated between 1979 and 1982 . Most

questions in the survey focused on respondents' "last normal period of life" in the USSR, befor ethey had made plans to emigrate . For the majority, this was the late 1970s .cRespondents came from virtually all Soviet republics ; however, to increase comparability with th eother datasets, only those respondents from Russia and Ukraine are included in the data used here .Since the Life History interviews constitute a smaller sample, all of the Harvard Project cases areincluded in the analysis ."There were 1123 respondents from Russia, and 586 from Ukraine . The Times Mirror survey also includeda sample in Lithuania ; these respondents are not included in this report .

47

Appendix Table A2 . Variables Used in Regression Analysis .

Harvard Project

Big city : data taken from Harvard Project Life History face sheets indicating type of residence in whic h respondent

spent most of his or her life .

Material dissatisfaction : an index based on responses to three questions : whether respondents felt that they had

adequate food, clothing, and housing. The more they felt these were inadequate, the higher the score .

Occupation - Professional-Intelligentsia : a (dummy variable where )=professional or intellectual occupation and 0

otherwise. Codes were taken from data in the Harvard Archives .

Education : for "completed secondary," respondents were coded as 1 if their highest education was completed

secondary school, and 0 otherwise . For "completed higher," respondents were coded as 1 if they had complete d

a VUZ, institute, military college or conservatory, and 0 otherwise .

Soviet Interview Project

Big city : coded as 1 if respondent lived in a city of 1 million or more at the end of the "last normal period o f

life" in the USSR; 0 otherwise.

Ukraine : coded as 1 if respondent lived in Ukraine at the end of the "last normal period of life" in the USSR ; 0

otherwise .

Material dissatisfaction : a composite score based on responses to five items . "In (END OF LNP), now satisfied or

dissatisfied were you with . . . a) your housing?, b) (your/your family's) standard of living?, c) publi c

medical care?, d) your job?, e) the availability of consumer goods in your town? Response categories : (2 )

Very satisfied, (1) Somewhat satisfied, (-1) Somewhat Dissatisfied, (-2) Very Dissatisfied. The scores havebeen reversed here, and range between +2 (most dissatisfied) and -2 (most satisfied), with 0 as a midpoint .

Occupation - Professional/Intelligentsia : coded as 1 if respondent's last job by the end of LNP was professional ,

intellectual or managerial ; 0 otherwise .

Education: for "completed secondary," respondents were coded as 1 if their highest education was completed

secondary school, and 0 otherwise . For "completed higher," respondents were cooed as 1 if they had complete d

a VUZ, institute, military college or conservatory, and 0 otherwise .

State ownership : For heavy industry, the question was : "Some people in the Soviet Union say that the state shoul d

own all heavy industry . Others say that all heavy industry should be owned privately . Where would you have

placed yourself on this issue in (END OF LNP)?" 1=Heavy industry be run privately; 7=state should own heavy

industry . For agriculture, the question was : "Some people in the Soviet Union believe that the stat e

should control production and distribution of all agricultural products . Others believe that al l

agricultural production and distribution should be private . Where would you have placed yourself on thi s

issue in (END OF LNP)?" Here, 1= all agricultural production and distribution should be private ; 7=stat e

should control production and distribution of all agricultural products .

Individual rights : For censorship, the measure is a composite index covering 5 items, asking "During your (LNP] ,

did you believe that the government should ban or allow movies, plays or books that . . . a) portrayed ethni c

or national stereotypes? b) presented political ideas contrary to goverment policy? c) presented explici t

descriptions or portrayals of sex? d) presented abstract art? e) presented scenes of brutality an d

violence?" 1=allow, 7=ban . A score was computed for each respondent who answered at least three of thes e

items. The question was asked of a random 1/3 of respondents .

For residence permits, the question was : "Some people in the Soviet Union believe that people should b e

required to have residence permits to live in the large cities so that the authorities can plan publi c

services . Others think that people should be completely free to live where they want ." 1=free to live

where they want ; 7=state should require residence permits .

Times Mirror 'Pulse of Europe' Surve y

Big city : coded as 1 if identified in survey as residing in a large city ,

0 otherwise .

Ukraine : coded as 1 if respondent lived in Ukraine ; 0 otherwise .

Material dissatisfaction : based on a question of whether respondent was ver y

satisfied, somewhat satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at al l

satisfied with current personal financial situation. Here, the higher

the score (from ) to 4), the less the satisfaction .

Occupation - Professional/Intelligentsia : coded as 1 if respondent's last job

by the end of LNP was professional, intellectual or managerial ; 0

otherwise .

Education : for "completed secondary," respondents were coded as 1 if thei r

highest education was completed secondary school, and 0 otherwise .

For "completed higher," respondents were coded as 1 if they had complete d

a VUZ, institute, military college or conservatory, and 0 otherwise .

49

Appendix Table A3. Regression Analysis of Material Dissatisfaction, Stalin, Brezhnev and Gorbachev Eras a

Time Period

Stalinb

Brezhnevd

Gorbacheve

Independent Variabl e

Big city .016 .154** .268* *

Moscow - .028 - .023

Ukraine - .191** .038

Income - .045** - .071** - .0004**

Occupation - Professional /Intelligentsia .087** .053 .037

Education :

Completed secondary .122* - .035 - .086* *Completed higher .128c .240** - .036

Year of birth :

<

190 01901

-

10 - .01 21911

-

20 - .0591921

-

30 - .041 .007 .06 11931

- 40 .246** .0801941

-

50 .380** .286* *1951

- 60 .579** .419* *1961

-

70.532* *

1971

-

73 .494* *

Female .006 - .069** .009

Constant 1 .714** - .019 2 .642**

R 2 .215 .101 .064

N 215 1833 5216

*

Significant at p < .10** Significant at p < .05

aCoefficients are unstandardized . Since individual variables in each model are scaled differently, the magnitude of th ecoefficients is not a measure of their relative explanatory power; nor are the magnitudes comparable across columns -- tha tis, from one time period to another . In each case, a positive coefficient indicates dissatisfaction .Significant at p= .15

50

Figure 1. Support for State Economic Control s

51

Notes to Figure 1 :

The datapoints indicate the average value for the cohort born in the 10 years up to the year noted on the chart . Inother words, the data for year 1920 are the average score for people born from 1911-20 . The questions are fromTable 1 .

52

Figure 2. Support for State Controls on Medi a

53

Notes io Figure 2 :

The datapoints indicate the average value for the cohort born in the 10 years up to the year noted on the chart. Inother words, the data for year 1920 are ihe average score for people born from 1911-20 . The questions are fro mTable 8 .