What Russians think

Greg Godwin

What has alarmed the dean of anti-Soviet academics, the famous 
Richard Pipes of Harvard University?

Professor Pipes, an ardent opponent of communism, has been 
aroused from his retirement by a number of polls taken to gauge 
what the Russian people think and want. In a recent article in 
Foreign Affairs (May/June 2004) titled "Flight from 
Freedom: What Russians Think and Want", Pipes expresses deep 
regret that the Russian people continue to reject the Western 
economic and political model while yearning to restore Soviet 
power. Despite his best efforts, unparalleled propaganda, 
corruption, and subversion, the Russian people still reject the 
bitter pill of Western bourgeois democracy and capitalism.

"Democracy is widely viewed as a fraud", Pipes reports. "There is 
a prevalent perception that Russia's politics have been 
'privatised' and controlled by powerful clans. Seventy-eight 
percent of respondents in a 2003 survey said that democracy is a 
fagade for a government controlled by rich and powerful cliques. 
Only 22 percent expressed a preference for democracy, whereas 53 
percent positively disliked it."

We should add that in this survey the Russians are not rejecting 
Soviet democracy, but Western bourgeois democracy. With disgust, 
Pipes notes, "Russian attitudes towards private enterprise and 
property rights are hardly more positive. Eighty-four percent of 
those surveyed in a poll published in January 2004, for example, 
said that wealth in Russia can only be acquired through 
connections. Four out of five respondents stated that the 
inequalities in wealth in modern Russia are excessive and 
illegitimate, and most blamed the country's widespread poverty on 
an unjust economic system."

It would seem that these former Soviet peoples retain a profound 
understanding of capitalism despite the best efforts of the West 
and the Russians' current misleaders.

"Only a quarter or so of Russians regard private property as an 
important human right", Pipes adds. And "polling data indicate 
that slightly more than half the population considers the non-
payment of debts and shoplifting to be 'fully acceptable' 
behaviour."

Another poll recorded that 72 percent of Russians wanted to 
restrict "private economic activity". Obviously communitarian 
values remain very deeply embedded in the Russian people.

"Asked in 1999 to list the 10 greatest men of all times and 
nations, respondents named nine Russians. (The only foreigner was 
Napoleon, presumably because he was defeated on Russian soil.) 
The first five people on the list were Peter the Great, Lenin, 
Pushkin, Stalin, and the astronaut Iurii Gagarin", reports Pipes.

While it is difficult to say with certainty without knowing the 
polling methodology, these results appear disappointingly 
nationalistic. One would have hoped that the Russian people would 
have retained more of the internationalist spirit of the Soviet 
era. Nonetheless, it is revealing that three of the five 
"greatest men" were from the Soviet period, with Lenin remaining 
the most revered figure of modern times. Pushkin, of course, was 
of African-Russian descent, a fact proudly emphasised in the 
Soviet era. The so-called "democrats" of the counterrevolution 
are noticeably missing from the list.

Again quoting Pipes: "These findings help explain why so many 
Russians — 74 percent in one poll — regret the Soviet Union's 
passing. Another survey, conducted toward the end of 2000, asked 
Russian citizens whether they considered the present regime or 
the one that had preceded it to be 'legitimate, popular, and 
their own'.

"Fully one-third applied these adjectives to the Soviet Union, a 
regime that had ceased to exist nine years earlier. Only 12 
percent regarded the post-communist regime as 'legitimate', and 
only 2 percent called it 'their own'."

These results not only confirm the high esteem still held towards 
the Soviet system, but pose a serious challenge to liberal 
democratic theory. How can Russian elections be proclaimed free, 
fair, and impartial by Western observers when only 12 percent of 
the electorate declares the regime to be legitimate?

"[I]t is not surprising", Pipes concludes, "that when asked in an 
October 2003 survey how they would react if the Communists staged 
a coup, 23 percent of respondents said they would actively 
support it, 19 would collaborate with the insurgents, 27 percent 
would try to survive, 16 percent would emigrate, and only 10 
percent would actively resist."

Imagine the results if the pollsters had foregone the negative 
term "coup" and used the less pejorative terms "revolution" or 
"general strike"! Once again, these poll results show how the 
values of socialism and Soviet life are deeply rooted among 
Russians.

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People's Weekly World