The Russian People Speak: Democracy at the Crossroads

This is one of the first books to offer the Russian public's view on the most significant political and social transformations the country has witnessed since the Bolshevik revolution. As the current government wields less power in censoring the mass media, images of popular Russian culture become a symbol of their growing democratic voice. The author has given us a rare glimpse into the Russian political psyche by bringing the reader through recent changes in public moods, attitudes, opinions, and behavior.
Drawing on the country's rich history - the Bolshevik revolution, the Communist period, the Cold War, Gorbachev's regime, and now perestroika - Popov reveals the new social and political organization that is slowly shaping the country's future. Popov, director of political polling at the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research in Moscow, bases his results on fullscale surveys conducted by one of the few institutions in the former Soviet Union capable of such research.
The undeveloped and superficial nature of mass views has resulted in an extremely volatile mass consciousness. Popov found that public opinion can swing from complete support of a policy one day to rejection of the same policy the next. The most important component measured throughout this work is a painful, erratic process of the birth of individual opinion, reckoning, and personal judgment.
In his long-range forecasts, Popov speculates that the next five years will be dominated by increasing individualism and entrepreneurship. Totalitarian power destroyed Russian society. Now, in the midst of a painful ascent to capitalist economy and political pluralism, the Russian people are slowly reclaiming their culture. At the heart of The Russian People Speak are the underlying dynamics of the roles of old doctrines clashing with the new nonofficial populist movement.

Nikolai Popov is Head of the Political Surveys Department, Russian Center for Public Opinion Research, Moscow.