Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 26 – The findings of
the latest Levada Center survey show, Moscow commentator Sergey Chernyakhovsky
says, that most Russians support the values of the left even as Moscow is
pursuing policies of the right, a divergence that raises questions about the
nature of the country’s political system and its future stability.
Writing on the Novopol portal
yesterday, Chernyakhovsky says that the Levada Center survey shows that “present-day
Russian society is oriented toward left values, preferences and associations”
even though their government is pursuing rightist policies (novopol.ru/-levoe-obschestvo-pravaya-vlast-text151144.html).
This gives rise to questions like
the famous one “If you are so smart, why are you so poor?” More specifically, it prompts inquiries like “If
society wants a left policy, why are the authorities pursuing a right one?” And
finally, “is it possible to consider a society democratic in which the authorities
are carrying out a policy not supported by the majority?”
According to the Levada poll, 34
percent of Russians support variants of socialism and 16 percent back communism,
while nine percent back liberalism and another nine percent back
nationalism. The survey did not ask how
many support conservatism, apparently treating support for a firm hand (17 percent)
and the agrarian sector (15 percent) as stand ins for that.
That approach may not be
appropriate, Chernyakhovsky says, at least for Russia. There, “thanks to the history of the last
hundred years and the information war of the last quarter century, these words
recall the rule of Stalin as the leader of the communist party, that is,
precisely a dictatorship of the left.”
And the word agrarian, for most
Russians, is associated “not with feudal rulers but with Soviet collective
farms” as was the case with the KPRF’s junior partner in the 1990s, the
Agrarian Party.
If one makes those assumptions, he
says, then there is the following spectrum of opinion in Russian society, 34
percent are socialists, 16 percent are communists, 17 percent are Stalinists,
and 15 percent are collective farmers.”
Thus, 82 percent of the Russian people are for policies of the left, and
“only 18 percent” divided between nationalists and liberals are for policies of
the right.
At the same time, Russia has a
sufficiently “right” government, one that is out of step with the Russian
population. This is “neither normal nor
natural,” all the more so, Chernyakhovsky says because the policies of the right
have impoverished and infuriated the population.
Moreover, this split has increased
public dissatisfaction and set the stage for conflict. “In such a situation,” the Moscow commentator
says, Russia could choose to repeat the path of the 20th century,
where a dictatorship of the left would reflect the left views of the
population, or it could become a social democracy.
In short, Chernyakhovsky says, the
Russia of the 21st century could be a replay of the Soviet system or
it could be a social democratic Sweden.
Unfortunately for Russia, the
situation is both better and worse than that because “today in Russia power is
in the hands of neither the left or the right” in any pure sense. Instead, it is
in the hands of the oligarchic clans.” That
makes it worse. But it also means that
the Kremlinn would choose to move in a left direction.
It will have to do that,
Chernyakhovsky says, or “at some point, a government of the left will be
established regardless of what the regime wants and will simply replace it.”
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