Russians No Longer Believe the Powers that Be or the Opposition, Dmitriyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Russians no longer believe the powers that be or the opposition, the research team headed by Mikhail Dmitriyev which predicted the 2011-2012 protests, says in a new study of public opinion based on the use of focus groups involving 129 people in 10 regions this spring.

            According to the study, “86 percent of the respondents said that they did not see among Russian politicians people who are talking about the real situation” in the country and therefore they “did not see any politicians they could trust.” Such negative attitudes were even greater regarding opposition figures (rbc.ru/politics/11/07/2019/5d25ae649a79476966730afc).

            The researchers conclude on the basis of this that the so-called “Crimea consensus” has collapsed and that Russians are more concerned about political freedoms than about their material standard of living.  That opens the way, they say, to larger “all-national protests” (ehorussia.com/new/node/18849).

            According to Dmitriyev’s team, “in place of the Crimean consensus has arisen a new, post-materialist one in which the demand for civic and political freedoms and human rights are rated as more important than material needs. Almost 60 percent of the respondents,” the team said, now give preference to freedom over an increase in pay.

            The scholars link this shift to the increasingly negative views the respondents have about the government.  Nearly three out of four (72 percent) say the situation has deteriorated since the presidential elections. Twenty-six percent say it is much the same, and only two percent – just one in 50 Russians – say things are getting better.

            According to the Dmitriyev group, “dissatisfaction with the powers that be has intensified ‘the feel of shame [among citizens] concerning their own failure to act and the striving to unite for such actions.”  Ever more Russians now say they feel responsible for the situation, 84 percent now compared to only about two-thirds last October.

            The researchers argue these findings show that “the paternalistic conception of the powers that be is beginning to give way to a democratic one in which the primary source of resources and authority belongs not to the authorities but to the people.”

            A new consensus, the scholars say, could lead to further erosion of the authority of those in power in the short and medium term.  That is all the more likely because of certain values that the Russians in these focus groups expressed.

            “For example,” they continue, “more than a third of respondents are afraid to hear the truth about the real situation in the country.”  If conditions continue to get worse, that alone could “accelerate the weakening of any new consensus and stimulate an intensification of populist attitudes or a new unification against a foreign opponent.”

            This last point is especially important. Many see growing distrust in the powers that be as a vector that will not change and that the authorities will have to respond to by making concessions. But the possibility of another “good little war” is all the greater, the Dmitriyev group implies, because it would likely bring the Kremlin real benefits.