Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 22 – More than 60
percent of Russians say they have noted a deterioration of their economic
situation over the last year, but 75 percent of them blame the West rather than
their own government for this situation, according to a study conducted by the
Moscow Institute of Sociology.
In mass consciousness, the study
says, in a summary provided by the Tolkovatel portal, “the external enemy is becoming
in mass consciousness the main negative force and is acquiring possible
dissatisfaction.” But it says, “only 38 percent of Russians are prepared to
sacrifice something for victory over [this] enemy.”
But the study also suggests, according to Tolkovatel, that the
overwhelming majority of Russians aren’t prepared to make sacrifices for long
and that the Kremlin has only a year or 18 months before their anger will shift
and they will blame not the actions of Western governments for their problems
but Moscow itself.
(The 48-page institute study,
“Russian Society: A Year of Crisis and Sanctions,” based on surveys conducted
in October 2014 and in October 2015, is available at isras.ru/files/File/Doklad/Ross_obschestvo_god_v_usloviyah_krizisa_i_sanktsiy.pdf; it is summarized
at ttolk.ru/?p=25678.)
Although the crisis has had an
impact on a majority of Russians, the study concludes, most of them retain the
hope that ‘a year from now, the situation will begin to be corrected in the direction
of the better.” From 51 to 63 percent say that their standard of living has
declined, and 33 to 38 percent point to deteriorations in health care, housing
and corruption.
For Russians, the study says, “it is
obvious that today not only the country is changing but the entire world,” and
they believe that “Russia in this new world must acquire its own new place,
although success in that regard is far in the future.” And thus it is perhaps
not surprising that Russians are focusing increasingly on the situation beyond
Russia’s borders.
“Two years ago, internal threats
were the main ones” as far as Russians were concerned, “but at the present
time, the focus has shifted to threats, the source of which lies on the other
side of the border (75 percent). “Only 24 percent of the population considers
that the main sources of possible negative scenarios for Russia must be
searched for inside the country.”
A majority of Russians view the
situation in the world as unstable and dangerous, and “about a third of them
even suppose that the world today is in a deep crisis or even stands at the
brink of catastrophe.” The share of
Russians who think this way has increased over the last year, the sociologists
says.
The increased focus on foreign
threats “in part is reducing the degree of social tension that the economic
crisis has generated,” the study says. The
main reason, it suggests, is that Russians are prepared to adapt to problems on
the basis of the longstanding principle that at least there is no war.
But the reduction in anger about
domestic conditions has been accompanied by “a growth of apathy and
indifference,” the study says, although many evaluate such postures as being
anger. At the same time, “many Russians continue to
remain optimistic that things will get better in a year or so.
One thing not especially surprising,
the sociologists say, is that “Russians are not prepared to support measures
for the rebirth of the power of the country if these measures would involve the
further decline in the standard of living in the country,” although 38 percent,
with varying qualifications, are prepared for that.
There are important generational
differences. Older people accept that the needs of the state and society must
take precedence over those of the individual, but younger ones overwhelmingly
say that they “are not prepared to sacrifice their personal well-being even on
behalf of important and shared values.”
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