Putin’s Views Notwithstanding, Russians Nostalgic for USSR Not Because It was an Empire but Because It Provided Better Social Supports, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 17 – Many Russians are nostalgic for the Soviet Union but not for the imperialism that Putin celebrates and that others often accuse them of being, Abbas Gallyamov says. Polls consistently show that their nostalgia is not for the empire but for a system that provided them with social supports and more confidence in the future.

            The former Putin speechwriter and now a commentator sharply critical of the Kremlin leader says that polls from 1999 on show that Russians overwhelmingly care far less about having lost an empire than having lost those social supports and confidence in the future (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/5784 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/toska-po-imperii).

            With the exception of a poll taken just after Putin’s Crimean Anschluss in 2014, where Russians expressed nearly equal senses of loss of empire and of that social system, they have by margins typically in the range of two to one said they regret the loss of the social supports and confidence in the future more than they do the loss of empire.

            In short, and again in sharp contrast to Putin’s own obsessions and the criticism of others, “for a significant part of those who year for it, the USSR is not so much an empire as a huge social security system, one that provided an acceptable standard of living a much ballyhooed ‘confidence in the future.’”