Once every 10 years, Levada sociologists ask respondents to think about the global question of what the Soviet Union is and its main characteristics. The suggested answers are based on popular ideologies of the Soviet era, although respondents can also give their own answer that is not included in the list. Soviet times are long gone – what could change in Russians’ answers? Our research shows that the further the USSR is in time, the higher it is assessed from the point of view of current demands for social justice.

The results of the first such survey in 2000 (and the next one in 2008) showed that the historical path that our country followed under Soviet power was characterized by the “guiding role of the Communist Party,” i.e. the USSR is primarily about communism (41–43% answered this way). Respondents also spoke about the “successful development of the economy” (39–31%) and “the state’s concern for ordinary people” (37–29%). Interestingly, already in the second study in 2008, all positions related to the social block were named by respondents less frequently. Let me remind you that during that period, both subjective assessments of one’s own well-being and the state of affairs in the country grew (this is shown, for example, by the dynamics of the Levada Center’s Social Sentiment Index), and state statistics data on the growth of real incomes of Russians. As a result, the demand for social justice in the minds of citizens was satisfied in the present, and the need to idealize the past decreased.

In 2019, the hierarchy of responses changed significantly, which may surprise the average person, but will not surprise people studying public opinion, because these changes are confirmed by the mythologization of the Soviet past in the mass consciousness. 28 years after the collapse of the USSR, for 59% of respondents, the main characteristic of the Soviet state is “caring for ordinary people” (an increase of 30 percentage points from 2008 to 2019). Support for the idea of “successful economic development, no unemployment” (by 12 percentage points) and “constant improvement of people's lives” (by 25 percentage points) has increased significantly. Most of the responses voiced reflect paternalistic relations between the state and citizens, the demand for which has increased after the pension reform. This is the reason for last year’s maximum in the last 10 years of “nostalgia” for the Soviet Union: in 2018, the proportion of those who regret the collapse of the USSR was 2.5 times higher than the proportion of those indifferent to Soviet times.

It would be wrong to dismiss the data obtained and say that this is the “average temperature in the hospital,” which really doesn’t mean anything: supposedly, young people are not interested in the Soviet past, so what’s there to ask them, and old people simply idealize the times of their youth, but this is not so, as shown by the data in terms of age and generational differences, which should differentiate the image of the Soviet state and interest in it among those who lived there most of their lives, and those who know about it only from the stories of their elders.

The thesis that post-Soviet youth (whose representatives are now aged 18 and older, those who are younger are not included in national surveys) are not interested in the Soviet past is not confirmed: the intensity of their responses is no lower than that of representatives of older generations; on the contrary, over the past decade, young respondents have become more willing to answer and support myths about the USSR. They name more than one characteristic of the Soviet state, and do not avoid answering or join those who found it difficult to answer. Let me emphasize: in this case, it does not matter how we distinguish the conditional young and old - as age groups, simply relying on the sample design (only four: 18-24, 25-39, 40-54, 55 years and older), or take into account the hypothesis of "generational differences" (also four: "post-Soviet", "perestroika", the "stagnation" and "thaw" generations - according to the classification of Yuri Levada). In addition, the hierarchy of ideas about the Soviet state among young and mature respondents generally coincides - social care and paternalism are in first place for both. However, there are also differences if we compare representatives of the post-Soviet youth and the Thaw generation. For the former, the most significant characteristics of the Soviet past are the country's isolation from the outside world, lagging behind developed countries, and persecution of dissenters. Researchers have repeatedly noted a more pronounced "pro-Westernism" of Russian youth (a December 2018 survey on the declarative desire to emigrate, to which almost every second person among 18-24-year-olds responded positively, caused quite a stir), so the choice of such characteristics, indicating the separation of "us" from "them", only confirms this.

Two more ideas about the Soviet past (apart from the conventional block of social protection) deserve attention, which now resonate with a significant part of the population: the attitudes about the “friendship of peoples” and the “guiding role of the Communist Party”, but the dynamics of opinions and support for these two judgments are radically opposite. The idea of the absence of interethnic conflicts in the Soviet Union is the most stable support in the structure of the Soviet myth, and support for this statement does not change statistically significantly from year to year, unlike all the others. I have repeatedly had to answer questions from young listeners regarding the “friendship of peoples” in the USSR when giving reports on interethnic relations in Russia. For Russians born after 1991, this idea is typical, and they generally do not have knowledge about the deportations of peoples during the same period, as evidenced by the results of surveys.

On the contrary, the dynamics of support for the opinion about the “guiding role of the Communist Party” is negative, indicating a gradual erosion of the significance of communism (among others) in the historical memory of the USSR. Thus, in 2000, 41% of respondents recalled communism as the most important characteristic of the Soviet Union, and in 2019 - already 29%. Moreover, these losses do not depend on age and/or generational affiliation; all respondents began to note it less often, but most noticeably - the oldest respondents, who lived a significant part of their lives in the USSR. Is this why Stalin’s popularity is growing now (as the personification of a “great power” and a “wise leader”) and, conversely, the historical significance of Lenin (as the personification of communism and socialism) is declining? Let me note that back in 1989, it was Lenin who was named as the most outstanding person of all time and peoples in an open question, and not Stalin, who did not even make it into the top five (72% versus 12% in 1989 and 32% versus 38% in 2017, respectively).

In general, the results of the survey devoted to the image of the Soviet state among Russians indicate a process of idealization of those times - when the share of positive opinions begins to significantly dominate over negative ones, and this is not a romanticization of one's own youth, typical of older people who remember only good things about the past, but a general trend indicating serious shifts in historical memory and its priorities. From this, one cannot conclude that Russians want to go back to the past and restore the Soviet Union: when asked directly about what times they would like to live in, the majority did not choose either the "Stalinist five-year plans" or pre-revolutionary Russia, preferring to live here and now. These changes are rather the result of a comparison of the present and the past. Everything for which the USSR is now praised is largely a consequence of what Russians are dissatisfied with here and now: low incomes, inequality, corruption.

The author is a leading researcher at the Levada Center

Simple Soviet paternalism