The current crisis has revealed that the political system that has taken shape in Russia in the 2000s is impeding and even suppressing the development of other subsystems (including the economy, science, the media, education, civil society, and public life). The interests of the security agencies and state corporations (and also the government-dependent groups of the population) have paralysed the drive for modernisation launched in the 1990s.
It goes without saying that in the last few years it has become more and more difficult to talk about independent public opinion. Government censorship and propaganda have created such a thick network of information filters and entertainment programmes that only the most extraordinary events (mostly tragedies) can penetrate it. Hence, the absolute majority of the population has no access to information about the state of affairs in foreign and domestic policies, the economy and the social sphere. Individual publications, radio stations and other media channels, including the internet, on which excessive hopes are pinned, do not compensate for this general shortage of analysis and interpretation. This information vacuum is filled with collective myths, rumours, phobias, and the vague foreboding of an uncertain future.
The crisis has affected the everyday life of almost two thirds of Russian families, which have to limit their consumption because of reduced incomes. The material status of 39% of people has substantially deteriorated in one year; it remained unchanged for 48%, and improved for a mere 13%. Social anemia, with its mixture of fatigue, indifference, fear, and exasperation has again started to dominate the public's emotional balance. Only young people or groups of higher social status have preserved their social optimism.
"The most difficult year"
The current public opinion poll has registered not only a sharp decline in the tone of public attitudes but also a return to estimates that were typical of the mid-1990s. The indicators of a society's overall health have decreased to the level of 2000-2002. Sixty-two percent of those polled called 2009 "the most difficult year" for Russia, and this is the worst figure since 1996, save 1989 (when the relevant figure was 82% -- the absolute maximum of negative estimates in the entire post-Soviet period). In 2000, the corresponding figure was 38%; in 2001 23% and 2007, it was 20%. However, in 2008 the share of negative assessments again grew to 46%.
Meanwhile, people in Russia associate all positive events with family and friends and all misfortunes with the state of affairs in the country. They are isolating themselves in the family circle and forming numerous agglomerations and communities (like polyp colonies) that are unable to influence government policy independently.
Although as a rule Russians assess their family life somewhat higher than the situation in the country, negative assessments are not much less frequent than they were in 1998. More than half of the respondents (55%) said that the past year has brought them nothing good, and they are glad that at least nothing bad has happened. The understanding of what road the country is following has again disappeared from public consciousness -- 86% of respondents have no idea of where the country is going; more than 70% believe the government does not have a thorough economic programme for overcoming the crisis, and 62% do not look beyond several weeks or months. There is no common opinion on what is taking place in the country either: 42% believe that the government is trying to establish order; 19% talk about anarchy and disorder, and 9% about democracy, while 20% evade an answer or refuse to give an unequivocal assessment of the situation. Most respondents stand for democracy (57% versus a mere 23%), but believe that it requires the consolidation of civil society, liberties, and human rights and an opposition to the President and the Government (71% emphasized this requirement). However, the same respondents consider the current opposition weak and discredited.
Focus on tragedy
When respondents were asked to name the main events of 2009, they focused almost exclusively on tragedies and dramas: the majority mentioned the fire in a night club in Perm (49%), the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro power station (45%), the economic crisis and decline in production in Russia (39%), the detonation of the Nevsky express train (32%), the swine flue epidemic (28%), the election of the new patriarch (28%), and the gas conflict between Ukraine and Russia (23%). The negative perception of events has developed against the will of Kremlin conductors as a consequence of the restrictions imposed on open debates, which help the public to rationalise and understand what is going on. Lack of authentic information is creating informal channels for its dissemination and for the elaboration of common opinion. Tragedies are a point of departure in assessing current events for these reserve mechanisms of public opinion. The present amounts to the struggle for survival and therefore, current events are assessed through losses and threats rather than acquisitions and achievements.
The "men of the year" are always the same
The list of candidates for "man of the year" is even less dynamic. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has occupied first place on the list for almost 10 years, while President Dmitry Medvedev has been a runner-up for the last four years. In 2007, 56% of respondents called Putin "the man of the year"; in 2008, the relevant figure was 40%, and in 2009, it dropped to 37%. To an extent, this decline may be explained by Medvedev's growing fame -a mere 6%-7% mentioned him in this list in 2006-2007, 27% in the 2008 inauguration year and 29% in the outgoing 2009 year, but this is only one possible explanation. But the position effect seems to be more important - it is the position that graces the man and not the other way around. A top position endows a hitherto unknown person with propaganda-intensified charisma. This glory of power is typical of all autocratic regimes and traditional patrimonial departmental agencies (it is more pronounced, for instance, in archaic public institutions, such as the Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches).
No other politicians can compete with Putin or Medvedev in popularity. Only third and lower positions undergo certain changes with time: in 2006, 7% named Sergei Ivanov, while Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Sergei Shoigu, and Alexander Lukashenko received 5%, 4%, and 2%, respectively. In 2007, this order slightly changed, and in 2008, the third and fifth places were taken by the late Alexiy II (8%) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn (3%), while Zhirinovsky, Dima Bilan, Barack Obama, SergieShoigu, and Andrei Arshavin occupied places in between with 3%-1%. In 2009, Obama was third (7%) and Shoigu received 4%, while Gennady Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, Patriarch Kirill, Michael Jackson, and Lukashenko got 3%-2%.
This structure of public trust (only in the first persons and in the absence of more or less influential alternative figures or politicians at a lower level) and the expressed mistrust of all institutions except the "national leaders," the church, and the army show that the institutional system is underdeveloped or unable to meet social requirements.
Hopes for the future
In contrast to the critical situation of 1998, however, society is still hoping that the state of affairs that took shape in the 2000s will be restored and that everything will be the same as it was during Putin's presidency. During the oil-blessed window of prosperity, the population became more relaxed and saved some money, which now allows it to look into the future with less despair than in the 1990s. But these hopes for the better are rather irrational and more in the nature of Russian faith in serendipity. They draw no clear correlation with confidence in the government (again, 31% of respondents believe in its ability to cope with the crisis, 24% do not, while the majority - 45% - cannot even answer the question).
The President's statements about the need to intensify modernisation have been met with obvious doubts. The live broadcast of the prime minister's question-&-answer session has received much attention. As expected, he made specific promises and reassurances. The older generation has listened to statements on modernisation more than once. The majority of the public meets them with sympathy but does not believe in the government's capacity to carry them out. Even if there is money for reforms, the bulk of respondents think that it will be either wasted (44%) or stolen (22%), and a mere 21% believe that the money will be used rationally in absence of a legal mechanism for carrying outpolicy.
By Lev Gudkov, Director of the Yury Levada Analytical Centre
