Muscovites on Elections

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

## Document 6 of 10

improving the state of affairs in all spheres of our life. They had just adopted the amendments and supplements to the USSR Constitution as well as the new Law on the Elections of USSR People's Deputies. During this period after the excitement which accompanied the preparations for the party forum, there was a definite drop in the public mood and again skeptical notes could be clearly heard. This was manifested above all in the attitude toward the party. While prior to the conference more than 4% of those questioned assumed that the authority and influence of the CPSU in society were rising, around 1/5 voiced the opinion that there would not be any changes and only 3 percent assumed that over the long run party authority and influence should decline, while the cross-section of public opinion after the concluding of the 19th Party Conference provided a completely different picture. Only 23 percent of those questioned pointed to increased authority and influence of the party, while 37 percent stated that the situation had not changed at all and 17 percent of the respondents spoke directly about a decline in CPSU authority. (We would point out, incidentally, that a year later, in the summer of 1989, 70 percent of those questioned now pointed to a decline in confidence in the CPSU.)

4. The Muscovites also took a very skeptical attitude toward amendments in the USSR Constitution concerning the electoral system. In December 1989, only 18 percent of those polled felt that the adopted laws to a significant degree would contribute to the development of democracy in the nation. Such skepticism was fully explainable since over a protracted historical period we have adopted a multiplicity of good laws, decrees and decisions which were later emasculated in the course of their practical implementation by the executive bodies which concentrated real political and economic power in their hands. In particular, doubt was voiced over the procedure for electing (1/3) of the people's deputies from the public organizations, the procedure for proposing and registering candidate deputies, the antidemocratic practice of preelection district meetings which steadily filtered out declared candidates to the benefit of the partocracy. All of this could not help but tell on the state of public opinion and the attitude of the population to the adopted election laws.

5. The negative views in the minds of the people were intensified by the slipping of the economic reform. According to the same poll, just 6 percent of the respondents felt that the state of the national economy was satisfactory while around 70 percent was critical. The problems of interethnic relations began to cause ever-greater fears. Only Soviet foreign policy and domestic democratization were viewed affirmatively, however even here 55 percent of those questioned expressed satisfaction with what had been achieved.