Documents / FOIA release
This JPRS report, compiled in 1991 and carried in CIA records, translates an article by Aleksandr Demidov of the USSR Academy of Sciences' Sociology Institute, published in Sotsiologicheskiye Issledovaniya in October 1990. It draws on 18 months of polls of Moscow residents to analyze public opinion during the 1989 and 1990 election campaigns, covering trust in the CPSU, voter preferences, and dissatisfaction with how the elections were organized. It notes a growing mysticism, including belief in flying saucers, but has no UFO content beyond that.
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# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1991 Document 6 of 10 personal speeches of the candidate deputies. 10. What did the Muscovites not like in the preparations for last year's elections? Above we have spoken about the shortcomings of the legislation apparent in the stage of discussing the draft Election Law. These views (the district meetings, the elections in public organizations and the procedure for putting up candidates) continued to cause dissatisfaction in the course of the election campaign itself. People expressed greatest dissatisfaction over the unequal status of the candidates (having in mind primarily the material and technical opportunities to conduct an election campaign) as well as the creating of beneficial conditions by the authorities for some and obstacles for others who were ''not to the liking'' of the party apparatus for various reasons. In addition, the persons questioned by us pointed to the discourtesy in conducting the election campaign and the use of prohibited methods, primarily attempts to compromise the opponent. 11. Regardless of the listed shortcomings recorded by mass conscience, as a whole, around 80 percent of the Muscovites was satisfied with the 1989 election results as persons having real authority among the people and who are active supporters of perestroyka became deputies. 12. The First Congress of USSR People's Deputies which followed the elections for the first time in our history demonstrated real political pluralism in the superior bodies of the nation. The critical and sharp judgments heard from such a high rostrum simply shocked many. In any event, virtually no one was indifferent. From the obtained data, 96-98 percent of the Muscovites followed the entire work of the congress and a large portion did this regularly. 13. The respondents also judged the democraticness of the congress work very high. As for the assessments of the success of the congress's work, here our polls showed significant fluctuations depending upon the events occurring at the congress. From 24 percent to 36 percent of the Muscovites on one or another day pointed out that the congress was going much more successfully than they had expected. 14. The public polls conducted a day later clearly recorded both the increased expectations and a certain disappointment with the results of the congress. While prior to its start, some (2/3) of the Muscovites assumed that the work of the deputies would be successful and effective, after the conclusion only a third of those polled gave such a view. 15. The First Congress of People's Deputies accelerated the
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 10 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.