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.
“National Academy of Sciences”1 page
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# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1991 Document 6 of 10 Page 6 The supporters and opponents of market relations also were evenly split. 19. In addition to the economic problems related to the public's notions primarily of the supply of vital necessities and which for the last 2 years has been in first place in terms of importance in the course of our polls, with the start of autumn the problem of combating crime emerged in second place in terms of importance in the public conscience, in bypassing the problem of protecting the environment. Interethnic relations in the capital itself did not greatly bother the Muscovites although (1/3) of our respondents still noticed their exacerbation in Moscow as well. 20. The absence of real headway in resolving the listed problems very noticeably reduced the credit of trust in the measures of the superior authorities and the policy of perestroyka as a whole. The obtained data concerning public opinion showed that the expectations of a majority of those polled were not being met and as a whole the situation in the nation was deteriorating. A further decline in the authority of the CPSU and its leading bodies was also recorded. 21. In analyzing the state of mass conscience in that period, one cannot help but mention the growing independent movement and the appearance of alternative political structures in the form of associations, platforms and actually parties. This led as a result to the formation of electoral blocs in the 1990 elections. While in 1989, the numerous "'informal'" organizations did not represent a real political force and a majority of the Muscovites did not see them as real claimants to power, after the First Congress of People's Deputies, the situation began to change. A major role was played by the establishing of the Interregional Deputy Group (MDG) and around this the alternative political structures began to gather. At the end of 1989, our poll showed that the activities of the MDG were approved basically by 57 percent of the Muscovites. The results of the past elections to the Moscow Soviet and the RSFSR from Moscow showed that this support from the public has increased. 22. Along with the listed trends, we cannot help but mention one other, rather contradictory trend in mass conscience, and which rather strongly influenced voter behavior in the course of the 1990 elections. We said that a pluralism of opinions, a boldness of judgments and vivid speeches at the first congress were welcomed by the public, however over time the street democracy began to cause irritation. This trend was apparent with particular strength after the Second Congress of People's Deputies which caused dissatisfaction among a significant portion of the public precisely due to the lack of decisions on the most important questions of the state structure, property and so forth.
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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.