Tracking public opinion under authoritarianism: The case of the soviet union during the Brezhnev era

Russian History

Volumn 41, Issue 3, 2014, Pages 329-353

  Dimitrov, Martin K ^a  

^a TULANE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Brezhnev; citizen complaints; information flows; kgb surveys; letters to the editor; public opinion

Indexed keywords

EID: 84939966375     PISSN: 0094288X     EISSN: 18763316     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04103003     Document Type: Review

References (91)

1. Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (New York: Praeger, 1965), 135.
2. Ronald Wintrobe, The Political Economy of Dictatorship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
3. Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995)
4. Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
5. Timur Kuran "Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989," World Politics 44, no. 1 (1991): 7-48
6. Susanne Lohmann, "The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989-91," World Politics 47, no. 1 (1994): 42-101.
7. On such reports (svodki) in the Soviet Union, see Leslie Rimmer, "Svodki and Popular Opinion in Stalinist Leningrad," Cahiers du Monde Russe 40, nos. 1-2 (January-June 1999): 217-234.
8. William A. Welsh, "Introduction: An Overview of the Status of Survey Research in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union" in Survey Research and Public Attitudes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, ed. William A. Welsh (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981), 1-12, esp. 9-11.
9. Danielle N. Lussier, "Contacting and Complaining: Political Participation and the Failure of Democracy in Russia," Post-Soviet Affairs 27, no. 3 (2011): 289-325.
10. More generally, see Henry E. Hale, Why Not Parties in Russia? Democracy, Federalism, and the State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
11. On complaints in Mexico, see María del Carmen Nava Nava, ed., Los abajo firmantes: Cartas a los presidentes (The Undersigned: Letters to the Presidents) (México: Editorial Patria, 1994).
12. On Taiwan, see Renmin chenqing anjian zhi fenxi yanjiu (Research on Citizen Petitions) (Taipei: Xingzhengyuan yanjiu fazhan kaohe weiyuanhui, 1981).
13. On Russia, see "Informatsionno-statisticheskii obzor rassmotrennykh v 2010 godu obrashchenii grazhdan, organizatsii i obshchestvennykh ob"edinenii, adresovannykh Prezidentu Rossiiskoi Federatsii, a takzhe rezul'tatov rassmotreniia i priniatykh mer" (Moscow: Upravlenie Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii po rabote s obrashcheniiami grazhdan i organizatsii, 2011).
14. Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym, "The Functions of Elections in the ussr," Soviet Studies 30:3 (July 1978), 362-371.
15. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Tear Off the Masks!: Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
16. Martin K. Dimitrov, Dictatorship and Information: Autocratic Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China (manuscript in progress).
17. Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda, and Dissent, 1934-1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
18. Thomas Fingar, Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).
19. kgb Order 00175 "On Strengthening the Struggle of the Organs of State Security Against Hostile Displays by Anti-Soviet Elements," July 28, 1962, reproduced in Libianka: Organy VChK-ogpu-nkvd-nkgb-mgb-mvd-kgb, A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi Fond "Demokratiia," 2003), 703-708, at 704.
20. V. A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki v sssr pri Khrushcheve i Brezhneve (1953 -nachalo 1980-kh gg.) (Novosibirsk: Sibirskii Khronograf, 1999), 401-405.
21. V. A. Kozlov, S. V. Mironenko, O. V. Edelman, E. iu. Zavadskaia, Kramola: Inakomyslie v sssr pri Khrushcheve i Brezhneve, 1953-1982 gg.: Rassekrechenye dokumenty Verkhovnogo suda i Prokuratury sssr (Moscow: Materik, 2005), 379-384.
22. Lubianka, 165-168.
23. See 1967 kgb Annual Report, l. 7 and 1981 Report on the Search for Authors of Anonymous Anti-Soviet Materials, l. 1, Volkogonov Papers, Box 28. The 1981 document suggests that the increase reflects a higher volume of anti-Soviet activity, not increased kgb investigative activity.
24. Moshe Lewin, The Soviet Century (London: Verso, 2005), 191-201.
25. kgb reports for 1967, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, and 1982, Volkogonov Papers, Box 28.
26. See, for example, 1975 Report on the Search for Authors of Anonymous Anti-Soviet Materials, l. 4 in Volkogonov Papers, Box 28.
27. "O rezul'tatakh raboty organov kgb po bor'be s terroristicheskimi proiavleniiami," March 27, 1978, l. 1 in Volkogonov Papers, Box 28.
28. For a theoretical treatment of the political importance of subversive speech acts during the Brezhnev period, see Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
29. Tsentr Khraneniia Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhsd) f. 89, per. 42, d. 71, l. 2.
30. B. A. Grushin, "Institut obshchestvennogo mneniia -otdel Komsomol'skoi pravdy," in Pressa v obshchestve: Otsenki zhurnalistov i sotsiologov. Dokumenty, ed. A. I. Volkov, M. G. Pugacheva, and S. F. Iarmoliuk (Moscow: Institut sotsiologii ran, 2000), 46-64.
31. www.isras.ru (accessed October 5, 2011).
32. Tsentr Khraneniia Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhsd) f. 4, op. 20, d. 356, ll. 17-18, "Postanovlenie Politbiuro TsK kpss 'Ob organizatsii Instituta konkretnykh sotsial'nykh issledovanii Akademii nauk sssr'" (May 22, 1968).
33. Tsentr Khraneniia Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhsd), f. 4, op. 20, d. 467, ll. 36-38, "Postanovlenie Sekretariate TsK kpss 'Ob osnovknykh napravleniakh raboty Institute konkretnykh sotsial'nykh issledovanii an sssr'" (December 10, 1968).
34. Vladimir Shlapentokh, The Politics of Sociology in the Soviet Union (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), 126-127.
35. On the Saratov project, see B. A. Grushin, L. A. Onikov, eds., Massovaia informatsiia v sovetskom promyshlennom gorode (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1980).
36. Boris Grushin, Chetyre zhizni Rossii v zerkale oprosov obshchestvennogo mneniia: Ocherki massovogo soznaniia rossiian vremen Khrushcheva, Brezhneva, Gorbacheva i El'tsina v 4-kh knigakh (Kniga 2-ia: Epokha Brezhneva -Chast' 1) (Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 2003), 425-426.
37. Grushin and Onikov, eds., Massovaia informatsiia, 414.
38. R. A. Safarov, Obshchestvennoe mnenie i gosudarstvennoe upravlenie (Moscow: Iuridicheskaia literatura, 1975), 121.
39. Grushin, Chetyre zhzni, 178-179 (Kuibyshev)
40. Safarov, Obshchestvennoe mnenie, 22-23 (on Kalininskaia oblast).
41. Jeffrey W. Hahn, "Public Opinion Research in the Soviet Union: Problems and Possibilities," in Public Opinion and Regime Change: The New Politics of Post-Soviet Societies, ed. Arthur H. Miller, William M. Reissinger, and Vicki L. Hesli (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 37-47, at 40-41.
42. Grushin, Chetyre zhizni, 177-182.
43. Shlapentokh, The Politics of Sociology, 216-218, 230-231 (n. 6).
44. For details on how preference falsification operated, see Kuran 1991.
45. Shlapentokh, The Politics of Sociology, 224.
46. Grushin, Chetyre zhizni Rossii, 214.
47. The Youth Research Institute in Leipzig was preserved. On the closing down of the Central Committee Meinungsforschungsinstitut, see Walter Friedrich, "Geschichte des Zentralinstituts für Jugendforschung," in Das Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung Leipzig 1966-1990: Geschichte, Methoden, Erkenntnisse, ed. Walter Friedrich, Peter Förster, and Kurt Starke (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1999), 13-69, at 32.
48. On the social contract, see Linda J. Cook, The Soviet Social Contract and Why It Failed: Welfare Policy and Workers' Politics from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
49. Over a thousand letters to Literaturnaia gazeta containing shocking details of housing difficulties in the early 1980s can be found in the Rubinov Collection, boxes 39-41.
50. Anatolii Rubinov letter to James Billington (undated, hand carried from Moscow to Washington on March 18, 1999).
51. Vladimir I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 54 (Fifth Edition) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1970), 143-144.
52. Vladimir I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 50 (Fifth edition) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1969), 227, 323.
53. Vladimir I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 38 (Fifth Edition) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1969), 169.
54. Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s," Slavic Review 55, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 78-105
55. Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s," The Journal of Modern History, 68, no. 4 (December 1996): 831-866
56. Fitzpatrick, Tear Off the Masks!
57. A. IA. Livshin and I. B. Orlov, Pis'ma vo vlast', 1917-1927: zaiavleniia, zhaloby, donosy, pis'ma v gosudarstvennye struktury i bol'shevistkim vozhdiam (Moscow: Rosspen, 1998)
58. Marjorie Hilton, "The Customer Is Always Wrong: Consumer Complaint in Late-nep Russia," The Russian Review 68, no. 1 (2009): 1-25.
59. A. IA. Livshin, I. B. Orlov, and O. V. Khlevniuk, Pis'ma vo vlast', 1928-1940: zaiavleniia, zhaloby, donosy, pis'ma v gosudarstvennye struktury i sovetskim vozhdiam (Moscow: Rosspen, 2002)
60. Alex Inkeles and Kent Geiger, "Critical Letters to the Editors of the Soviet Press: Areas and Modes of Complaint," American Sociological Review 17, no. 6 (December 1952): 694-703
61. Alex Inkeles and Kent Geiger, "Critical Letters to the Editors of the Soviet Press: Social Characteristics and Interrelations of Critics and the Criticized," American Sociological Review, 18, no. 1 (February 1953): 12-22
62. Merle Fainsod, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 378-408
63. Vladimir A. Kozlov, "Denunciation and Its Functions in Soviet Governance: A Study of Denunciations and Their Bureaucratic Handling from Soviet Police Archives, 1944-1953," The Journal of Modern History, 68, no. 4 (December 1996): 867-898.
64. Denis Kozlov, The Readers of Novyi Mir: Coming to Terms with the Stalinist Past (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
65. Edward D. Cohn, "Disciplining the Party: The Expulsion and Censure of Communist in the Post-War Soviet Union, 1945-1961," Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, University of Chicago, 2007.
66. Jan S. Adams, "Critical Letters to the Soviet Press: An Increasingly Important Public Forum" in Political Participation in Communist Systems, ed. Donald E. Schulz and Jan S. Adams (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981), 108-136
67. Nicholas Lampert, Whistleblowing in the Soviet Union: Complaints and Abuses under State Socialism (London: Macmillan, 1985)
68. Stephen White, "Political Communications in the ussr: Letters to the Party, State, and Press," Political Studies, vol. XXXI (1983): 43-60.
69. Soviet scholars have shown that there is a marked difference between letters published by newspapers and the letters they actually receive. For example, newspapers printed few letters (21 percent) dealing with transportation, retail trade, public services, public order, healthcare, and housing, even though those letters accounted for the bulk of the letters they received (67 percent). Furthermore, newspapers tended to print positive letters, whereas most letters they received were negative. See Grushin and Onikov, Massovaia informatsiia, 410, 414.
70. See "O poriadke rassmotreniia predlozheniia, zaiavleniia i zhalob grazhdan," Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta sssr, 1968 (no. 17), 144
71. see also the amended version in Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta sssr, 1980 (no. 11), 192.
72. Viktor I. Remnev, Pravo zhaloby v sssr (Moscow: Znanie, 1982), 16.
73. See, for example, V. Mal'kov, V uchrezhdenie postupila zhaloba (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1972)
74. Remnev, Pravo zhaloby v sssr.
75. Tsentr Khraneniia Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhsd), f. 89, per. 26, d. 6, l. 7.
76. Literaturnaia gazeta (Otdel pisem): Dela redaktsionnye, Bulletin Nr. 1 (35), January 1973, ll. 43-45.
77. Bulletin Nr. 17 (129), 1979
78. Bulletin Nr. 9 (56), August 1974.
79. Bulletin Nr. 17 (81), December 1975.
80. See Bulletin Nr. 3 (84), February 1976.
81. Fitzpatrick, Tear Off the Masks, 177.
82. Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008).
83. See also James R. Millar, "The Little Deal: Brezhnev's Contribution to Acquisitive Socialism," Slavic Review 44, no. 4 (Winter 1985): 694-706.
84. On the organized consensus, see Victor Zaslavsky, The New Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity, and Consensus in Soviet Society (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1982), esp. 130-164.
85. Egor' Gaidar, Gibel' imperii: Uroki dlia sovremennoi Rossii (Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Contemporary Russia), 2nd edition (Moscow: Rosspen, 2007).
86. Vladimir Shlapentokh, A Normal Totalitarian Society: How the Soviet Union Functioned and Why It Collapsed (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2001), 128-130.
87. On the decline of complaints to the party, see Rossiiski Tsentr Khraneniia i Izucheniia Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii (rtsKhidni) f. 646, op. 1, d. 3., l. 11.
88. On the growth of complaints to the media, see Christopher Cerf and Marina Albee, Small Fires: Letters from the Soviet People to Ogonyok Magazine, 1987-1990 (New York: Summit Books, 1990), 17
89. Jim Riordan and Sue Bridger, Dear Comrade Editor: Readers' Letters to the Soviet Press under Perestroika (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 1-15.
90. See Tsentr Khraneniia Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhsd) f. 89, per. 51, d. 8 (1985)
91. Martin K. Dimitrov, Dictatorship and Information; Martin K. Dimitrov, "Understanding Communist Collapse and Resilience" in Why Communism Didn't Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe, ed. Martin K. Dimitrov (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 3-39.