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CIAO DATE: 9/01
Social Sciences
The "West" In Russian Public Consciousness
German Diligenski
The attitude of Russian society to the West—to the basic values of Western (or "Atlantic") civilization and to the social structure of Western democracies—is a major factor affecting both Russia's historical development and the dynamics of the present global situation. In Russia, it is associated with its traditional problem of the "choice of the path" that repeatedly emerged in the past and now again has come to a head at the turn of the century.
Globally, the world's image in the coming millennium depends greatly on whether Russia would draw nearer to the West or diverge from it in economic, social, cultural and political spheres.
It is clear that Russians' attitude to the West takes shape not only under the influence of the immediate needs and problems of their own society but also under the influence of the developments in the international scene. It depends, on the other hand, on how all these problems, phenomena, and developments are reflected in the informational field accessible to Russian citizens. But this attitude cannot be explained only as a product of the current socio-political and informational processes. It is a cultural phenomenon and so reflects not only the present-day but also past experience, reproducing to a certain degree and in a certain form the historically formed achetypes of national consciousness. We can aver that some particular perception of "another", "alien", first of all Western world forms an organic structural component of national consciousness and self-identity of the Russian people. It is likely that in this respect it differs from the "self-sufficient" national consciousness of many peoples in the West and the East alike who work out their own self-identity without much consideration for "the others".
"The 'paradigm' of Russia-'West' confrontation as a whole took its definite shape, as Yu. Levada notes, in the 19th century, only after the Napoleonic wars, and possesses many characteristics of the late social myth... In all types of confrontations (officially ideological, refinedly intellectual, or at common people's or grass-root level), the image of the 'West' is mainly something false, an upside-down reflection of its own existence (better to say, its idea of itself, of what belongs to it). In what is alien, forbidden, or longed-for, one mainly or even exclusively sees what lacks or is forbidden at home. Within this framework the interest in the 'West'—no matter whether it is based on fear or envy—is an interest in oneself, a reflection of one's own troubles or ... hopes" 1 . This "looking-glass complex", as Levada puts it, is explained by the numerous breakthroughs and peripeteia of Russian history, which we leave aside for now.
The last decade was marked by an abrupt upsurge of the struggle between the national-patriotic (traditionalist) and liberal pro-Western currents seeking support amongst the public in Russia. However, comparing the strong and weak sides of the "messages" from both sides, one can easily see that they have one trait in common: neither reflects to a significant extent the vital socioeconomic interests and needs of the masses of the people. Those who call themselves national-patriots readily speculate on these interests actually using them for the sake of the restoration of the Empire. Their appeals to social justice are nothing more than a populist slogan without any substantial influence whatsoever on the real policies of the respective parties and movements. The pro-Western liberals are inclined to relegate the satisfaction of the vital needs of the people to a more or less distant future since they believe it will be a result of a long and arduous process of economic liberalization. Their project has probably no rational alternative, which does not make it more attractive in the eyes of the people. So, neither doctrine succeeds in expanding its influence on the bigger part of the Russians and becoming their ideology.
As K.Kholodkovsky has noted, «whereas inside Russia's intellectual and political elite the conflict between the pro-Westerners and the "soil-related" circles or those who identify themselves with grass roots has a consistently conceptual nature (according to the principle 'either—or') the broad circles of society often have no clear idea of it...» 2 . As public opinion polls have shown, in the mid-90s about 15 per cent of the population thought it proper for Russia to be guided wholly or in part by Western values; this point of view, however, was shared by a third of businessmen and students and by over a quarter of managers and young people between 16 and 25 years of age 3 . So, the "pro-Westerners"—those who conscientiously consider themselves as such—constitute rather a marginal group in Russia, forming a sizable minority only among the market-oriented elite and young people, the "sons of perestroika". Three times more people are guided by the "traditionally Russian values" but the choice of this majority is due to a fuzzy sense of national self-esteem rather than to ideological or political reasons.
The real influence of the national-patriotic ideology on Russia's society is better reflected by the relatively low status of its most important value, patriotism. In 1988, for example, only 10.5% of the pollees responded that patriotism was their most important value 4 . In 1999, only 16% of the respondents would have sided at the elections with parties or policies preaching patriotism 5 .
What this at first sight surprisingly low rating of patriotism attests is not that the Russians do not care about their country but rather that they associate this term with militarist ideas and mobilization aiming at the restoration of the Empire, which the majority of them reject. (In 1998, 76.3% of the pollees believed that Russia, to promote its prestige in the world, had to attain economic growth and only 10.6% thought it was necessary to "strengthen military might". The majority of them did not consider as incontestable the priority of the great-power status over human rights and freedoms. Then, 26.3% of the respondents accepted that "the freedoms and rights of persons were worth giving up the great-power status", 31.5% did not agree with this supposition and the remaining 25% stood on the intermediate position 6 .
It is symptomatic that the slogans of lawfulness, peace, human rights, order, and security attracted two or three times more people than those calling for patriotism; among university graduates, the number of "patriots" was fifty per cent more than the average. For the majority of the Russians the needs of day-to-day existence and maintenance of peace are much more important than any "general ideas"; the groups most prone to become engaged in matters of ideology (including liberal and Western values) are not the broad masses but the relatively "elitist" and ideologized strata of society. On the whole, the antagonism between the staunch "pro-Westerners" and national-patriots is a conflict between minorities involving about 30% of adult population. 7
Western Values And Mass Consciousness
The attitude of the bigger part of Russian society to the West was formed and has been evolving under the influence of a number of conflicting factors. Among them, we can single out a cognitive component of corresponding dispositions, that is, those ideas of the Western way of life that struck roots in Russian mass consciousness. According to V.Lapkin and V.Pantin, who used data collected in 1993-96 polls, the pollees estimated as "Western" such values as the spirit of enterprise or business-mindedness (42%), wealth (39%), sanctity of private property (37%), freedom of convictions and behavior (33%), profitable labor (32%), professionalism (30%), guaranteed political rights (29%), state non-interference into private life of citizens (29%) 8 . It is interesting that, as far as one can judge by the results of comparative studies concerning different countries, these notions frequently do not coincide with the hierarchy of Western values; rather, they reflect those unsatisfied needs and necessities of the Russian pollees which, as they believe, are much better met in the West. As is known, for an American the "material values" (wealth, profit, etc.) are much more modest values than for a Russian while the value of tolerance, so important for the Americans, has little importance for the Russians, who do not identify it with a "Western" value. This inversion of what they badly lack at home into advantages and values for others is typical of the image of the West in Russian consciousness.
From the psychological viewpoint, this situation means that the cognitive component of the disposition—the image of the West—is under the influence of the motivation factor. It becomes more evident if we take into account that Western values are filtrated keeping out those which seem unsuitable in the Russian context. Differently from the polls seeking definitions of Western values, Russian pollees, responding to some particular questions, speak significantly less of "business-mindedness" or "sanctity of private property" (21%), "wealth" (13%), "non-interference of the state into private life of its citizens" (19%) and never mention the spirit of enterprise and "laissez-faire in business", as the top value in their list of Western values. Instead, "professionalism" comes in the first place with 30%, "free choice of convictions and behavior" in the second with 29% 9 . The high prestige of professionalism can obviously be explained by the fact that this "Western" value is more easily reconciled with both the traditionally Russian or Soviet values (skill, ability) arising from the high prestige and wide scale of specialized technical education, and the big quantity of skilled workforce in the social structure of Soviet society. At the same time, the Soviets, as they were called in the past, and the Russians today are inclined to explain the backwardness of their society as compared to society in the West through the lack of professionalism in the economic sphere, in management, and in politics. As far as freedom is concerned, the reasons why this "Western" value is attractive for yesterday's Soviet people probably do not need explanation.
The high standing of the Western model in modern Russian society is proved by many sociologic data. In accordance with the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (RCPOR), the leading Russian sociological research center, by the end of 1992, that is, a year after the market reform had begun, 34% of the respondents preferred any type of Western model "as the most suitable for Russia's development" (11% were in favor of the "capitalist model of the US type" and 23% opted for "social-democratic society of the Swedish type"), 14% would choose "the socialist type of society like the Soviet one", and 23% were in favor of "the specifically Russian path of development". In the subsequent period, the majority of the Russians considered as essential Russia's integration into the rest of the world, that is, into the Western world. In 1994, 71% shared the conviction that it was "high time to stop living behind a barrier. Russia must join as fast as possible the global economy, politics, and culture" 10 . In 1997, in spite of the wide discontent with the results of the liberal reforms, 47.1% of the pollees, when asked about the model of future development of Russia, chose "the state with a market economy and a democratic regime respecting human rights, like in the West", and only 17.7% preferred "the state with a very special regime and path of development"; 20.6% were in favor of "the socialist state like the USSR, with a communist ideology" 11 .
Let us make it clear what concrete contents the relative majority (from one third to a half) of the Russians attach to the notion of "Western path" which they are ready to choose for Russia. It is obvious that, against the background of backwardness and poverty of their society, they are first of all attracted by the high living standards of life in the West, by its material culture, conveniences, strong and efficient economy. In 1998, answering the question what country could serve as an example for Russia, the pollees defined the criteria of their choice in the following way: "where the living standards are higher", "where people live comfortably", "Canada as an agricultural country, Germany as an industrial country, Sweden as a country with a highly developed social sphere", "any more developed country", "any country where the rank and file people live better". The problem of how the Russians see the main values characteristic of the Western way of life is much more complex. Somewhat indicative are their opinions about the concrete problems and goals of the transformations that have been or are being carried out in post-Soviet Russia.
The most laconic, stereotyped and axiomatic formula of the basic values of Western society for all who share them has two indissoluble elements united in one definition—"free and democratic". For a pro-Westerner, these two elements are indissoluble and almost synonymous. In present-day Russian society their correlation is different: freedom is not associated with democracy and has much more value. According to Lapkin and Pantin, the value of freedom is significant for almost a half of the Russian population (47%) and democracy, for only one fifth (21%) 12 . Many polls have shown that the majority recognizes the freedom of expression and of the media as a major positive result of the democratic reforms, and about a half give much importance to the freedom to leave their country or to freely engage in enterprising activity or laissez-faire in business. Russian society, however, attaches much less importance to the right to participation in political life and to independent social activities of citizens, which constitute the fundamental prerequisites for a democratic regime. In 1994, for example, only a minor part of the respondents (29%) considered free multiparty elections as a positive result of the reform but a relative majority (33%) believed that this innovation did more harm than good; 23% favored the right to strike while 36% were opposed to it. In 1998, only 23.3% of the pollees qualified the appearance of non-state associations and organizations as important for Russian society, 28.8% considered it unimportant and 21.5% had no opinion in this respect 13 .
The gap between the values of freedom and democracy is rooted in traditional, archetypical peculiarities of Russian mentality. The dream of freedom has always been alive amongst the Russian people historically doomed to centuries of despotic bondage to czar, officials, or landlords. But Russian people did not dream of freedom as it is understood in the West, where it is supposed to be included into the social system regulated by law, into a system of political and juridical institutions. For a Russian, freedom implies volition, will (volonte, Wille), which, as the Russian philosopher G.Fedotov put it, means "the possibility to live ... by one's will, not constraining oneself with any social ties... freedom only for oneself" 14 . This freedom, purely individual and not restricted by any social norms or the law, expresses mainly the will to escape from society, and not to establish an alternative social order. Hence, looking at it from the psychological and logical viewpoint, such an idea of freedom has little to do with democracy.
The lack or weakness of the democratic tradition in Russian political culture is notorious. Due to this fact, post-Soviet Russian society assimilates with much difficulty the democratic values and especially the democratic praxis. This difficulty was aggravated by the incapacity of the post-Soviet political elites (in power and in opposition alike) to progressively develop democratic institutions; it just went no farther than to introduce elected organs of power and democratic freedoms, to legitimize political and ideological pluralism, but could not overcome the traditionally autocratic nature of the relations arising from power or its alienation from society. For rank-and-file citizens, the most obvious consequence of democratization was a "tug of war" between the legislative and executive bodies, between the federal and regional bodies, the growing dysfunction of the state, disorganization of society, corruption in the bureaucratic machine.
It is clear that all these negative phenomena could not help to raise the already sufficiently low prestige of democracy but, on the other hand, as the above data show, could not discredit completely the Western democratic model. Rather, many Russians were made believe that "the principles of Western democracy are incompatible with Russian traditions" (this opinion is shared by a third or even a half of all respondents in the polls carried out by the fund "Public Opinion" and by the RCPOR). In 1996, however, 70% of the pollees, when esked about the model of development suitable for Russia, chose Western countries and only 12% preferred the USSR, Cuba, or North Korea. For many Russians, Western-type democracy is a social ideal. "Nothing better has been invented, we have to be with all the others", say these Russians filling in the questionnaires received from the RCPOR, among other similar institutions wanting to know their opinion on fomenting democracy.
The contents of this ideal is very vague. It translates the protest against the Soviet and present-day Russian authoritarianism rather than a certain goal. Only 9% in 1993, and 12.7% in 1996 stated that they have a clear idea of democracy; correspondingly, 50% and 41.3% of the pollees preferred the formula "I know little about it" or could say nothing on the subject. In 1996, the majority (56.5%) agreed that "the biggest problem of introducing democracy in Russia is that people do not know what is the best for them".
The vagueness of the Russian democratic ideal does not mean that no sufficiently well defined needs and aspirations are associated with it. Some Russians associate it with freedom and others—the majority—with all they lack in life today (evidently, any social ideal has this peculiarity). What they lack in post-Soviet Russia is the guaranteed social protection of their living standard, professional status, job, satisfactory pension system, health care, education for their children. All these deficiencies are all the more painful because the socialist state demolished early in the 90s guaranteed these needs: in the USSR, low incomes (as compared to the West), shortages of goods and, frequently, bad quality of life (in ecology, health care, housing, etc.) went hand in hand with a stable material and social status, a wide spectrum of guaranteed socioeconomic rights, free or cheap services. Now that these advantages of the state paternalist system were lost without any compensation for the overall majority of people, the Russians would like to get back what had been lost, which obviously affects the content of their democratic ideal.
As sociological investigations show, the majority of Russian citizens consider the protection of human rights as a characteristic feature of democracy. At first sight, this attitude does not differ from what "Westerners" think. But this same majority has another idea of these rights than people in the West do: for the Russians, the most important are material, socioeconomic rights. In 1994, 64% of the respondents considered as the most important the right to education and pension; 49%, to a well paid job and 33%, to a guaranteed subsistence minimum. Democratic rights and freedoms were at the bottom of the list: freedom of speech got 18%; liberty of conscience, 14%; freedom to go abroad, 11%; election of their representatives to the organs of power, 9%; free access to information, 8%. The ideas of democracy that broad masses have are typical in that, in spite of the literal sense of this notion, the relationship with the authorities has relatively little weight in it. In the polls carried out in the mid-90s, the democratic formula "the authorities are elected by the people" was supported by not more than 5% to 7% of the respondents while the formula "the rights of the people are observed" (possibly, understood as was indicated above) got the support of 29%. Levada points out that "paternalist consciousness sees democracy mainly as gracious care of the governing elite about its subjects... The polls invariably show that the maintenance of order and well-being are considered as characteristic features of democracy" 15 .
The state paternalist experience of social security undoubtedly affects the attitude of the Russians to Western experience. First, the negative social consequences of the reforms of the 90s give rise to nostalgic feelings to "the real socialism and to the disappointment with the Western model; judging by our data, it is characteristic of a part of intelligentsia that in the Soviet period was the most pro-Western-minded" 16 .
Second, the very Western model is differentiated, the countries with the most effective systems of social security seem more attractive. Using the definitions in the sociological questionnaires, the majority of the pollees prefers "social-democratic society" to "capitalism" and Western-European experience to American, and has the greatest sympathy to the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden.
The state paternalist syndrome mostly affects the way Russian society perceives the Western economic system. We can state that the principles of the market economy penetrate Russian consciousness with much more difficulty than the norms of Western political democracy. At the same time, however, the majority is in favor of the market and private property. When the problem is addressed more specifically it always becomes clear that only a minority favors the privatization of big industries, banks, transports, mining industry, and free sale of land. The rest can only accept the privatization of retail businesses, restaurants, etc. Lapkin and Pantin point out that for a considerable number of Russians the ideal is "an absurd combination of economic dictatorship with political freedom" 17 . Economic dictatorship of the state is considered the necessary condition of implementing a paternalist social policy.
The most difficult for Russian mentality is probably the assimilation of the Western model of relationship between the individual and society, the state and the citizen. Since the beginning of perestroika, thanks to the efforts of the media and the democratic elite, the notion of civil society has been brought to broad masses in all country. But at the present time, as it seems, we can only speak of the first sprouts, of the initial stage of the formation of such society. The average Russian is often deeply convinced that all country's problems must be resolved by the authorities and is not inclined to join other people in any collective social activities aiming to solve these problems. It is symptomatic that the majority, who otherwise considers it necessary to foster democracy, does not regard as important either the formation of social organizations and associations independent from the state or the formation of municipal self-government. In other words, less attention is paid to exactly those democratic institutions that can directly involve the citizens in economic, political and other spheres of society's life.
Russian soil also rejects another very important component of Western civil society and civil culture, which is respect for the law and social norms accepted by society, their public acknowledgement as a regulator of individual and collective activities of citizens. On the one hand, the restoration of lawfulness and order in society is considered a priority by the Russians, who are sick and tired of the general social disorganization and authorities' abuses and are victimized by their defenselessness before organized crime. On the other hand, people expect that the situation should be changed only by these same authorities whom they with all the reason accuse of injustice, taking off all responsibility from themselves for incompliance with the law. In 1995, 40% of the pollees agreed that "it is permissible to circumvent the law but without violating it directly" (30.7% did not accept it). The advance of Russia towards the jural state, the goal proclaimed in the outset of the reform, lead to a vicious circle: the authorities do not want or cannot rule by the law and the citizens respond by neglecting the law. It is much more difficult to radically change these deeply rooted psychological dispositions than to break the old and form new economic and political institutions. However, if these dispositions of the participants in the process—elite and rank-and-file—remain the same the new institutions won't be able to perform their functions.
As it repeatedly happened in Russian history, the example of the West undoubtedly played an important stimulating role in the modernization attempts in the 80s and the 90s. These attempts resulted in the demolition of the socialist system and the Soviet empire. The Russian population discovered that they lived amidst a wild market and in a disorganized and poorly institutionalized society. Russians faced the problem of psychological and practical adaptation to new conditions, and they had to choose a particular adaptation strategies depending on the available individual and social resources. In fact, they could only choose between a "strong" modernizing strategy that presupposed the rejection of state paternalism and the advancement of individual responsibility and initiative, on the one hand, and a "weak" strategy of tolerance, psychologically based on loyalty to traditional Soviet ideas and values, on the other. The conflict between modernization and traditionalism, as many Russian researches believe, is what leads to social and psychological differentiation of post-Soviet society. It is exactly social and psychological, because only the minority supports the ideological and political currents professing opposing strategies. Among the majority, those strategies are manifested at the level of psychological dispositions and behavior. Besides, it is known that at this level the same persons are, more often than not, under the influence of diametrically opposed tendencies, traditionalist on the one hand, and new, individualist, on the other.
In this day, the psychological significance of the Western model has been changing; it is becoming not only an "external" stimulus to changes (or to their rejection) but also a symbolic expression of the modernizing trend, as if supplying it with the necessary images, language and cultural reference points. Correspondingly, the strategy of non-acceptance of modernization is forced to oppose to it "non-Western" (or anti-Western) symbols. A considerable part of society considers "socialist" symbols as such. But for another and even bigger segment of society, they are not adequate since its implicit aspiration to "turn back" (e.g., to the old state paternalist system) contradicts its reluctance to abandon the most attractive post-Soviet innovations: abundance of goods, democratic rights and freedoms, and in general, the whole new atmosphere of freedom and variety.
The mentality of the majority of Russian society not siding with the ideological minorities (liberal or communist) is ambivalent; it vacillates between nostalgia for the good old stable life and the temptations of the new life and the hopes it nourishes. Thus, the most adequate symbols of this ambivalent mentality become the national symbols which allow to express nonacceptance of the bulk of the Soviet and Western symbols alike and to preserve a certain freedom of choice and combination of diverse components of the "old" and the "new". The conflict between the Western and grass-root, soil-related original, nationalist dispositions is a form of manifestation of the conflict of modernizing and conservative trends, a form that allows to somewhat attenuate this latter conflict and evade the blatantly antimarket and antidemocratic socialist conservatism.
The evolution of Russia's political elite considerably contributed to the enhancement of the prestige of the "national" values. After a short period of intensive market reforms, the economic and political power was in fact concentrated in the hands of the federal and regional bureaucracy which, unlike Soviet bureaucracy, maintains a special relationship with the market and is interested in market profits. Bureaucracy sides with a part the businessmen and new big owners it controls thus forming a bureaucracy-business governing stratum whose only interest is the consolidation of its power and maintenance of the status quo. It needs neither the restoration of the old regime nor a continued modernization; the only ideological symbol corresponding to its interests is the State under its control. The primacy of the State whose only purpose is to exist for its own sake, for the benefit of the state officials and business which depends on the latter but which enriches them, is most easily legitimized by way of "national interests" and a "national idea". Hence the etatist-nationalist shift of the Russian elites and the wide usage of the corresponding ideological symbols.
The correlation between various symbolic complexes in mass consciousness is rather unstable, oscillating with the economic and political situation. According to the public-opinion polls carried out by the RCPOR in 1997, 17.7% of the respondents were in favor of the development of Russia as "a state with a special regime and a special development path". This number is 2.6 times less than that of the supporters of "a state... similar to Western countries". A year later, 57% accepted the formula "Russia must go its own way" while only 10% preferred the capitalist (that is, Western) path. Such notable discrepancies can obviously be explained by the fact that the interviewers used a more odious term "capitalism" instead of "the West", more acceptable for the Russians. Anyway, the instability of opinions is evident. In fact, the most numerous part of population easily shifts to an opposite position when faces the alternative "Western" or "its own".
At the same time, in the period between 1992 and 1999 the percentage of the opponents of the Western path and the adepts of a nationally specific path grew steadily. In 1996, responding to the question "which way of life must we follow?" in a RCPOR public-opinion poll, 20% chose the Western way of life, 11% preferred the Soviet way of life, and 47% opted for "a traditionally Russian" way of life. Russian sociologists observed an upsurge of new Russian nationalism and neotraditionalism in this period 18 . This trend was evidently fed by frustration of national consciousness originated by the loss of the imperial grandeur but the difficulties in adaptation to the new reality and the disappointment with the "pro-Western" reforms played no lesser part.
Investigating the neotraditionalist trend, L.Goudkov defines it as "a negative sanction vis-à-vis the invasion of 'something alien' ", which can be "either the reform program proposed by Gaidar, or the new conditions of existence amidst the developing market economy, or the situation of more cultural and informational openness of Russian society... The mechanism of neutralization of the innovation impulses... in their evaluation is reduced to the positive qualification of everything trivial and infantile... and to the negative evaluation of anything complex, unusual, unstable. It may take the form of ostentatious orientation to the mythological patterns of old or peripheral "simple", stable existence counterbalanced to the indefinite present and even more indefinite future, which demands effort and exertion". As Goudkov supposes, the pro-Western orientation symbolizes this complexity and uncertainty and so it is seen "as something threatening, hopeless, despondent, and, in any case, without a bearing or stimulus for individual aspirations, without a guaranteed recompense..." 19 .
This latter point—the absence of a guaranteed recompense for having accepted the Western model—seems a key element in the above psychological mechanism since it is exactly this element that above all explains the growth of anti-Western and traditionalist sentiments. What we see here is the principle of adaptation of dispositions to the opportunities. In modern sociology, it was most deeply studied by P.Bourdieu. According to him, the actions of people and the dispositions guiding them are based on the process which he calls habitus defining it as the adjustment of the dispositions to the position, of the expectations to the chances, and as a necessity turned into a virtue 20 . In other words, he defines it as a spontaneous evaluation of the opportunities offered by an objective situation, and as the definition of a strategy corresponding to this evaluation. The 1990s saw the rejection of the Western model and counterbalancing it with the national-traditional model, which, in fact, was a new actualization of the archetypical rejection of the Western way of life, typical of the Russian mass consciousness. This actualization was originated by numerous newly arising difficulties inhibiting the reorientation of Russia to the path leading to the civilized market, the law-governed state and democracy.
Goudkov has all the reason to observe that the characteristic feature of the "traditionalist" choice is "the void and inanity of its determining features" 21 . Indeed, the adepts of this path only can determine its essence through its comparison with some patterns which are more imagined than real, and are distant in time ("all that is old") or in space. When questioned, they saw "the fullest expression of the Russian nature" either "in our ancestors" (39%) or "in remote parts of the country, in old Russian towns, behind the Urals, in Siberia" (36%). It is clear that such vague ideas can only motivate a "strategy" of inaction, passiveness, patience. In fact, the traditionalist alternative contains no positive program and so it is reduced to passive resistance to modernization.
At the same time, the ideologem of one's "original path" expresses, often rather explicitly, the traditional inferiority complex. At the time of the above-mentioned polling carried out in big Russian cities even anti-Western minded respondents said that the Western path was impossible for Russia since it could not reach the Western level of civilization.
In theory, the traditionalist alternative can also mean that Russia might stick to the great-power, imperial and, in fact, militarist orientation, traditional for Russian society. Here we touch upon a problem that has paramount importance for the topic covered in this paper. It is the problem of correlation between two modi of perceiving the image of the West and the attitude to it in Russian society: on the one hand, when it is assumed to be a model suitable or unsuitable for use in Russia, and, on the other, when it is taken as a geopolitical reality, as an international force forming the essential part of the external, global environment Russian society exists and evolves in.
The West: Enemy or Partner?
These two modi are evidently linked to each other. The cooling and then the obvious worsening of the relations between Russia and the West which evolved from ostentatious friendship and partnership early in the last decade to sufficiently serious conflicts in the end of this period coincides with the decrease of the prestige of the Western model and growth of the nationalist trends in Russian society. At the same time, this interconnection cannot be reduced to the simplistic scheme "the worse are the relations between Russia and the West (USA, NATO, EC) the less Russian society is inclined to a Western-type modernization". Many facts show that ideas and dispositions of the Russian in external policy and their opinions about the optimal path for their country often have completely different and even opposed vectors. This discrepancy is explained through different psychological characteristics of the two modi. The acceptance or rejection of the Western model and vacillation between these viewpoints are based on the rational, reflective, or spontaneously subconscious, operation of comparing the Western style of life with their own, and on the assessment of the possibilities of attainment of Western standards.
The attitude to the West as to a global political force has a much more affective nature. Anti-Western sentiments were inculcated to several generations of Soviet people through stereotypes of "capitalist encirclement" before the war and "struggle of the two systems" in the postwar period. Weakened during Gorbachev perestroika, these sentiments flared again after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp (Warsaw Pact), defeat of the USSR in the "cold war" and loss of the superpower status by the new Russia. Rational explanations of these events based on the internal weakness and crisis of the Soviet great power was only accepted by the intellectually advanced and liberally-minded minority of Russian society. The majority influenced by deeply rooted confrontation stereotypes saw this first and foremost as a result of the pressure of external forces, of the West, to which Russian leadership, allegedly, gave in because of weakness or treason. The logic of the insulted national feelings and the "insulted nation" complex resulted in that the reduced geopolitical status of Russia was seen as a manifestation of external aggression, a defeat of the country at the hands of a strong and perfidious enemy, rather than a result of the bankruptcy of the communist system.
These emotional sources of the current assessment of the new geopolitical situation give it a clearly mythological feature. In 1994, 42% accepted and 38% rejected the idea that "Russia always aroused hostile feeling in other states. Even now nobody wishes us well". In 1996, one quarter of the respondents believed that life in Russia was bad because it was "to the advantage of Western countries". in 1997, 51% thought that the leading Western countries were Russia's enemies which "want to solve their problems at Russia's expense and try to harm Russian interests if an opportunity arises". 44% were convinced that the NATO was "as hostile to Russia as before". 25% had the opposite point of view: "the former confrontation has now lost sense". 37% affirmed and 47% denied that a threat of an armed attack against Russia still exists. In 1998, 15% believed, 19 partially believed and 43.3% did not believe in the existence of an international plot against Russia 22 . Accordingly, the pro-Western trends in Russia's external policy have been widely condemned. In 1994, for example, 46% of the pollees were convinced that "the leadership of the country betrays Russia's national interests and those of the Russians. In early 1999, according to the Fund "Public Opinion", 75% of the respondents agreed with the thesis that Russia "in its decisions and actions depends too much on Western countries".
Such ideas of the goals of Western countries' policies and assessments of Russia's policy are more often found in people with low standards of education, in peasants, workers, pensioners, and are much less shared by young people. Nevertheless, even among people with higher education the percentage of "anti-Westerners" is not lower than among the whole of population taken as an average. There are especially many of them among managers and army and law enforcing personnel as well. In any case, such ideas are widespread far beyond the social environment under the direct ideological influence of communists and nationalists who propagate them.
It is clear that the ideas of the total hostility of the West, and the NATO, to Russia and of their aspiration to harm her interests are based not only on false phobias and myths. They are equally fed by frequent actions and statements of various Western economic and political circles, by the attitude of many Western media, by hesitations and contradictions in the policy of the NATO countries to Russia. Public opinion in Russia, for example, including its most intellectual and politically informed segments, has no clear idea as to why the NATO still exists after the "cold war" and even expands to the East. Public opinion has undoubtedly been influenced by a shift in the official external policy of Russia which has become somewhat distanced from the West since the mid-90s.
The mythological nature of these ideas comes not from their anti-Western bias as such but from the extreme primitivist interpretation of the image of the West, its reduction to the image of an enemy responsible for all misfortunes of Russia. The total wide spectrum of Western attitudes—from the wish to boost Russia's democratization and political stability to a cautious wait-and-see attitude in what concerns the disorganization and unpredictability of Russian reality, from limited economic aid to the Russian partner to the expansion of Western political and economic influence to cover the former Soviet republics as well as open plans to isolate and weaken Russia—all of them are reduced to ideas corresponding to tough anti-Russian statements by Z.Brzesinski, H.Kissinger, or the "Heritage" Fund.
The above data were collected before the 1999 Yugoslavia events and the second Chechen war. It is not that the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia simply reinforced the anti-Western trends in Russian public opinion; for some time, one could get the impression that a radical breakthrough was under way in the attitude of the Russians to Western countries and to the USA, in particular. When the bombing began the percentage of those who liked the USA shrunk from 57% to 14%, and the number of those who did not like that country rose from 28% to 72%. The anti-Western phobias also went up: in comparison with 1997 the number of those who believed that Russia had external enemies increased from 44% to 73% and the share of those who thought the USA was Russia's enemy went up from one third to a half. In April 1999, 70% believed that the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia directly threatened Russia's security 23 .
Public opinion was undoubtedly influenced by the pro-Serbian stand of the Russian governing circles and the bulk of the media. Both the former and the latter paid great attention to ethnic purges in Kossovo before the NATO military operation. Milosevic's policy was only criticized by a few not very influential TV channels and newspapers. Only after the exodus of refugees from Kossovo to neighboring countries information about those events became more balanced and unbiased. Nevertheless, the information factor alone cannot explain the reaction to the events in Yugoslavia.
In April 1999, 45% of the respondents said they knew the arguments in favor of the campaign, 13% blamed both sides in the conflict, 6% blamed Yugoslavia, and almost one third believed, early in May 1999, that Yugoslavia should accept the NATO forces deployment in Kosovo to stop the bombing. So, a considerable part of the Russians had more or less precise idea of the nature of the Kossovo problem and only condemned the inhuman methods used by the NATO in solving it ("they cannot bomb peaceful Yugoslav population to control Milosevic"). The overwhelming majority knew in one way or another the NATO arguments but did not consider them sincere—only 3% said in April 1999 that they thought the NATO bombed Yugoslavia to protect the rights of the Kossovars while the rest attributed to the alliance and especially to the USA such motives as demonstration of force, imposition of USA dictate preparation for the aggression against Russia, the establishment of the US hegemony in Europe, economic interests, antipathy to Milosevic regime.
The conviction that the policy of Western powers had the anti-Russian meaning strengthened even more in late 1999 vis-a-vis their reaction to Chechnya events. The overwhelming majority of Russian politicians, reporters and rank and file people were convinced that the West could not, neither wanted to, assess objectively the causes of the armed conflict there. This majority believed that the unilateral and vigorous condemnation of Russia when there was no positive alternative in the struggle against the Chechen terrorism first of all testified the growing anti-Russian bias of the policy carried out by the West. Russian society was convinced in this by what it considers as the "double standard" of the West's behavior: they morally justify the bombing of Yugoslavia and condemn the similar Russian measures in Chechnya qualifying them as inadmissible violation of human rights.
The soaring anti-Western feelings (affective modus of the attitude to the West) in Spring and Summer 1999 played down the prestige of the Western model (rational modus) and resulted in the growth of isolationist tendencies. The June 1999 poll showed that 69% of respondents accepted the formula "Russia must have its own path of development" and only 23% believed it "should be guided by universal models of development"; 62% said that the changes in Russia in the last decades resulted in "the loss of national identity under the Western pressure", and only 21% thought that today Russia "is returning to the world community after a long isolation". Even among the people under 30 years of age, who are normally inclined to choose the Western path, only 30% supported development in accordance with world standards and 64% proved to be isolationist-minded.
The worsening relations between Russia and the West and the growth of mutual alienation and suspicions can, as it seems, suppress to a considerable extent—but not totally—the attraction of the Western example among the broad masses of Russian society. What is it: fluctuations on the spur of the moment, a swing of the pendulum of public feelings, or a long-term, and maybe irreversible, trend?
To answer this question one should use sufficiently precise sociopsychological limits that a sort of block the "explosion" of mass anti-Western feelings. First of all, these limits are determined by the wish to avoid at any cost the extremist decisions fraught with the risk of an armed conflict. When the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia began, 86% of the respondents thought that Russia should in no way get involved in the armed conflict with the NATO while only 8% had the opposite opinion. Only 13% were in favor of arms shipments to Yugoslavia, 4% said volunteers should be sent to that country, 3% believed that diplomatic relations with the major NATO countries should be severed 24 . As the Yugoslav events went on and the Russians got better informed about them the share of more moderate opinions grew. Between April and June of 1999, the percentage of those who mainly blamed the NATO for the conflict decreased from 63% to 49%; there was a similar decrease—from 70% to 64%—in the number of those who believed that the NATO campaign threatened Russia's security 25 .
Even more than that: when the conflict came to a head 59% of the respondents (including half of the communist electorate) against 26% favored the strengthening of the relations with the USA. Another poll in June 1999 showed that 23% thought it right for Russia to strengthen economic and political relations with Western Europe in the first place and 18%, with the USA, while only 11% preferred Asia and the Middle East. After the war in Yugoslavia was over, 45%—including 39% of pro-Ziuganov voters among them (Ziuganov is the leader of Russian communists)—believed that Russia should promote cooperation with the NATO countries, as compared with 32% who were against this idea; 44% supposed that the relations with those countries would gradually normalize but 30% did not believe it was possible. One in three adepts of cooperation thought that Russia should at the same time take measures against the war threat from the NATO; 19% were in favor of strengthening Russia's defenses and 14% shared the idea of creation of an anti-NATO coalition 26 .
Thus, a considerable number of Russians—in fact, a relative majority of them—believe that the West (the USA and Western Europe) and its military and political personification, the NATO, is a source of threat. However, they would like "to make friends" with that adversary—at least, to establish a loyal partnership. In this attitude, hand in hand with the ideological anti-Western stereotypes and irrational phobias come the wish to establish a stable international peace, which is a priority for the Russians, the isolationist rejection of what is "alien" and destroys the habitual foundations of life, the aspiration "to live as everybody else", the hurt national pride, the hope to join the modern developed world. It is easy to see that the present external policy ideology of the Russian leadership is a combination of the protection of the national interests and their own position in the international scene with the maintenance of partnership relations with the Western community, which is more or less corresponds to the state of public opinion we have just analyzed.
On the whole, the attitude of Russian society to the West, to Western experience and values is now more positive than at the time of the "cold war". A massive "pro-Western" orientation has been formed, first of all among the younger generation, in the groups related to private business, and in a part of intelligentsia. But this orientation is also felt in the consciousness of other, broader segments of Russian society. It resulted from the widening of the information sphere involving Russian citizens, the growing ideological pluralism, and rapprochement with the West which took place in the last decade. However, there is no definite answer as to the irreversibility of this trend. Russian mass consciousness is still unstable and ambivalent in all its aspects, including the attitude to the West.
One of the deepest sources of this ambivalence is the permanently reproduced conflict between the cultural, psychological, traditionalist inertia and the ideological stereotypes and myths that personify it, on the one hand, and the pragmatic needs and motives that prop up the modernist tendency, on the other. One of the two tendencies prevails in the mentality of different social or demographic groups, in diverse subcultures, but often they coexist in the consciousness of the same social and individual subjects.
One of the typical examples of this situation is the attitude of the Russians to the inflow of Western capital, which in most cases is looked at as extremely negative. "The predominance of foreign capital" threatening Russia's independence and leading to "the pillage of its riches" is one of the most frequent phobias in the mass consciousness. Many people, however, radically change their mind when their concrete pragmatic interests and not an abstract ideological position are concerned. In July 1999, 54% of the respondents were against and 25% in favor of the inflow of foreign capital to Russia. An equal share—42%—was against and in favor of foreign investments into the economy of the region the respondents lived in. A month earlier, 38% would accept American investments to develop the region they lived in 27 .
The decisive factor determining the further evolution of the attitude of the Russians to the West will undoubtedly be the socioeconomic, political, and cultural development of Russian society itself. It seems, however, that this evolution will be influenced by the policy the West will follow in relation to Russia. Here, a bigger role will be played not by the practical activity but rather by the general "style" of this policy. Due to the peculiarities of its present psychological state, Russian society is highly sensitive (we can even say "vulnerable") to all "signals" coming from the West. Any sign of hostility, alienation, or negligence to Russian problems and interests, to say nothing of the wish to harm them, can cause one more negative shift in the Russians' state of mind as far as their perception of the West is concerned, play down the influence of its example, raise the prestige of the conservative and nationalist political forces. On the contrary, signs of good will, sympathy, respect towards Russia, understanding of Russia can promote pro-Western tendencies, raise the prestige of Western values and economic and political institutions in Russian society.
In the context of the present-day globalization, the events in Russia cannot help influencing considerably the whole world in the coming decades. Russia, isolated from the Western world, unable to overcome its technological and economic backwardness, losing the will to go on with modernization under the pressure of nationalistic fervor, could become one of the worst focuses of global instability, international tension and conflicts with unpredictable outcomes. At the same time, a modernized Russia, that successfully overcomes the socioeconomic crisis, strengthens and develops partnership relations with the West, could make a penderable contribution to a more balanced development of the globalization processes.
Endnotes:
Note 1: Iu.Levada. "The Soviet Man and Western Society: the Problem of the Alternative". In the book: Yu.Levada. Articles on Sociology. Moscow, 1993, p. 180-181 (in Russian). Back.
Note 2: K.Kholodkovski. "On the Causes of the Socio-Political Differentiation of Russian Society". In: Man in Transitional Society. Moscow, 1998, p. 64 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 3: I.Kliamkin, V.Lapkin. "The Russian Problem in Russia". POLIS. No 5, 1995, p. 82.Back.
Note 4: Contemporary Russian Society: Transition Period. Moscow, 1998, p. 23 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 5: Reports of the Fund "Public Opinion", 1999, No 49, p. 32-33 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 6: Contemporary Russian Society... p. 21 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 7: G. Diligensky. "Differentiation or Fragmentation? (On Political Consciousness in Russia)", in Social Sciences. 2000, No 3.Back.
Note 8: V.Lapkin, V.Pantin. "The Values of the Post-Soviet Man", in the book The Man in Transitional Society. Moscow, 1998, p. 20 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 9: Ibid., p.21 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 10: Ekonomicheskiye i sotsialnye peremeny: monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniya (Economic and Social Changes: Monitoring of Public Opinion). 1997, No 2, p. 21.Back.
Note 11: A.Zubov. "The Boundaries of the Rift and the Levels of Unity in Today's Russia: the Lessons of a Sociological Investigation". Politika. 1998, No 2, p. 97.Back.
Note 12: V.Lapkin, V.Pantin. Op.cit., p. 29.Back.
Note 13: Contemporary Russian Society... p. 27-28.Back.
Note 14: G.Fedotov. "Russia and Freedom". In the book: Russian Philosophers. Anthology. 1996, p.183 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 15: Yu.Levada. Op. cit. p. 7.Back.
Note 16: G. Diligensky. The Russian Citizen of the Late 90s: Genesis of Post-Soviet Consciousness. Moscow, 1998, p. 84 (in Russian) .Back.
Note 17: V.Lapkin, V.Pantin. "The Russian Order". POLIS. 1997, No 3, p. 81.Back.
Note 18: Yu. Levada. "New Russian Nationalism: Ambitions, Phobias, Complexes". Ekonomichesdiye i sotsialniye peremeny: monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniya. 1994, No 1.Back.
Note 19: L.Goudkov. "Russian Neo-Traditionalism". Ekonomicheskiye i sotsialniye peremeny... 1997, No 2, p. 32.Back.
Note 20: See P.Bourdieu. Choses dites. P., 1987, p. 18.Back.
Note 21: L.Goudkov. Op. cit., p. 30-31.Back.
Note 22: Contemporary Russian Society..., p. 21.Back.
Note 23: Reports of the Fund "Public Opinion", 1999, No 12, 42, 44, 48.Back.
Note 26: Ibid., No 53, 57.Back.
Note 27: Ibid., No 54, 60.Back.
Translated by Vladimir Fartushny