Trust, confidence and social environment in post-communist societies

This paper looks at trust and confidence in people and institutions in eight of the countries that have undergone transformation since the breakup of the Soviet Union. While the questions are not identical to those asked in previous research in post-Soviet societies, our findings are comparable—greatest trust in relatives and friends, less in people in general and least in politicians and institutions of social control. Levels of trust are not high, and there are interesting differences between the countries, giving support to the view that trust and confidence are eroded by sudden and dramatic negatively perceived change.

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The Challenges to Social Control in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, 1964-1982

RUDN Journal of Russian History ◽

10.22363/2312-8674-2021-20-1-160-173 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 160-173

Author(s):

Fedor L. Sinitsyn

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Social Control ◽

Soviet System ◽

State Archive ◽

Central State ◽

The Public ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Russian State ◽

The Government ◽

General Secretary

This article examines the development of social control in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, who was General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1964 to 1982. Historians have largely neglected this question, especially with regard to its evolution and efficiency. Research is based on sources in the Russian State Archive of Modern History (RGANI), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) and the Moscow Central State Archive (TSGAM). During Brezhnevs rule, Soviet propaganda reached the peak of its development. However, despite the fact that authorities tried to improve it, the system was ritualistic, unconvincing, unwieldy, and favored quantity over quality. The same was true for political education, which did little more than inspire sullen passivity in its students. Although officials recognized these failings, their response was ineffective, and over time Soviet propaganda increasingly lost its potency. At the same time, there were new trends in the system of social control. Authorities tried to have a foot in both camps - to strengthen censorship, and at the same time to get feedback from the public. However, many were afraid to express any criticism openly. In turn, the government used data on peoples sentiments only to try to control their thoughts. As a result, it did not respond to matters that concerned the public. These problems only increased during the era of stagnation and contributed to the decline and subsequent collapse of the Soviet system.

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A New Circle of Hell: The Postwar Gulag and the Rise of the Special Camps

Death and Redemption ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691151120.003.0006 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Steven A. Barnes

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Social Control ◽

Life Experience ◽

Social World ◽

Political Institution ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

The Social ◽

Significant Life Experience ◽

Red Army ◽

Significant Life

This chapter takes the Gulag into the postwar era when authorities used the institution in an attempt to reassert social control. At the same time, arrivals from the newly annexed western territories and former Red Army soldiers dramatically altered the social world of the Gulag prisoner. New prisoner populations of war veterans, nationalist guerrillas, and peoples with significant life experience outside the Soviet Union provided a potentially combustible mix. The isolation and concentration of many of these prisoners in a small number of special camps raised even further the potential explosiveness of the population. The Gulag was a political institution, though, and it was only the death of the system's founder that would set off the explosions.

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Religion and Social Control in the Soviet Union 1945–1964

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400007786 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 21 ◽

pp. 473-480

Author(s):

Gavin White

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Social Control ◽

Second World War ◽

World War ◽

The West ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Second World ◽

Do So

Why have churches in the U.S.S.R. been harassed in recent years? It has been supposed by many that if Stalin stopped most persecution during the Second World War, then things under Khrushchev could only improve. Instead they deteriorated, and all liberties of Soviet citizens received more respect except the religious.A common answer has been that the Soviet authorities were horrified by the continued hold of religion which they considered to be a threat to Marxism. Such a view is quite popular in the west where a clash of ideologies, with Christianity triumphing over Marxism, consoles churchmen who cannot find such a triumph in their own society. But this assumes that the Soviet rulers consider Christianity to be a religion based on certain tenets, and as Marxists they cannot be expected to do so. For them religion is primarily an instrument of social control.

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