{"id":12024,"date":"2017-06-29T06:57:25","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T11:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/in-russia-nostalgia-for-soviet-union-and-positive-feelings-about-stalin\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:16:29","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:16:29","slug":"in-russia-nostalgia-for-soviet-union-and-positive-feelings-about-stalin","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2017\/06\/29\/in-russia-nostalgia-for-soviet-union-and-positive-feelings-about-stalin\/","title":{"rendered":"In Russia, nostalgia for Soviet Union and positive feelings about Stalin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Female<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A man holds a portrait of late Soviet dictator Josef Stalin as others place candles at a church in Stalin’s native town of Gori, Georgia, on March 5, 2017, the 64th anniversary of his death. (Vano Shlamov\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the breakup of the Soviet Union \u201cthe greatest geopolitical catastrophe<\/a>\u201d of the 20th century. \u201cTens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory,\u201d Putin said in a 2005 speech.<\/p>\n\n

While not all Russians necessarily agree with Putin\u2019s characterization, most do view the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 as \u201ca bad thing,\u201d according to a\u00a0Pew Research Center survey<\/a> of Russia and 17 other countries in Central and Eastern Europe conducted between 2015 and 2016. And this view is not limited to Russia.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

For example, in Russia, as well as in the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Moldova, roughly seven-in-ten or more view the Soviet collapse as \u201ca bad thing,\u201d and, in Belarus, 54% see it in a negative light. Of the five other former Soviet states surveyed, adults in the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania \u2014 which were forcibly incorporated into the USSR \u2014 are among least likely to view the Soviet breakup as a bad thing, with three-in-ten or fewer in each country holding this view.<\/p>\n\n

A more recent 2017<\/a> Pew Research Center poll in Russia shows a 10-percentage-point drop in the share of Russians who say the collapse of the Soviet Union has been a bad thing for their country (59% in 2017, compared with 69% in 2015). This change goes hand in hand with an improved overall economic outlook among Russians. Still, a majority of Russians continue to say the collapse of the Soviet Union has been a bad thing for their country.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Positive feelings for the USSR generally are greater among older people in Russia and the other former Soviet republics surveyed. For example, while 78% of Russian adults ages 35 and older in the 2015 survey see the breakup as a bad thing, half of Russians under 35 feel this way. Age gaps of this nature exist in all of the former Soviet republics surveyed except Estonia, including in countries where those who have nostalgic views of the USSR are in the minority. For instance, in Ukraine, just 20% of adults under 35 see the Soviet collapse as a bad thing, while 40% of those ages 35 and over do.<\/p>\n\n

Nostalgia for the Soviet past also extends to views of its longest-serving leader, Josef Stalin, with adults in Russia and some other nearby countries expressing more positive views of Stalin than of Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the USSR\u2019s final years.<\/p>\n\n

In Russia, 58% of adults see Stalin\u2019s historical role in either a \u201cvery\u201d or \u201cmostly\u201d positive light, compared with just 22% who feel the same way about Gorbachev. People in three other former Soviet republics \u2013 Georgia (where Stalin was born), Armenia and Moldova \u2013 also view Stalin significantly more positively than they view Gorbachev. Meanwhile, Gorbachev receives a higher rating than Stalin in the Baltic countries, as well in the Central European countries of Poland, Hungary, Croatia and Czech Republic.<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many Russians say the collapse of the Soviet Union has been a bad thing for their country. 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