“The state of Russian society can be called immoral. I was shocked by the degree of approval of the war”. Interview with Lev Gudkov, sociologist, Doctor of Philosophy and research director of the Levada Center

7 comments

1. This is an interview with [Lev Gudkov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Gudkov), Russian sociologist and the head of [Levada Center.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levada_Center) The original piece is in Russian – here I post the whole thing translated via DeepL. The intro is in this comment, the main body is in replies to it:

   **Lev Gudkov: The state of Russian society can be called immoral**

   *”I was shocked by the degree of approval of the war. I expected a much more acute and negative public reaction to the declaration of war. Society turned out to be more rotten, more submissive and passive.” Interview with Lev Gudkov, sociologist, Doctor of Philosophy and research director of the Levada Center.*

2. > people not afraid to tell what they are thinking

   > but we record phone polls, conversations

   According to the Russian law police and fsb can check all that staff without any need of court judgement.

   > people are opportunists and have an apathy

   Why then they tell you truth, mean what they are thinking about it and not what they supposed government want to hear?

   Questions, questions.

   But I agree that huge amount of Russians support the war.

3. “Alcoholized” and “drinking environment” are expressions I never expected to see outside of satirical settings.

4. Levada Center: Russians support the war, people not afraid to tell what they are thinking!

   Meanwhile in Russia: Despite assurances of safety, a plane near Moscow explodes with Prigozhin on board, who dared to rebel against the top leadership.

   ​

   People. Not. Afraid. To. Tell. What. They. Are. Thinking.

5. Putin has managed to put the thumb screws on most of Russian society obviously there are a few outspoken ones but the whole world knows what happens if you cross Putin or speak out against his regime. But this is what the Soviet Union did The regime maintained its political power by means of the secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cultism, restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, political purges and persecution of specific groups of people.

6. There’s a good article (in Russian) that calls out questionable standards of Levada.

   https://theins(dot)ru/obshestvo/261961

   Important excerpt

   > I really like the scheme that Russian Field introduced: they started asking a battery of two questions, each starting with “if tomorrow Vladimir Putin decides that…” and followed by two contradictory decisions, such as to continue the war or end the war. And in both cases the overwhelming majority supports these decisions with a difference of a few per cent, although they seemingly should exclude each other. Why? Because the question is not which decision you support. The question people hear is “do you support Vladimir Putin?” – “Well, of course we do.”

   > This is the most important danger, because, of course, these polls do not express the “will of the people”. The people who answer them do not understand them that way at all. They hear something else in these polls. Basically, the question is: “Are you ready to go against the emperor or not?” Yeah, I’d probably agree that about 80 per cent would say, “No, we’re not ready.” Well, we didn’t know that, did we? Did we need polls for that? We can see it already, there is no sensationalism here. This is the most incorrect way of perceiving these polls – to read them as the result of a plebiscite. In this case, you are simply constructing an object that does not exist.

7. people often nowadays are afraid to post certain memes on social platforms in russia because you may end up being prosecuted. I don’t see how they make the conclusion of people not being afraid to give an interview.