DOMESTIC STRESSES IN THE USSR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 102
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 29, 2011
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: April 1, 1986
• Content Type: REPORT

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Directorate of
Intelligence
met
Domestic Stresses in the USSR
SOV 86-10017X
April 1986
350
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Directorate of Secret
Intelligence
Domestic Stresses in the USSR
Domestic Policy Division, SOYA,
This paper was prepared by I
DOffice of Soviet Analysis, with a contribution
fromSOVA. Comments and queries
are welcome and may be directed to the Chief,
Secret
SOV 86-10017X
April 1986
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Domestic Stresses in the USSR I 25X1
Key Judgments Gorbachev's ability to achieve his ambitious economic and social goals
Information available depends critically on his success in dealing with the wide array of inter-
as of 24 February 1986 related domestic problems that have accumulated over the past decade. As
was used in this report.
consumption growth tapered off in the 1970s and the population became less
isolated from the outside world, popular discontent grew, especially among
youth, religious believers, and national minorities. Leadership ineptitude
and bureaucratic corruption exacerbated these problems and eroded the
system's legitimacy in the public mind. Partly as a result of growing popular
morale problems, the spectrum of antisocial behavior-crime, alcohol
abuse, and sporadic unrest-widened.
These problems are not likely to produce a fundamental challenge to regime
control during the remainder of the 1980s, although spontaneous large-scale
localized disturbances may occur. Nor are tensions within the elite itself
likely to grow to the point of destabilizing the system. Domestic pressures,
however, will probably exert a more significant influence on regime policy
than at any time since the period after Stalin's death. Concern to prevent
unrest, limit the economic costs of societal malaise, and shore up popular
and elite confidence in the system will be a major factor in leadership
decisions about a wide range of issues-investment strategy, economic
reform, social policy, and perhaps even foreign policy.
The leadership has long known that corruption, popular cynicism, and
various social pathologies adversely affect the regime's economic and social
goals. More recently, there has been increased recognition that at some point
domestic problems could combine to produce political instability. Andropov,
Chernenko, and Gorbachev have stated in public speeches that internal
problems, if unattended or mishandled, could spiral out of control and
produce social "collisions" or a political "crisis."
Growing concern within the Soviet establishment about the USSR's
vulnerability to outside pressures has fed these fears. Many officials are
worried that increased access to information from the West, especially
through foreign radiobroadcasting, is intensifying the frustrations of many
citizens about Soviet living standards and enabling them to evaluate regime
propaganda more critically. Officials are also concerned that the war in
Afghanistan is damaging morale within the elite and heightening popular
pessimism about the future. Most important, the crisis in Poland has
brought home to Soviet elites the potentially disastrous consequences of an
attitude of equanimity toward domestic problems.
iii Secret
SOV 86-10017X
April 1986
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Although aware of the problems, Brezhnev did little to address them, both
because he was reluctant to make the politically tough decisions and
because of his own disability. Gorbachev, however, has set for himself the
ambitious objective of reviving Soviet Communism-by revitalizing the
economy, the society, the ideology, and the party itself. Partly because his
vision and aspirations are broader than Brezhnev's, he sees the same
domestic situation in more alarming terms. He has been critical of past re-
gime failure to take timely action, and clearly believes that continued
unwillingness to attack the problems could eventually lead to a more
unstable and threatening situation.
The General Secretary, building on initiatives started under Andropov, has
moved vigorously to address the societal and economic ailments confront-
ing the regime. Although his program is still in the developmental stage,
Gorbachev apparently intends to avoid sharp swings toward repression or
liberalization while utilizing elements of both approaches. Likely steps,
many of which are extensions of current initiatives, include:
? Tightening labor discipline, increasing rewards for productive workers,
and imposing heavier penalties on laggards.
? Employing harsher measures against dissent and religious activism, while
increasing radio jamming and taking other steps to limit Western
influences on Soviet society.
? Stiffening penalties for criminal offenses and upgrading the law enforce-
ment apparatus.
? Appearing more responsive to public opinion, discussing problems with
greater candor, and more openly using Russian nationalism as a prop to
the system.
? Infusing the elite with younger and more competent individuals, while
moving to reduce official corruption.
? Increasing efforts to indoctrinate youth through an educational reform,
adopting a set of measures to bolster the family as a pillar of social
stability, and continuing the campaign to restrict alcohol consumption.
? Improving consumer welfare through more efficient organization and
greater budgetary allocations.
These policies-if enacted and pursued as vigorously as those now under
way-will increase turbulence within society and the elite. Within official-
dom, powerful vested interests will attempt to slow the pace and limit the
scope of change. Competition for prerogatives and position will be height-
ened by the replacement of older and less competent party workers with
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
younger and better qualified men, the move to attack entrenched regional
networks by giving more preferential treatment to Russian elites in non-
Russian republics, the campaign against official corruption, and the
limitations on job security. Shifts in resource allocation policy will pit
bureaucracies against one another. The adoption of controversial new
social policies such as the antialcohol campaign will intensify elite debate
over whether a new course will disrupt the truce between state and society.
Within society, a tougher work ethic, stricter discipline, and more differen-
tiated wages will strain relations between high and low performers at the
workplace. Some types of economic reform, by undercutting worker job
security and removing subsidies for basic commodities, could provoke labor
strikes. Ordinary citizens will find the campaigns against crime and
economic illegality, alcoholism, religion, and draft dodging increasingly
cutting into their personal lives and constraining their public behavior. The
educational reform will be resented by those whose opportunities for
upward social mobility are restricted by it. Intensified Russification may
lead to more extreme forms of protest among disaffected minorities.
Gorbachev is counting on the support of the "strong" elements of both the
elite and the society to make his program work. Indeed, the regime may
well be able to achieve some marginal upswing in economic performance,
arrest the erosion of instruments of control and mobilization, and generate
somewhat greater popular respect for the power and capabilities of the
regime.
Even so, Soviet leaders will face continuing problems throughout the 1980s
and beyond. Soviet societal problems result from fundamental contempo-
rary conditions that the regime is unable or unwilling to alter. The growing
sophistication of consumer demand is a natural consequence of the very
process of economic modernization that the regime wants to further. The
growing size of the critically thinking public is the result of expanded
education, which is essential to the country's progress. The exposure of the
population to external influences is partly due to technological advances in
communications beyond the regime's control.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
It is by no means certain what combination of policies the Gorbachev
regime will adopt or how far change will reach. Some of the moves he has
made thus far were unexpected, and further unconventional changes and
surprises will probably follow. But extreme moves toward broad liberaliza-
tion of the system or toward sharply increased repression would probably
not become options unless the leadership decided domestic problems had
reached crisis proportions.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Key Judgments
Shift in the Mood of the Population 5
Discontent Over the "Quality of Life" 5
Materialism, Privatism, and Ideological Cynicism 8
Human Rights Dissent 18
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
The War in Afghanistan
37
Leadership Assessment of the Situation: Perceptions of Problems
39
Passive Approach: The Brezhnev-Chernenko Stance
49
Regime Response to Domestic Problems: Charting Policy and Strategy
52
Improving Propaganda and Public Relations
59
Strengthening the Social Fabric
61
Pressures and Opportunities for Change
65
Near-Term Strategy and Outlook
68
Future Options and Alternative Courses
72
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Preface This Intelligence Assessment,
25X1
25X1
provides 25X1
expanded analysis and fuller elaboration of evidence regarding the political
and social dimensions of domestic stresses in the USSR.
Accurate assessment of societal issues suffers from severe data problems.
The Soviets regard information on many social pathologies, such as crime
rates, as state secrets. They rarely publish overall statistics on social trends
and conduct little sociological research. Many of their published surveys on
public attitudes suffer from methodological flaws, as do informal polls
conducted by Radio Liberty. Emigre reporting and Soviet dissident
literature, although important sources, may suffer from problems of bias.
Much embassy reporting is impressionistic or anecdotal.
Moreover, many of the trends being examined are attitudinal ones that
cannot be readily quantified.
Consequently, while all of the conclusions in this paper can be supported
with documentation, few can be rigorously "proved." Nevertheless, we are
confident that the analysis presented here is on target. We can discern the
general direction of trends in regime-society relations even if we cannot
determine precisely the extent of the change observed. This assessment
thus constitutes a baseline for future collection and analysis on a subject
that will merit frequent reexamination in the years ahead.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 i
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Summary
Domestic Stresses in the USSR I 25X1
The Soviet regime of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev faces an array
of serious political and social problems that are closely interrelated with
adverse economic stresses. Although many of the strains in the system and
society have been present for decades, some of them have become worse
since the mid-1970s, making it increasingly difficult for Gorbachev's
activist regime to steer a course that avoids both social unrest and
economic stagnation. Over the past decade, social cohesiveness and
ideological faith have declined, and bureaucratic corruption has mounted.
Erosion has been evident in the regime's basic values and norms, and its le-
gitimacy in the eyes of the population has suffered.
How Kremlin leaders cope with accumulated domestic difficulties will
affect the vitality and stability of the system in the years to come and will
significantly influence the growth of Soviet power. There are strong
pressures for change to restore dynamism, direction, and discipline to the
elite and the society at large. At the same time, change itself, even if
carefully managed, could prove economically hazardous, socially disrup-
tive, and politically contentious.
Sources of Stability
Since World War II Soviet society has been one of the most stable and po-
litically quiescent in the world. There have been three main reasons for
this.
First, the Soviet regime has powerful instruments of control and indoctri-
nation. These include a huge propaganda and censorship apparatus, an
educational system that inculcates children with "socialist values," mass
organizations like the Komsomol that serve the same function, and an
internal political police force that has vast repressive capabilities and
maintains a network of informers in all institutions and enterprises. The
top political leadership has been able to ensure the loyalty and obedience of
key elites by manipulating a system of privileges to tie elite interests closely
to the successful functioning of the system and by using institutionalized
mechanisms for monitoring and controlling elite activities.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Second, for most of the time since Stalin's death in 1953, the regime has
provided its citizens with what most of them cherish above all-peace,
public order, personal security, and a gradual improvement in the standard
of living:
? The diet has improved considerably and become more varied over the
past 25 years. The quantity and quality of consumer goods has improved
markedly as well.
? The system guarantees education, medical care, jobs, and pensions for
all. However deficient these welfare services may be, many Soviet
citizens derive comfort from the feeling that they do not have to fear the
unemployment, periodic depressions, ruthless competition, and prohibi-
tive medical expenses they associate with capitalism.
? Until recently, the state kept violent crime at a minimum, at least in pub-
lic places. Most Soviet citizens believe that strong law and order is an in-
herent advantage of socialism over Western capitalist countries-which
Soviet propagandists portray as violent, degenerate, and morally bank-
rupt societies.
? Until the invasion of Afghanistan, the regime kept Soviet soldiers out of
foreign wars-important to a population that lost 20 million lives in
World War II.
Third, habits and attitudes that are deeply rooted in Russian history have
made it easier for the regime to maintain social control:
? Most of the population lacks any tradition of individual rights or political
democracy. Never having participated in political life, Soviet citizens see
the regime as a world apart and are extraordinarily apathetic toward
"high politics." Identifying Western liberty with social anarchy, and
lacking any democratic heritage, many of them perceive no alternative to
authoritarian rule.
? Until recently, Soviet consumers had relatively simple aspirations. The
country has only recently emerged as an urban, industrial society, and
many city dwellers are only one generation removed from the farm.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Never having enjoyed material prosperity, the population has exhibited a
high tolerance of deprivation.
? The great psychological gulf separating the educated classes from
workers and peasants has effectively prevented any convergence of
worker and intelligentsia dissent and made it easier for the regime to use
"divide and rule" tactics. The intelligentsia has traditionally seen the
lower classes as a "dark" element, fearing that any "revolt of the masses"
would turn into an uncontrollable orgy of destruction. Most workers
distrust the intelligentsia as a privileged, self-interested stratum.
? Until now the continuing vitality of Russian nationalism has been a
major asset for the regime. Most Russians oppose any significant
increase in autonomy for the non-Russian nationalities who now make up
over half the population. Many fear that any major reforms could
unleash separatist strivings of the minorities. As a result, they have
accepted strong central control as necessary to maintain Russian
hegemony.
? Moreover, strong patriotic impulses cause many Russians and other Slavs
to take pride in the USSR's superpower role and in Soviet hegemony over
Eastern Europe. To a considerable degree, the regime has succeeded in
conditioning the population to believe that any internal opposition plays
into the hands of foreign enemies.
Growth of Discontent and Tension
Despite these strong forces for stability, developments over the past decade
have weakened several props to the system and given rise to greater public
discontent about internal conditions:
? Most important, beginning in the mid-1970s, growth in the economy
began to slow, leading to a virtual stagnation of consumption. Since this
came on the heels of rapid advancements in consumer welfare in the
Khrushchev and early Brezhnev years, many people had the feeling that
their material circumstances were actually deteriorating and that the
country was going backward.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
? Over the past two decades there has been a hardening of class lines. In
the early decades of Soviet rule, rapid industrialization, the Stalin
purges, and the manpower losses of World War II had enabled huge
numbers of enterprising individuals to vault themselves from one class
into another, to rise "from peasant to commissar." In today's middle-
aged system, opportunities for upward social mobility are more limited.
? During the 1970s the population became less isolated from the outside
world. With detente there was a modest increase in trade with the West,
tourism and emigration grew, and the regime temporarily stopped
jamming some Western radiobroadcasts into the USSR. At the same
time, the spread of mass communications brought Finnish television into
Estonian homes and Polish television into Ukrainian homes. As the
regime's monopoly of information loosened, Soviet citizens were better
able to compare their lot with that of peoples enjoying a much higher
standard of living, and to gain access to foreign news that enabled them
to evaluate regime propaganda more critically.
? The passage of time has had an effect on the population's outlook. The
regime tries hard to keep memories of World War II alive both as a sym-
bol of national unity and as a reminder of how much life has improved
since those days of hardship. But many young people today are compar-
ing their situation not with the difficult Soviet past but with contempo-
rary conditions in Eastern Europe and even in the capitalist West. Even
many older citizens say that in the absence of a national crisis they are
tired of waiting for a tomorrow that never comes. Moreover, there has
been a decline in the level of fear, especially among young people who
have no personal memories of the Stalin purges. They are speaking out
more readily in criticism of current internal conditions.
? Since the 1960s, ideology has atrophied as a force for mobilizing the
work force. Unfulfilled regime promises (such as the promise in the 1961
Communist Party Program of attaining the world's highest living
standard by 1980) have made most citizens extremely cynical about
regime propaganda. In fact, not many Soviets any longer believe in the
Communist "tomorrow."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
25X1
? During Brezhnev's tenure, corruption grew at all levels of officialdom,
increasing popular resentment of the abuses of office of the ruling elite
and eroding respect for law and authority. Moreover, the general
"stability of cadres" and the ability of elite members to secure education
and positions for their children have given the privileged elite some
characteristics of a hereditary aristocratic class and generated resent-
ment among nonelite elements.
? In recent years, the decrepitude of the senior party leadership and the
sense of policy drift and absence of firm direction at the top have
damaged the regime's image and made the Politburo itself the butt of nu-
merous popular jokes.
The mood of the Soviet population has clearly shifted. The optimism of the
1960s has given way to a more demanding, less believing, and less pliable
society, as manifested in a variety of related ways:
? Worker morale has fallen, increasing labor productivity problems. Many
workers appear to think there is little point in exerting themselves since
wages are low even for high performers and there is a shortage of quality
goods to buy.
? Much of the population has become more materialistic, infatuated with
Western goods and fashions, and inclined to denigrate Soviet
merchandise.
? More citizens are "dropping out" of public activities and pursuing more
rewarding private affairs, such as trafficking on the black market.
Subcultures beyond the regime's purview, such as rock music, have
expanded.
? Soviet youth are increasingly engaging in various types of "deviant" and
"delinquent" behavior-drifting, dodging the draft, rejecting marriage.
A few have even experimented with prostitution and Hare Krishna.
? Crime appears to have grown significantly in the late 1970s, and teenage
gangs have even made their appearance in some cities. Widespread theft
from the state is accepted as normal and even regarded as legitimate by
many people.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
? Alcohol abuse, Russia's national pastime and historical plague, has
assumed alarming proportions. This "monstrous phenomenon," as the
Politburo recently called it, is a major reason the USSR is the only
industrial nation in the world with a declining male life expectancy.
? The USSR faces an emerging drug problem, partly because of the
exposure of soldiers in Afghanistan to drugs. Most Soviet conscripts in
Afghanistan use drugs, and some carry their habits back to the USSR.
? Religion is attracting increasing numbers of people, reinforcing anti-
Russian nationalism among many ethnic groups, enhancing youth alien-
ation even in major cities of the Russian heartland, and graphically
demonstrating the failure of official ideology to compete with "vestiges of
the past" for the hearts and minds of the Soviet population.
? The growth in the proportion of the non-Slavic population, the shrinking
of available resources for allocation to competing regional groups, and
the influence of external developments in Poland and Afghanistan on
some nationalities have produced new sources of friction among ethnic
groups.
? During the 1970s, emigration campaigns began among several religious
and ethnic minorities-Germans, Pentecostals, Armenians, and Greeks,
as well as Jews. A few dissident elements are advocating more radical
tactics of protest, such as the formation of opposition groups with
political action programs.
? Sporadic labor strikes, nationality demonstrations, and protests over food
shortages have increased somewhat over the past decade-although the
regime has in each instance been able to isolate the unrest and prevent its
spread.
Over the past decade morale problems within the Soviet elite have also
increased. Before Gorbachev's accession, many officials feared the party
had grown so effete and preoccupied with preserving its privileges that it
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
had lost its ideological bearings and capacity for governing effectively.
Problems within the elite in many respects parallel those within society as a
whole:
? Some elite members exhibit a lower sense of social purpose than in the
past, a weaker commitment to serving the party and the country as
opposed to bureaucratic and especially private interests.
? The elite's vision of the Soviet future, to judge from reporting, has
become gloomier. Many middle- and lower-level officials fear the
economy is "played out" and seem more apprehensive about the potential
for popular unrest than at any time since the period immediately
following Stalin's death.
? Elite discipline eroded during Brezhnev's final years and during the brief
tenures of the aged and ill Andropov and Chernenko, when many elites
came to see the Politburo as a geriatric group out of touch with reality
and lacking any long-range vision or strategy for dealing with accumulat-
ed problems.
Political and Economic Costs
Growing dissatisfaction within society and within the elite itself has had
significant adverse consequences for the regime. The economic price is
especially high:
? Disgruntled workers shirk their jobs to moonlight on more profitable
second jobs in the unofficial economy. The absence of quality goods to
purchase, combined with price controls and the trend toward wage
leveling, has reduced the effectiveness of wage incentives.
? Rates of labor turnover are high. The low standard of living in many ar-
eas targeted for priority development makes it difficult to retain workers.
Many young people "roam" from one unsatisfying job to another. The
flight of the young and able bodied from dreary and impoverished
villages has seriously depleted the rural work force.
? The shortage of housing and other amenities creates frustrations that
contribute to a climbing divorce rate and a declining birth rate in Slavic
areas, thus compounding the labor shortage.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
? Alcohol abuse contributes to adverse demographic trends and is partly
responsible for high rates of worker absenteeism and industrial accidents.
? Many man-hours are lost in the daily ordeal of shopping, yet the
consumer's refusal to buy shoddy goods has led to a buildup of personal
savings accounts and high inventory losses as unsalable goods
accumulate.
The shift in popular and elite attitudes has potentially significant political
implications. Mounting friction between different elements of the elite-
both self-interested conflict over privilege and position, and bureaucratic
debate over policy issues and resource allocations-have increased the
chances that counterelites could emerge along institutional, generational,
or ethnic lines. Moreover, with the widening of the spectrum of antisocial
behavior, of private activities not sanctioned by the regime, and of
unofficial mechanisms for "working" the system, the formal institutional
structure has become less relevant to the average citizen's daily life:
? Some skilled workers who know their jobs are secure in a period of labor
shortages have become less malleable and more inclined to "bargain" for
improved working conditions by threatening to change jobs.
? In some respects, the second economy is undermining the official
economy by creating a rival marketplace to which human and material
resources are diverted. Although the second economy helps to satisfy
consumer demand for products and services the official economy does not
supply, it subverts centrally established priorities and challenges central-
ized control over prices and income distribution.
? Similarly, corruption robs the state coffers of revenue that passes to
private hands and leads to the accumulation of personal fortunes. By
providing lower-level officials with alternative sources of income, it
makes them somewhat less dependent on privileges bestowed by the
party, and consequently harder to keep in line. Corruption has also
reduced the effectiveness of regime instruments of social control, such as
the police.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Moscow must also contend with the possibility of increased manifestations
of ethnic tension:
? Ethnic tensions in the military could somewhat impair troop reliability in
future unpopular military interventions.
? Russian national feeling at some point could turn against the regime.
Large numbers of Russian intellectuals disillusioned with what they see
as the impoverishment of Soviet culture are attracted to the writings of
emigres and conservative nationalist authors who oppose the party
establishment.
? In some republics, especially in the Baltic area, the chances of a
convergence of intellectual dissent and popular protest over economic
deprivation and Russian domination has increased.
Prospects
Domestic problems are not likely to bring about economic collapse or
political instability for the foreseeable future:
? In particular, the threshold of sustained, widespread, and coordinated
mass unrest (as in Poland) will probably not be crossed. Spontaneous,
large-scale localized disturbances-involving demonstrations, strikes,
and violence-may well occur, but the regime will most likely be able to
suppress them and to prevent any snowball effect.
? Within the top leadership, it is unlikely that conflict will emerge of such
a serious nature as to bring into question the institutional mainstays, core
beliefs, and party-dominated formula of the Soviet system. The very act
of choosing a relatively young and activist leader as General Secretary
indicates that the Politburo has not lost its will to rule or capacity for un-
dertaking changes in order to preserve power.
? Unless the Kremlin blunders very badly or settles once again into a
pattern of prolonged inertia, most officials within the broader elite will
continue to see their interests best served by defending rather than
abandoning the regime.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Internal pressures, however, will exert a greater influence on regime policy
than they have since the period immediately following Stalin's death. Top
Soviet leaders seem increasingly aware that they cannot afford to ignore
public opinion and increasingly concerned to redress what they see as
negative trends in society and within segments of the elite.
Soviet leaders for
some time have been seriously concerned that conditions giving rise to
popular discontent are growing stronger while regime instruments for
maintaining social control and motivating the work force are growing
weaker. Several international developments have fed these concerns:
? The Polish crisis of 1979-82 was an object lesson of major proportions, a
wrenching experience that sent shock waves throughout the Soviet
establishment. In Poland many Soviet elites saw a mirror of their own so-
ciety. They saw that the shortcomings of the regime there bore a striking
resemblance to deficiencies of the Soviet system and that the conditions
that gave rise to unrest in Poland were similar in kind if not in degree to
conditions in the USSR.
? Some Soviet officials believe the current US administration is attempting
to undermine the USSR internally-by appealing to the Soviet popula-
tion through radiobroadcasting and other "subversive" activities, by
upping the ante in military spending, and by selective use of economic
sanctions.
? Soviet officials are also worried that the war in Afghanistan is becoming
a source of increased frustration within the elite and aggravating an
array of problems in society-intensifying ethnic friction, feeding youth
cynicism, leading to pervasive bribery to avoid the draft, damaging the
regime's reputation, and heightening pessimism about the Soviet future.
While Soviet leaders since the late 1970s have been increasingly aware of
domestic problems, they have not agreed among themselves on how best to
deal with them. During most of his tenure, Brezhnev adopted a policy of
relative indulgence toward key elements both of society and of the elite in
an effort to reinforce passive popular compliance and elite satisfaction. He
lowered performance standards and provided job security for party offi-
cials, avoided economic reforms that would threaten vested bureaucratic
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
interests, reinforced social security guarantees for workers, was relatively
lenient in enforcing labor discipline, and permitted an expansion of de facto
freedom in private affairs in exchange for political quiescence. He probably
feared that more vigorous measures to redress internal problems could
prove counterproductive, by stirring up popular criticism and heightening
tensions within the elite.
Brezhnev's strategy of temporizing, however, fell into ever increasing
disfavor among his Politburo colleagues. Andropov was critical of Brezh-
nev's approach, and Gorbachev even more so. Gorbachev has set for
himself the ambitious objective of reviving Soviet Communism-by revital-
izing the economy, the society, the ideology, and the party itself. Partly be-
cause his vision and aspirations are broader than Brezhnev's, he sees the
same domestic situation in more alarming terms. He evidently believes that
so many areas of Soviet life have slipped beyond direct regime regulation
that an overall threat to control could develop, and that, even short of a
threat to control, the economic costs of societal problems have become
intolerable.
Given this diagnosis, it is not surprising that Gorbachev-building on
initial steps taken by Andropov-has moved rapidly and aggressively in
defining a coherent program for dealing with domestic problems. While he
is avoiding sharp swings toward either repression or liberalization of the
system, he is utilizing elements of both approaches in tackling accumulated
social and economic ailments. His program is still in the developmental
stage, but probable steps over the next several years include:
? Tightening labor discipline, increasing rewards for productive workers,
and imposing heavier penalties on laggards.
? Employing even harsher measures against dissent and religious activism,
while increasing radio jamming and taking other measures to limit
Western influences on Soviet society.
? Further stiffening penalties for criminal offenses and upgrading the law
enforcement apparatus.
? Attempting to shore up regime legitimacy and to combat popular
cynicism by refining propaganda, appearing more responsive to public
opinion, and more openly exploiting Russian nationalism as a prop to the
system.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 i
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
? Using personnel changes to tighten central control over the bureaucracy
and to infuse the elite with younger and more competent individuals,
while moving to reduce official corruption.
? Increasing efforts to indoctrinate youth through an educational reform,
adopting a set of measures to bolster the family as a pillar of social
stability, and continuing the campaign to restrict alcohol consumption.
? Attempting to improve the lot of the consumer through more efficient
organization and a limited diversion of resources, while widening the
scope for private economic activity somewhat.
If these policies are put into practice and pursued as vigorously as now
seems likely, they will increase turbulence within society and within the
elite. Within Soviet officialdom, powerful vested interests will resist
Gorbachev's efforts, attempting to slow down the pace and limit the scope
of change. Competition for prerogatives and position will be heightened by
the replacement of older and less competent party workers with younger
and better qualified men, the move to attack entrenched regional networks
by giving more preferential treatment to Russian elites in non-Russian
republics, the campaign against official corruption, and the limitations on
job security. Shifts in resource allocation policy will pit bureaucracies
against one another. The adoption of controversial new social policies such
as the antialcohol campaign will intensify elite debate over whether a new
course will disrupt the truce between state and society. Intensified moves to
clean out and shape up the party ranks will strain internal party unity.
Within society, a tougher work ethic, stricter discipline, and more differen-
tiated wages will strain relations at the workplace between high performers
who stand to gain from greater inequality and low performers who stand to
lose. Some types of economic reform, by undercutting worker job security
and removing subsidies for basic commodities, could provoke labor strikes.
Extremely repressive measures to tighten discipline could kill worker
incentive. Ordinary citizens will find the campaigns against crime and
economic illegality, alcoholism, religion, and draft dodging increasingly
cutting into their personal lives and constraining their public behavior. The
educational reform will be resented by those whose opportunities for
upward social mobility are restricted by it. Intensified Russification may
lead to more extreme forms of protest among disaffected minorities.
The degree to which the regime succeeds in implementing its strategy will
depend to some extent on its ability to manage these conflicts and tensions.
Essentially, the regime is putting a wager on the "strong" elements of both
the elite and the society at large. Gorbachev is counting on the support of
the most patriotic, sober, industrious, honest, and socially conservative
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
citizens and officials, who combine an acceptance of authoritarian rule and
a belief in the Soviet system with a concern to purge the country of "alien"
influence and to make the economy more productive. Under Gorbachev's
more dynamic leadership, the regime may be able to achieve some
marginal upswing in economic performance, to arrest the erosion of
instruments of control and mobilization, and perhaps to generate somewhat
greater popular respect for the power and capabilities of the regime.
Even so, Soviet leaders will face continuing problems throughout the 1980s
and beyond. Soviet societal problems are not merely "vestiges of the past"
that have endured, but the results of fundamental contemporary conditions
that the regime is unable or unwilling to alter. The growing sophistication
of consumer demand is a natural consequence of the very process of
economic modernization that the regime wants to further. The growing size
of the critically thinking public is the result of expanded education, which
is essential to the country's progress. The exposure of the population to
external influences is partly because of technological advances in commu-
nications beyond the regime's control. Gorbachev's program will aggravate
tensions in society and may create a problem of unfulfilled expectations.
Inherent weaknesses in the Gorbachev program-as well as the pressures
and tensions produced by it-could lead the regime to take more extreme
steps. Neither liberalization nor a return to some form of neo-Stalinist
orthodoxy would be a panacea and, in fact, would entail even greater risk
and conflict. Broad liberalization of the system would threaten the party's
monopoly of political power and alienate the military. Most leaders would
also view a sharp turn toward repression as politically disruptive, economi-
cally uncertain, and dangerous to them personally. Consequently, these
more extreme policies would probably not become options unless the
leadership decided domestic problems had reached crisis proportions.
It is by no means certain, however, which combination of policies the
Gorbachev regime will adopt or how far change will reach. Some of the
moves he has made thus far were unexpected, and further unconventional
changes and surprises will probably follow.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Domestic Stresses in the USSR
Introduction
The Soviet regime of General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev faces serious political and social problems.
Many of these problems have existed to some degree
since the birth of the Soviet state and are inevitable in
a system that represses individual liberties and places
a higher priority on military power than on consumer
welfare. They have deepened in recent decades under
the impact of secular trends-the maturation of the
economy, the growth of mass education, and the
partial opening of society to outside influences.F_
During the past decade, domestic stresses became
particularly pronounced. Adverse economic trends
aggravated societal problems, and Brezhnev's basic
approach to domestic policy made matters worse.
Brezhnev, reacting to the disruptive organizational
and personnel changes of the Khrushchev years,
adopted what might be called a laissez faire policy of
relative indulgence toward key elements of both soci-
ety and the elite. To pacify the elite, he lowered
performance standards and provided job security for
party officials, avoided economic reforms that would
threaten vested bureaucratic interests, and attempted
to balance the resource allocation demands of major
institutional groups. To reinforce passive popular
compliance, he maintained what has been called an
unofficial social contract, whereby the population
remained politically quiescent in exchange for the
provision of material security and the toleration of a
de facto expansion of private activities beyond the
regime's purview in areas considered apolitical.F-
In trying to rectify Khrushchev's excesses, Brezhnev
overcorrected and produced a "surplus of stability."
In the relatively lax domestic environment of the
1970s, Soviet elite and society at large grew self-
indulgent and soft by earlier standards. At the same
time, as consumption growth tapered off and as the
population became less isolated from the outside
world, popular morale worsened. Erosion was evident
in the regime's basic values and norms, the viability of
its institutions, and the quality of executive authority.
Decline in system vitality was manifested in a weak-
ening of social discipline and a mounting of bureau-
cratic corruption and inertia. Neither Andropov nor
Chernenko possessed the time, the political strength,
or the stamina to mount a comprehensive program to
arrest these negative trends in society and in the
system, leaving the new Gorbachev leadership under
increased pressure to come to grips with internal
problems.
The Economic Slowdown
Overall Growth Rates. During the Brezhnev years the
Soviet economy continued its long-term trend of
decelerating growth since World War II. Our calcula-
tions (based on 1970 factor costs) indicate that aver-
age annual growth of GNP dropped from 5.3 percent
in the period 1966-70 to 3.7 percent during 1971-75
and to 2.6 percent in 1976-80. The slowdown was
unusually sharp from 1979 to 1982, when GNP
growth averaged only 1.6 percent per year
Since Brezhnev's death the economy's performance
has been mixed. GNP grew by 3.6 percent in 1983 but
by only 2 percent in 1984, due to a sharp drop in the
rate of growth in agriculture. Disappointing farm
output again held GNP growth in 1985 to about 2
percent. Industrial production in 1985 rose by more
than 3 percent, slightly below the 1983-84 pace, but
averaged nearly 4 percent during the last three quar-
ters. A combination of better weather, improvements
begun under Andropov, and such Gorbachev initia-
tives as increased discipline, personnel changes, and
added workdays turned what began as a bad year for
industry into a respectable performance. It remains to
be seen whether the recent momentum can be
sustained.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Two fundamental factors will continue to constrain
growth, as they have since the late 1970s. These are
the slowing growth of the labor supply, rooted in
demographic factors, and the rising costs of extract-
ing, processing, and transporting raw materials. The
Soviets can do little to ease these constraints during
the remainder of the decade. The recent leadership
decision to boost investment could have some impact
on GNP growth, but its principal effects would fall in
the 1990s. This is because of the lag in converting new
fixed investment into plant and equipment, and be-
cause the existing capital stock is so immense and
obsolescent that increments in investment would have
to be very large to accelerate growth substantially
through net additions to the capital stock.
Thus, although Soviet economic performance has
improved in recent years from the low levels of growth
of 1979-82, the economy cannot simultaneously main-
tain rapid growth in defense spending, satisfy demand
for greater quantity and variety of consumer goods
and services, invest the amounts required for econom-
ic modernization and expansion, and continue to
support client-state economies. Gorbachev, in our
view, has a clear understanding of these limitations,
but the exact balance he will strike among competing
resource claimants during the rest of the decade
remains uncertain.
Declining Growth in Living Standards. The USSR
has made significant improvements in consumer wel-
fare in the post-Stalin period. During this time, real
consumption per capita has nearly tripled. In overall
nutritional terms the Soviet diet now nearly matches
that in the United States, and most households have
electrical appliances. But this growth has not been
enough to offset the mounting demand for goods and
services. As average income and expectations have
risen, widespread gaps between the demand for con-
sumer goods and their availability have become in-
creasingly evident. Brezhnev's last year, 1982, was
particularly bad; per capita expenditures on food, soft
goods, and durables actually declined from their 1981
levels. From the point of view of the Soviet citizen,
accustomed to rapid gains in the first two decades
after World War II, the economy looked stagnant.
many Soviet
consumers have had the impression that their stan-
dard of living has remained the same or actually
deteriorated since the late 1970s.
Indeed, one of the most serious casualties of the
Soviet slowdown in overall growth has been consump-
tion. After increasing by 4.3 percent per year in the
late 1960s, by 2.6 percent per year during the first
half of the 1970s, and by 1.8 percent per year during
1976-80, per capita consumption grew at an average
annual rate of only 0.7 percent in 1981-82. Although
it rebounded somewhat in 1983 and 1984, rising by
1.3 and 2.0 percent, respectively, per capita consump-
tion slowed in 1985.' For the 1981-85 period as a
whole, growth in consumption averaged only 1.3
percent per year. Moreover, if the recent upturn of the
economy is not maintained, improvements in living
standards for the rest of the 1980s will be harder to
achieve.
The most serious consumer problem is the food
supply. According to Soviet data, the availability of
quality foods increased sharply in the Soviet Union
between 1965 and 1975, but a series of poor harvests
checked this progress in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Shortages across the entire range of quality food-
stuffs-meat, dairy products, and fruits and vegeta-
bles-were particularly acute in the 1980-82 period.
Although supplies of starchy staples were always
readily available, rationing was instituted in 1981 for
the first time in several major Soviet cities.
With the help of agricultural imports and better
harvests in 1982 and 1983, food availability increased
in 1983 but declined slightly in 1984 and 1985. Meat
and milk output reached new highs in 1983 and again
in 1984. Reporting of emigres indicates
that queuing declined somewhat, and, after earlier
rapid increases, prices in the free collective farm
markets leveled off. Overall, per capita consumption
of food increased by somewhat less than 2 percent per
year in 1983-84, after stagnating in 1982. Due to the
agricultural shortfall and Gorbachev's antialcohol
campaign, however, per capita food consumption de-
clined somewhat in 1985.
' These growth rates are based on 1970 factor cost weights.
Somewhat higher rates-by about one-tenth-generally result
when consumption is measured in established prices.F_
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Figure 1
USSR: Average Annual Growth Rates
in Per Capita Consumption
4
2
' Ma
?~fg i
Y`
,fig
.
WA-
substantially less. In general, living quarters are very
cramped. In some of the republics the housing space
per person is still below the minimum standard for
"health and decency" that the Soviets set back in the
1920s.
Conditions are worse in rural areas. Most urban
housing comes equipped with electricity, indoor
plumbing, hot water, gas, and central heating; but in
rural areas the typical privately owned one-story
wooden home still lacks indoor plumbing and central
heating, although it now has electricity. According to
published Soviet statistics for 1980, for example, only
38 percent of state-owned rural housing units in the
Russian Republic were connected to central water
supply systems and 22 percent to sewer lines; 26
percent had central heating. In both urban and rural
areas, the quality of new construction in general is
shoddy; for example, only approximately 40 percent of
housing turned over for occupation in the Russian
Republic each year is rated "satisfactory" or better.
Although the food problem does not seem to be
getting worse, it is not getting appreciably better.
Rising incomes continue to push up demand, especial-
ly for quality foods. Despite somewhat improved
availability, from increased production and continuing
high levels of imports, food supplies remain taut,
according to Soviet public statements.'
Housing is another critical area. Despite a continuing
large construction program, an estimated 20 percent
of city dwellers still share their living space with
unrelated families or single persons. The Soviets
appear to have ceased making progress on reducing
communal apartments. The wait for an apartment can
be as long as 10 years, although the average is
2 The strained economic situation continues to exacerbate the
normal frustrations associated with everyday Soviet life-above all,
the shopper's gauntlet to put food on the table. According to a study
by the Institute for Sociological Research, reported in Izvestiya in
February 1985, Soviet citizens spend 65 billion man-hours shopping
each year or the equivalent of full-time employment of 35 million
people. Moreover, 80 percent of that time is spent shopping for
Health care, which had made substantial gains, now
appears to be deteriorating. Moscow has been unwill-
ing to devote a larger share of the budget to medical
services, despite the increasing medical problems of
an older, more urban, and more industrial population.
The net result is that:
? The USSR is the only major industrial nation in the
world where the life expectancy now is lower than it
was 20 years ago. Moscow stopped publishing these
statistics in the early 1970s, but we estimate that
since 1965 life expectancy for Soviet males has
fallen from 66 years to 62 years. By contrast, in the
United States it has risen from 67 to 71 years
during the same period.
? Death rates have risen significantly for every age
group since the mid-1960s. Soviet infant mortality,
which declined substantially between 1950 and
1970, rose by more than 50 percent during the
1970s, so that by 1980 it was the highest of any
industrial society.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
? Morbidity rates for five communicable diseases-
diptheria, hepatitis, scarlet fever, whooping cough,
and measles-are increasing sharply. The growing
problems of combating infectious diseases in the
Soviet armed forces led to a January 1984 an-
nouncement of the formation of "extraordinary
antiepidemic commissions" in all military units and
on ships.
? In December 1985 Moscow publicly acknowledged
that the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or
AIDS virus, exists in the USSR. The USSR's
difficulty in controlling communicable diseases, its
lack of modern medical equipment such as dispos-
able needles, and its reportedly poor screening of
blood supplies increase the country's vulnerability to
a spread of the disease beyond the high-risk group
identified in the United States.
Deficient health care thus has a negative effect on
demographic trends and consequently on manpower
shortages. Soviet demographers have recently indicat-
ed to their American counterparts that the quality of
health care has for this reason begun to receive wide
attention from state planning officials.
Everyday personal services that make life livable are
the backwater of the Soviet economy. Workers pro-
viding such consumer services constitute only a frac-
tion of the state-employed labor force and are among
the lowest paid and most poorly trained. Private
contractors who moonlight take up some of the slack,
but they lack a legal and regular flow of supplies and
are unable to hire labor to assist them.
The USSR has made little progress toward its offi-
cially announced goal of surpassing the US standard
of living. Over the last two decades, real Soviet per
capita consumption inched up relative to that in the
United States, but it is still only about one-third the
US level. Living standards in the USSR remain low
by Western standards and even compare unfavorably
with those in much of Eastern Europe.
to find jobs in their fields of expertise.
Social Mobility and Stratification. With the matu-
ration and slowing of the economy and the "stability
of cadres" policy of the Brezhnev regime, class lines
have been hardening and opportunities for upward
mobility shrinking. In the early decades of Soviet rule,
changes in social structure, rapid industrialization,
the Stalin purges, and World War II manpower losses
created huge numbers of openings at managerial
levels. The existence of broad opportunities for indi-
viduals to vault from one social class to another
softened the deprivations suffered by those at the
bottom level of society. Today, as one Soviet publica-
tion acknowledged, "the times for soaring careers are
past." The expansion of education without a concomi-
tant expansion of employment opportunities has pro-
duced a large number of disgruntled specialists unable
The whole society has become more highly stratified,
with everyone placed in a particular category of
privilege or deprivation. At some factories, for exam-
ple, employees may order meat and other commod-
ities unavailable in state stores. High party officials
are entitled to shop at special stores closed to the
general public, where stocks of imported and scarce
goods are sold at relatively low prices. Housing,
especially, is allocated on the basis of employment,
bureaucratic position, personal connections, and brib-
ery. Moreover, low mobility in the leadership system
and the ability of its members to secure education and
positions for their children have given the privileged
elite some characteristics of a hereditary aristocratic
class.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
The wealth gap between income groups in the USSR
has widened. According to Western scholars, inequal-
ity of Soviet wages declined after World War II until
the late 1960s. In the last decade, however, this trend
was checked, and inequality in pay may have in-
creased. According to the results of two independent
surveys of emigres (mostly Jewish) who left the USSR
in the early and late 1970s, respectively, inequality of
household income (from public and private jobs) was
probably greater in 1979 than in 1973 or in 1968.
Moreover, total wealth (including possessions and
savings) is even more unequally distributed in the
USSR than wages and household income. A survey of
2,800 Soviet households who recently emigrated to
the United States suggests that for the Soviet popula-
tion as a whole by the end of the 1970s:
? Thirty percent of households had no savings.
? Forty-five percent of all savings were in the hands of
the top 10 percent of households.
? Five percent of households received 25 percent of
total income, while 20 percent of households gar-
nered nearly half the income.
? Twenty-five percent of the population owned two-
thirds of the total wealth.
Consumer shortages, of course, have affected some
groups of the population more adversely than others.
Peasants and many workers have been hit harder than
the privileged elites, who have access to special stores
and services. The welfare of elderly pensioners, the
sick and disabled, and women with dependent chil-
dren has particularly suffered.
Shift in the Mood of the Population
Because of these and other factors, the mood of the
Soviet population shifted in the late Brezhnev period.
The optimism of the 1960s and early 1970s gave way
to a deep social malaise. A plethora of anecdotal
material and survey results suggests that there was a
feeling of life going stale and sour for many. Both
pessimism about the future and dissatisfaction with
the present condition of Soviet society fed the negative
mood. With the recent rebound of the economy and
Gorbachev's coming to power, public morale has
generally improved. Yet, it remains to be seen how
lasting the upswing in the mood of the Soviet elite and
populace will be. The basic problems and objective
conditions at the root of domestic ills have been
building for years and are not amenable to quick
This does not yet mean that regime control is threat-
ened. To a considerable extent, the population's mem-
ory of the purge years serves as a restraint on
unorthodox behavior. Many people, either as a result
of experience or socialization within the family, retain
an instinctive fear of the police that inhibits noncon-
formity. But, at the same time, the political and
psychological leverage of the regime over the popula-
tion has weakened. The inclination to cheat or get
around the system is pervasive, and little penalty is
expected short of the most provocative behavior.
Many citizens, especially youth who did not live
through the Stalin era, are criticizing domestic condi-
tions more openly than in the past. Preliminary
findings of the Soviet Interview Project suggest that
the young are not only the most disaffected but are
also less fearful of police authority and less inhibited
in complaining about regime shortcomings than are
the older generations.
Discontent Over the "Quality of Life. "The Soviet
population has historically exhibited a high level of
endurance of material deprivation, but expressions of
popular discontent over a perceived decline in the
quality of life have increased in recent years-accord-
ing to emigre reports, journalists, embassy contacts,
would sometimes voice complaints and cynicism in
public when drunk but now frequently do so when
sober. Consumer dissatisfaction represents an espe-
cially serious challenge for the Politburo, because
improvements in popular welfare have been the re-
gime's most important basis of legitimacy since Sta-
lin's death in 1953
Most important, over the past several years the
evidence suggests that the Soviet population has
perceived trends in living standards as being even
more negative than they actually have been. The
primary reason for this may be that the current
slowdown in consumption growth was preceded by
fixes.
25X1
25X1
25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
A Soviet Survey of Public Attitudes
on Living Standards
A major survey conducted by the Institute of Socio-
logical Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences
in 1981-82-but not reported on in Soviet open
sources until 1985-dealt with popular perceptions of
living conditions. The survey was based on a sample
of 10,500 adults in eight republics. Although the
Soviet media did not indicate the number of nonre-
spondents or whether the sample was random-
factors that could affect the results significantly-the
survey was said to have shown that three fourths of
those polled believed they were better off than they
had been five years earlier, but one-fourth thought
that their living standard had not improved at all
during this period.
The poll indicated satisfaction was relatively higher
among collective farm workers and other low-income
citizens, suggesting that discontent was relatively
greater among better educated citizens and those who
live in urban areas. The previously mentioned survey
of 2,800 Soviet emigres-conducted by the Soviet
Interview Project centered at the University of Illi-
nois-also revealed that city dwellers and middle-
class citizens-whose attitudes are more important
to the regime-were relatively more unhappy with
their lot.
In addition, the 1981-82 Soviet survey reported that
45 percent of the respondents felt that their diet had
not improved during the preceding five years. Many
Soviet citizens have also become dissatisfied with
working conditions. Data published in Soviet scholar-
ly studies indicate considerable discontent not only
about wage levels but also about itifrastructural
conditions-the quality of housing available at many
job sites, poor dining facilities at factories, inade-
quate child-care facilities, the absence of safety pre-
cautions, and hazardous environmental factors (radi-
ation, chemicals, pollution).
more rapid advances in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The progress of the Khrushchev and early Brezhnev
years and the ambitious goals for further progress
that the regime publicized (including the party's 1961
pledge to attain the world's highest living standard by
1980) stimulated popular expectations beyond the
regime's capacity to satisfy them. When consumption
growth tapered off, many citizens apparently believed
the downturn was absolute rather than relative. The
sense that the material circumstances of life were
stagnating or deteriorating led to disillusionment
among different elements of the population in the
period up to Gorbachev's election,
In many cases, dissatisfaction with living conditions is
compounded by a loss of faith in the ability to rise into
a higher social class through hard work. As the gap
has widened between the occupational ambitions of
Soviet youth and the capacity of the system to satisfy
them, many young people have become demoralized.
The "shattering" of career plans, in the words of one
leading Soviet sociologist, contributes to "attitudes of
skepticism" and a "weakening of belief in ideals."
25X1
25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 -
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
A Soviet in her late teens described to Leningrad
Consulate officials in February 1985 the range of
citizens' reactions to the poor quality of Soviet life
and their methods of coping with it.
Many turn to drink and drugs "to deaden somehow
the dead-end feeling and the sense of our impotence. "
Most adults-unlike Soviet youth-have already
learned to adapt in order to survive. Many have
simply stopped paying any attention to the moral
degradation, being surrounded with the daily cares of
existence-of which there are more than enough.
Moreover, it is so much simpler and easier to accept
rather than fight the situation. As she explained,
"Why worry yourself with problems you can't solve?
We only live once and it is better to live it in
satisfaction than to go through moral and physical
suffering for the sake of some kind of justice. " F_
The source said "thinking" Soviets have it much
worse than the rest. She described their reaction and
plight as follows:
When you see yourself surrounded only by "filth,"
you cannot possibly feel satisfied and happy. Hav-
ing recognized and rejected the hypocrisy and
mercenary relations between people that arise in
such a false society, we cannot also live the same
life. Having taken up a stand in opposition to
Popular dissatisfaction with the quality of life has had
a negative impact on the Soviet economy:
? In various ways, dissatisfaction with the living
standard lowers economic productivity. City dwell-
ers take long lunch hours to shop, for example, in
order to avoid longer lines after working hours.
People from the countryside clog the transportation
network by traveling to cities to shop on the
weekend.
society, we are condemned to solitude.
We do not believe in Communism, and we were
never taught another "religion." Each of us tries
somehow to shut out reality, to forget, to distract
ourselves. We build our own world, within our-
selves, the kind we would like to see. We live in this
world and are happy only there.
Unfortunately, we are so frightened, and separated
by distrust from one another, that only a few of us
are capable of fighting openly. I would so much
like to believe in a bright future for my country-
but where will I find the strength to believe in
? Consumer discontent also contributes indirectly to
demographic problems. Soviet studies indicate that
the housing shortage discourages large families. The
difficult life of Soviet women-who must cope with
inadequate nurseries and a paucity of labor-saving
devices, as well as the onerous burden of shopping-
creates frustrations that contribute to a climbing
divorce rate, a declining birthrate, and a trend
toward the breakdown of the family in Slavic areas.
anything at all?
Moreover, workers may have developed a greater
degree of working-class consciousness. A reportedly
confidential study (the so-called Novosibirsk Report)
for the Kremlin leadership by a group of reform-
minded Soviet economists in the Academy of Sci-
ences, leaked to the Western press in 1983, indicated
workers have become acutely aware of their interests 25X1
and inclined to "stand up for themselves." Emigre
testimony and Soviet data on industrial conflict point
to greater assertiveness in particular among young,
skilled manual workers and worker-technicians who
along with white-collar professionals make up the
"new" Soviet working middle class. Like their par-
ents, second-generation blue-collar workers take for
granted the old security-oriented rights-guaranteed
jobs, a minimum wage, and welfare benefits. But to a
far greater extent than their parents they also demand
more interesting jobs, better wages, and higher living
standards-expectations typical of a better educated 25X1
generation raised in a climate of promises of plenty.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0 i
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
? The consumer's refusal to buy shoddy goods, com-
bined with the regime's fear of the social conse-
quences of raising prices on heavily subsidized basic
commodities, leads to imbalances in the consumer
goods market. The chronic shortages of some highly
desired goods and services, as well as serious prob-
lems in product mix and quality, have contributed to
lackluster performance by Soviet workers. The typi-
cal Soviet citizen must still work to live, but harder
work is not likely to lead to a proportionate gain in
well-being when the desired better quality goods are
not available.
Although such consumer problems and economic inef-
ficiencies are not new to the Soviet scene, and indeed
may not have worsened dramatically in recent years,
the leadership may view them as more costly to the
system in terms of the losses of increasingly scarce
labor resources. For example, extensive lines for con-
sumer goods and services have long been a character-
istic feature of the Soviet system. However, the losses
of worktime, while perhaps no greater than before
relative to total hours worked, have become more
costly now that there is only slow growth in the labor
force and the regime has proclaimed itself increasing-
ly dependent on increases in labor productivity for
improvements in economic growth. In a similar vein,
the impact of the housing situation on birthrates may
have assumed a higher cost in recent years as the
labor shortage has raised the marginal cost of each
additional unit of labor.
In some ways, however, the effects of consumer
problems may make it easier for the regime to control
the population. Many people spend so much time
dealing with the inconveniences and hardships of the
daily "rat race" that they have no time or energy to
get involved in active dissent. Moreover, the overpro-
duction of specialists and the resulting tight job
market for professionals have increased the intelli-
gentsia's dependence on the regime, which can deny a
professional job to anyone whose behavior is suspect.
Materialism, Privatism, and Ideological Cynicism.
The fact that many people have not internalized
Marxist-Leninist ideology does not necessarily render
it ineffectual as an instrument of external control.
Ideology continues to serve the function of defining
the limits of legitimate political discussion. Whether
the population accepts the official belief system, most
people recognize the necessity of formal adherence to
the ideology.
Nonetheless, over the past decade ideology has atro-
phied as a tool to galvanize social energies. The
Brezhnev regime abandoned Khrushchev's ideological
reformism and his attempt to establish a bond be-
tween the party and the people based on a broad set of
popular values. It sought a narrower legitimacy based
more exclusively on attention to the population's
material well-being. This made it difficult for the
regime to ask the population to sacrifice for the sake
of lofty ideological considerations once the economic
growth slowdown decreased the regime's capacity to
deliver on its promises to consumers.
they laugh at it."
A wide assortment of evidence indicates that most
Soviet citizens today consider official ideology irrele-
vant to their daily lives. Saturating the media with the
party line undoubtedly has a cumulative impact on
the thinking of many citizens, but there is also
considerable cynicism about regime propaganda and
even questioning among some about whether the
regime represents a perversion of true socialism. The
vision of Communism as a final social goal is no
longer taken seriously. One emigre described the
attitudes of Soviet young people: "They neither fight
against Communism, argue against it, nor curse it;
something much worse has happened to Communism:
The loss of idealism is most evident in the growth of
what the regime denounces as "consumerism." As a
Soviet contact of the US Consulate in Leningrad
observed in February 1985, material well-being has
become the meaning of existence for many, and the
basic desire is "to be no worse off than anyone else."
According to the Soviet press, "property-loving con-
sciousness" and the chase after consumer goods have
been elevated to a "cult of things" symptomatic of a
"petit bourgeois" psychology. Soviet society increas-
ingly exhibits the attitudes of both a me generation
and a now generation. In this regard the evidence
suggests that the population in general has no desire
to postpone the satisfaction of material desires in the
name of a tomorrow no one any longer believes in.
25X1
25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
More generally, Soviet sociological data indicate that
occupational choice in the USSR has been increasing-
ly shaped by concern for an easy job in a location with
relatively high living standards. Surveys conducted in
the 1970s and 1980s indicated people were becoming
less interested in the job itself or the prestige it
offered, while various occupational conditions and
access to semilegal or even illegal deficit goods and
services were becoming more important factors in job
As disillusionment with regime promises has in-
creased, large numbers of Soviet citizens-within the
working class, middle class, and even officialdom-in
effect have "dropped out" of political activities. They
divert their energies and ambitions into more reward-
ing private concerns-their families, leisure, and ma-
terial well-being-and pursuits not sanctioned by the
regime, such as religion.
Low Worker Morale. The malaise of society is also
reflected in increasingly negative attitudes toward
work. The 1983 Novosibirsk Report cited above said
the "common qualities" of the worker produced by
the Soviet system were "low labor and production
discipline, an indifferent attitude toward work, low
quality of work, social inertia, a well-pronounced
consumer mentality, and a low code of morality."
This decription matched that provided by exiled
Russian writer Alexander Zinoviev, who said that
"Communist society is a society of people who work
badly."
In particular, now more than in the past, people want
to avoid physical labor. In the world's first "workers'
state," virtually no one wants to be a worker or
peasant. According to Soviet studies conducted in
1980, 94 percent of 10th graders sought to continue
full-time higher education rather than getting a job.
Soviet sociological surveys on youth attitudes in 1984
indicate that "young peoples' perceptions of what they
will be in the future sometimes convey a romantic
character and do not correspond to the needs of
production."
attractiveness.
Alienation from work and laziness on the job are to a
large extent due to an ineffective system of economic
rewards and penalties. Under Brezhnev, the regime
virtually guaranteed even unproductive workers jobs
and wages sufficient to buy basic necessities, while a
trend toward wage leveling reduced incentives to work
hard. Many workers take the view that there is little
point in exerting themselves because the basics of food
and shelter are cheap and the luxuries that could be
bought with extra money are largely unavailable
anyway. Thus, many idle along, doing just enough to
stay out of trouble and demonstrating the, accuracy of
the quip that "they pretend they're paying us and we
pretend we're working."
25X1
25X1
Soviet wage system had reached such a state of crisis
that ambition and effort on the job had radically
declined. Indeed, the results of a nationwide public
opinion poll, published in Izvestiya on 3 May 1985,
revealed that only 25 to 35 percent of the 10,150 25X1
questioned workers claimed they made a consistent
effort to do their jobs as well as they could.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
At the same time, the shortage of labor has led to
greater demands for improved working conditions on
the part of skilled workers who know they cannot
easily be replaced. Izvestiya, discussing the problem
of labor discipline, quoted one skilled worker: "You
can't scare me.... There's no sense trying to
influence me with threats. That would be all right if
there were 10 unemployed workers standing in line for
a job-then fear is the best teacher."
Poor labor discipline also finds expression in high
worker absenteeism. One significant cause of absen-
teeism is the inconvenient shopping hours kept by
Soviet stores and other retail outlets. Such businesses
often are closed during the lunch hour and in the
evenings. Because in the large majority of Soviet
families both husband and wife work full-time, many
people-women in particular-are left with no alter-
native but to slip away from their desks and work-
benches during working hours if they are to keep their
families fed and clothed. The result, according to
Soviet statistics, is that for every 100 workers there
are 30 incidents of absenteeism every day. Each
period of absence averages 1.6 hours. Before Andro-
pov launched his worker discipline campaign, an
investigation carried out in Moscow Oblast, for exam-
ple, found that in some factories and offices no more
than 10 percent of the workers were at their work-
places during the final hour of their shift, and that
throughout the region 73 percent of the work force
regularly took time off during working hours to take
care of personal business.
Worker dissatisfaction produces high rates of labor
turnover and internal migration. The party's theoreti-
cal journal Kommunist in March 1983 reported that
over 20 million Soviet workers-one out of every five
workers-were changing their jobs every year. At the
same time, the secretary of the Moscow city Komso-
mol committee noted in a Soviet youth newspaper
that, nationwide, 60 percent of those quitting their
jobs were young people. "In effect," he wrote, "such
people are voting with their feet." Though labor
turnover is not new and, indeed, may not have
worsened seriously over the past decade, leadership
concern about such behavior has risen.
Soviet economists regard much of this turnover to be
economically counterproductive; they state that peo-
ple are moving out of areas that suffer from manpow-
er shortages and into areas that have labor surpluses.
In particular, it is precisely new projects in remote
areas targeted for priority development that lack the
housing facilities and consumer conveniences needed
to induce workers to remain on the job. Managers in
such new industrial areas complain that "people are
running away" and worry about finding ways to "fix
the personnel." Many young people, disdainful of
blue-collar jobs and reluctant to accept conditions
that older people are willing to endure, "roam" from
one low-level and unsatisfying job to another. More-
over, the flight of the young and able bodied from
dreary and impoverished villages has seriously deplet-
ed the rural work force and produced in the cities a
lower working class whose members frequently be-
come involved in crime or other antisocial behavior.
Youth Alienation. Official surveys, together with emi-
gre reports, indicate that large segments of Soviet
youth are especially disenchanted with work, bored
with life, alienated from the political system, im-
mersed in private concerns, and driven by material
interests. A major Western study undertaken after
World War II, which attempted to gauge Soviet
public attitudes on the basis of interviews with large
numbers of people who left the USSR during the war,
concluded that Soviet young people were more favor-
ably disposed toward the regime than their parents.
Preliminary results from a similar project based on
the briefing of large numbers of Soviet citizens who
emigrated during the 1970s and 1980s indicate that
the opposite is true today. Soviet youth are less
inclined than their parents to have a favorable atti-
tude toward the regime. Never having experienced the
ravages of Stalinism or the ordeals of World War II,
they are less tolerant of current regime shortcomings.
However, emigre data also indicate that there is
relatively higher acceptance by the "new generation"
of Soviet foreign policies and pride in its superpower
status.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Figure 3. Drifting through a day-to-day exis-
tence, teenagers quaff beer at a Moscow pub. I
In a poll conducted by Sotsialisticheskaya industriya
in February 1982, Soviet youth clearly indicated the
high priority they place on a stable career and
material comfort. Success was defined by 34 percent
of the respondents as the "quantity and prestige of
their possessions," such as a new car or a summer
house, and not as contributions to the "collective
welfare."
Youth alienation is manifested not only in the preoc-
cupation with accumulating material possessions but
also in the involvement of large numbers of young
people in various types of deviance and delinquency-
drugs, prostitution, drifting, draft dodging, the rock
culture, black-market trafficking, even Hare Krishna.
Soviet authorities have expressed concern that youth
are increasingly rejecting marriage in favor of a more
carefree lifestyle. In short, there is a growing gap
between the outlook and behavior of youth and offi-
cial Soviet mores.
Recently, there have been indications of increased
regime attention to problems of extreme depression
among youth.
frequently takes forms that are-from the regime's
standpoint-innocuous. Sports, for example, provide a
major diversion that enables many bored youth to "let
off steam" and keeps them from turning to noncon-
formist behavior.
disciplined.
Social Pathologies
In recent years the spectrum of antisocial behavior-
alcoholism, crime, corruption-has widened, demon-
strating that some areas of social life are slipping
beyond regime control. The growing scale of illegal
economic activity also reflects erosion of political
regulation of important sectors of economic life. Sovi- 25X1
et society as a whole has become less cohesive and
society from top to bottom.
Mass Corruption. Corruption has long been a fact of
life within the Soviet bureaucratic elite, but under
Brezhnev it became a mass phenomenon enveloping
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
Whether or not these assessments are exaggerated, it
is clear that corruption so permeates everyday life
that the ordinary citizen typically finds himself un-
able to avoid theft and bribery in procuring even basic
necessities, such as food, housing, and medical care.
sovieticus is forced to resort to bribery is as inexhaust-
ible as life itself, from a bed in a maternity ward to a
cemetery plot." Even in prisons and labor camps, one
can get almost anything for a bribe,
The rampant scale of corruption is connected with the
growth of the second economy, which also came into
full bloom in the Brezhnev period. Because the official
economy has failed to provide sufficient quantities of
goods and services, many Soviet citizens have turned
to private enterprise to advance their personal welfare
and interests. In fact, the findings of the Soviet
Interview Project indicate that those not engaging in
private economic activity-because of conscience or
lack of skills-may find themselves impoverished. The
survey found that the wealthiest citizens supplement
their state-set salaries with income from private work.
These include doctors and dentists with private prac-
tices, college-level teachers who tutor on the side, and
drivers who take money for private trips. Overall, the
hourly personal income return on private economic
activity was eight times that in the state sector in
1979, and for doctors the ratio was 42 to 1 for the
relevant categories included in the survey.
A large percentage of certain types of economic
activity may be conducted on the black market.
in late
1982 estimated that some 30 percent of the labor
force under the age of 30 in the republic of Azerbai-
jan had opted to get out of the regular economy. A
recent Izvestiya article reported that 17-20 million
people were moonlighting as repairmen and that they
accounted for about half of all shoe repairs, 45
percent of apartment remodeling, 40 percent of car
repairs, and 30 percent of household appliance re-
pairs. Illegal speculation (the purchase and resale of
goods for profit) is now so widespread that as much as
two-thirds of the population is probably involved,
more than 60 percent of the some 300,000 prisoners in
Moscow jails today are there because of economic
crimes, ranging from overcharging customers to oper-
ating underground private factories to stealing state
property.
The sheer scale and openness of corruption both
reflect and feed the popular attitude that many forms
of corruption are normal, even legitimate. In a Janu-
ary 1985 Izvestiya interview, a Soviet legal expert
acknowledged that a defensive reaction-"That's
what everybody does"-has taken hold among the
population at large. Moreover, according to emigre
reporting, skillful maneuvering in the complicated
system of commercial crimes and activities evokes
from some members of society "praise of the business-
man." Successful speculators appear to be popular
and respected for their talents.
Stealing from the state, in particular, has virtually
become a matter of course and is not regarded by the
public as a criminal act. Soviet sociological data
indicate that practically all Soviet workers pilfer from
their enterprises, and it is extremely rare that one will
blow the whistle on another. A survey of Moscow
workers, reported in a 1983 Soviet publication, found
that nearly 80 percent opposed punishment for pilfer-
ing from state enterprises.
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP87T00787R000200180006-0
Secret
This toleration has not been cost free, however. The
existence of the "second economy" subverts centrally
established priorities and challenges centralized con-
trol over prices, income distribution, and allocation of
manpower and capital. To some extent, growth of the
second or black economy over time could generate
new sources of economic and political power. F__1
Moreover, since much of ordinary Soviet life is envel-
oped in vast areas of illegality, the whole concept of
crime has become blurred. Soviets in conversations
with US diplomats and Western correspondents have
suggested that Soviet society is moving toward a
moral vacuum and a weakening of ethical norms and
legal rules to regulate individual behavior. The gener-
al atmosphere fostered by corruption-of doing things
on the dark side of the law and getting away with it-
fuels the growth of other forms of criminal behavior.
/{o ro