Majority of Russians Prefer Soviet Union
>Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 12:18:02 -0500
>
>Sources:
>[1] http://afr.com/world/2002/12/31/FFXRBFEOCAD.html
>
>[2]http://www.interfax.ru/one_news_en.html?lang=EN&tz=0&tz_format=MSK&
>id_news=5613376
>----
>Majority of Russians want to go back to the USSR:
>
> AFP. 30 December 2002.
>
> MOSCOW -- Nearly seven out of 10 Russians wish the Soviet Union had
> never collapsed, according to a new poll released Monday on the 80th
> anniversary of the creation of the Communist bloc.
>
> Some 68 percent of those polled said they regretted the union's
> disappearance, while 25 percent said they did not, according to the
> Vtsiom Institute poll quoted by the Interfax news agency.
>
> Three-fourths of the 1,600 Russians polled said that the Soviet Union
> was better suited to fostering people's social and economic growth, the
> poll found.
>
> Some 55 percent of those polled also said they thought of the USSR as a
> voluntary union of free states, while [only] 34 percent said it was a
> Russian imperialist group made up of subordinate republics.
>
> And 59 percent said the Soviet Union's break-up in 1991 could have been
> avoided, while [only] one-third of those polled said the fall of
> Communism was inevitable.