[PEN-L:33699] Re: Majority of Russians Prefer Soviet Union

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 1/9/03 9:21:03 AM Pacific Standard Time, HooverM@xxxxxxxxxx writes:

> 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. 




At least half of the one-third that said "the fall of Communism was inevitable," were Trotskyites. One half of the one-third were degenerate bureaucrats, whose social position allowed them to live off the labor of the Soviet working class and the rest were composed of the various strata in society. 


Melvin P.