Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens

ISBN-13: 9780521348904 / Angielski / Miękka / 1987 / 440 str.

James R. Millar

Opis

Based on the first comprehensive study of life in the USSR since the Harvard Project some 33 years ago, Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR is designed to illustrate how the Soviet social system really works and how the Soviet people cope with it. Taken as a whole, the book describes the sources of support and alienation in the Soviet urban population during the late 1970s, discussing such issues as Soviet political beliefs, ethnic relations, economic inequality, quality of life, and perceptions of social status. The essays contained analyze the variations in attitudes and behavior reflected in the findings of the Soviet Interview Project, a 5-year, 7.5 million investigation of contemporary daily life in the USSR. Among these findings, generational differences and differential education attainment are found to be the most significant underlying determinants of the opinions on, and approaches to, the different issues; the young, the educated and the well-paid, that is, the "best and the brightest" of Soviet society, prove to be the most critical and least satisfied with life in the Soviet Union. This comprehensive investigation involved interviewing thousands of recent emigrants from the USSR to the United States as a means of learning about their former day-to-day living. These individuals provided for a large volume of first-hand reports. Some aspects of this survey dealt with areas the Soviets themselves had never investigated, so the data were not, and still are not, available even in unpublished Soviet sources.

Recenzje

'Professor Millar and his colleagues have rendered the field of Soviet studies a signal service by systematically investigating the attitudes, values, and life histories of a large sample of 'Third Wave' émigrés. Their findings help to clarify some of the most hotly disputed analytical issues in the field. All of the contributions to this volume will repay careful reading, and some of them will undoubtedly become classics in the field.' Jeremy R. Azrael, The RAND Corporation

Spis treści

Foreword Joseph S. Berliner; Part I. Introduction: 1. History, method, and the problem of bias James R. Millar; 2. Quality of life: subjective measures of relative satisfaction James R. Millar and Elizabeth Clayton; Part II. Politics: Sources of Regime Support: 3. Politics, generations, and change in the USSR Donna Bahry; 4. Political beliefs of the Soviet citizen: sources of support for regime norms Brian D. Silver; 5. The attentive public for Soviet science and technology Linda L. Lubrano; Part III. Work: Economic/Demographic Trends: 6. Inequality of earnings, household income, and wealth in the Soviet Union in the 1970s Aaron Vinokur and Gur Ofer; 7. The life course of Soviet women born 1905–1960 Barbara A. Anderson; 8. Productivity, slack, and time theft in the Soviet economy Paul R. Gregory; Part IV. Life: Social Status, Ethnic Relations, and Mobilized Participation: 9. Perceptions of social status in the USSR Michael Swafford; 10. Nationality policy and ethnic relations in the USSR Rasma Karklins; 11. Mobilized participation and the nature of the Soviet dictatorship William Zimmerman; Appendixes; Glossary; General bibliography of Soviet Interview project publications; Index.