Exiting Communism’s Enduring Effect on Russian Public Opinion

The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies hosts Middlebury College economics Professor William Pyle for a discussion of communism’s enduring effect on Russian public opinion.

One cannot fully understand the country that Russia is today without appreciating the enduring effect of its dramatic exit from communism thirty years ago. The shocks of transitioning from one economic system to another and witnessing the Soviet empire’s collapse left a deep and enduring impression on Russians’ worldview. Public opinion surveys and election data highlight how this history has had lasting and often differential effects on individuals and entire regions.