Window on Eurasia

Social Problems, Official Corruption Behind Kondopoga Clashes, Russians Say

 

Paul Goble

Vienna, September 27, 2006 – After Kondopoga, only one Russian in five
favors adopting the kind of radical measures against migrants advocated
by Russian nationalist groups, according to a new poll, but one in two
believe the country needs to deal with social problems and official
corruption if it is to avoid such clashes in the future.

The Bashkirov polling firm last week asked 1500 Russian adults what
they knew about the conflict in the Karelian city, whom they blamed it on,
and what the Russian Federation should do now to limit the chances that
similar clashes will occur again
[http://bashkirova-partners.ru/res.php?id=5&show=778].

The poll results, reported yesterday and commented upon by Aleksandr
Muzafarov, the head of social and political research at that company,
are consistent with the findings of other polls conducted by Russian
organizations over the last three weeks. But one set of answers to this
survey merits attention.

The members of the sample were asked what they thought should be done
to prevent future Kondopogas. Some 21.8 percent said that “persons of
Caucasus nationality should be resettled beyond the borders of Russian
regions,” the kind of xenophobia that the Movement Against Illegal
Immigration (DPNI) and other groups have tried to promote and something
that invariably attracts media attention.

But the other responses of this sample were more interesting and are
likely to prove more significant in Russian social and political life
in the future. Just under one in five in the sample (19.3 percent) said
that to prevent future Kondopogas it would be necessary to “liquidate
corruption in the organs of power and the militia.”

Another fifth (18.8 percent) said that the country must work to promote
“an improvement in the conditions of life of people and a resolution
of social problems. Only one in seven (13.8 percent) suggested
toughening laws about migration, only one in 16 favored “devoting
more attention to training in tolerance,” and only one in 20 (5.7 percent)
backed the creation of programs for the adaptation of migrants.

As Muzafarov said in an interview [http://www.apn.ru/news/print10424.htm]), almost exactly half of the sample (49.9 percent) focused on social problems rather than ethnic issues and on the corruption of officials rather than the actions of migrants as the keys to understanding Kondopoga and preventing any
repetition.

Moreover, he noted, if one adds the 11.8 percent favoring more
attention to tolerance and the adaption of immigrants, the fraction of Russians
who believe that such problems can best be addressed by social programs
and the end of corruption is more than twice that of those backing a
hard line against the non-Russian migrants themselves.

On the one hand, this poll and especially the reading of it that
Muzafarov gives undercuts some of the more hyperbolic reporting about
the rise of xenophobia among Russians today and thus provides a greater
basis for concluding that Russia may be able to navigate its way
through these difficulties without a resort to more repression.

But on the other, the findings of this poll may prove even more
disturbing to the members of the Russian power vertical at both the
local and federal levels. To the extent they have been able to play
Russians off against non-Russians, the elite was able at least
partially to distract attention from its own inaction and corruption.

Indeed, if the Russian people begin to blame their problems –
including clashes like those in Kondopoga – not on the growth of
non-Russian migrant groups but rather on the government and its
failures, as this poll suggests some are now doing, that could create
new problems for those in power, again both locally and higher up the
latter.

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