Comparative analysis of Russian citizens’ well-being before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union

N N TARUN CHAKRAVORTY; Vladislav N. Rutskiy; Elena P. Sevastyanova

Abstract

This study, analyzing the quantitative and qualitative data collected from the residents of some Russian regions, compares the level of people’s well-being between the Soviet period and the present Russia. It finds that a larger number of respondents felt happier in Soviet period, but most of them do not want to go back to the Soviet system. They fear, any shift like this, might involve uncertainty while certainty was the main constituent factor of their happiness. Freedom which is considered the main ingredient of happiness in present Russia, can add to happiness only after people are able to meet their necessities and then have some extra money for investment or entertainment.

Keywords: Well-being, happiness, certainty, freedom, confidence, choice.

JEL classification: I31, P52

Note: submitted to a journal for publication

Highlights

? A larger number of people suggest that they were happier in Soviet period than in present capitalist Russia;

? Stability in their life, stability of the state, certainty of life they wanted to live, guarantee of livelihood and confidence in the ability to live a better life in the days to come, were the main reasons for their happiness in Soviet Russia;

? Those who think they were happier in Soviet period, do not want to go back to that system as they fear that such a shift might involve uncertainty while certainty was the main reason for their happiness in that period;

? Those who suggest that they are happier in the present capitalist Russia, put forward freedom, expansion of choices, expansion of opportunities as their arguments;

? Although freedom is considered a main element of happiness in present capitalist Russia, it can contribute to increasing happiness only after an individual is able to fulfill his or her necessities and has some excess money for investment or entertainment.

1. Introduction

Scholars in philosophy often use the words ‘happiness’ and ‘well-being’ synonymously. Well-being researchers, however, define happiness as subjective well-being, which comprises mental states such as life satisfaction and emotional well-being. Well-being refers more to the condition of life in terms of goods individuals possess, services individuals have access to, achievements individuals attain, which makes life comfortable. On the other hand, happiness is a mental state of feeling good. Two persons having the same condition of life might not feel equally good. That is, happiness is subjective. It has been discussed elaborately later in section-2. Now, we just make it clear that we have, through our survey, collected data on both happiness and well-being. This study, therefore, compares both happiness and well-being between Soviet Union and present Russia although the title of the article mentions only well-being.

Happiness likewise subjective well-being has been a widely researched topic in the last decade. The view that quantitative measures of development do not tell much about people’s well-being, has become more and more popular in recent times. In the studies of well-being, mostly the factors contributing to the level of well-being have been investigated. A substantial amount of research has been done on the comparison of well-being between countries, societies, communities having different cultural, economic, ethnic, political, historical and geographical characteristics but a little has been done on the comparison of well-being between regimes— especially between socialist regime and capitalist regime of a country. On these perspectives, we are motivated to conduct a comparative analysis of well-being of the Russian citizens before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Since Soviet Union was the first state built on the basis of socialist ideology in history, it was a matter of great interest for the people all over the world to see how this state did, especially in ensuring well-being for its people. Also, since this state was a challenge for the capitalist block of countries led by the USA to expand the market of their products, those countries— especially the USA under challenge, not only kept an eye on the developments of this newly built state but also took measures in various forms in an effort to deter its progress. What the level of well-being of the citizens under Soviet regime was, was of a great interest for the people all over the world. The collapse of the USSR was a very significant event in the world history. The current president of Russia, who accepted the switch of the country from the socialist system to capitalist system, described the collapse of the union as the greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind. The reaction of the people of the then Soviet Union to the collapse of the union was mixed. There is no reliable statistics representative of the whole population who lived in the Soviet Union and thus it is difficult to say what percentage of the population was really happy and what percentage of the population was unhappy with this switch but the people in general were awe-struck by the event. Twenty-five years have passed after the regime change in Russia and most of the people who ran families in soviet period, are still alive and are still living in the midst of worries and eases of running families. Therefore, it is a good idea to analyse the perception of happiness in two periods and compare the levels of happiness now when that generation is still alive.

There is an age-old and worldwide debate: ‘capitalism is better or socialism is better’. Not a very good amount of research has been done on this question. We know about some polls conducted by the Levada-Centre on questions related to the effectiveness of the political social-economic system. According to its 2013’s polls, 36% of the respondents think that the Soviet system was better while only 17% consider today’s political system better. In the same poll 51% of respondents expressed their preference for planned economy to market economy (The Levada-Center 2012). We, therefore, have taken this populist debate as a research question such as ‘which system makes people happier: socialist system or capitalist system?’. Accordingly, the main thrust behind conducting this research is to understand the impact of the structures of the state and society on people’s well-being. While doing that, it is expected to have an insight on the elements of happiness as well. With this end, we have collected quantitative and qualitative data from the people who ran families in the Soviet period and are running families also now or living in the midst of worries and eases of family life mainly in Krasnoyarsk region and a few in some other regions (details are given in section- 4). This study does both quantitative and qualitative analyses on the data collected and inferences have been made on in which period people were/are happier. Since our sample is not representative, any conclusion made from the results of the quantitative analysis would not be scientific. That’s why, we have taken in-depth interviews from the people who have deep insight on the issue in an effort to understand the underlying causes of the quantitative results and to know what is not revealed in the quantitative information. Combining two methodologies has helped us to have a complete understanding of the issue.

Our results show that a greater number of the respondents in our sample think that they were happier in Soviet period and the reasons for this view appeared to be stability in their life and stability of the state, certainty of life they wanted to live, guarantee of livelihood, and confidence in the ability to live a better life in the days to come. On the other hand, the respondents who suggest that they are happier in the present capitalist Russia, put forward freedom, expansion of choices, expansion of opportunities as their arguments. This study offers two new findings: first, most people who held the view that the Soviet period was happier, do not want to go back to the Soviet system when asked if they would like to have the Soviet system back. It gives the testament to their view that certainty or guarantee of life was the main reason for their feeling of happiness in the Soviet period because they fear that any initiative to switch the country to the old system might involve uncertainty in their lives, which would make them unhappier again; second, although freedom is considered an important element of well-being or happiness but in order for freedom to contribute to the elevation of the level of happiness of a person, the person must have been able to meet all the basic needs and have some excess money for investment or entertainment. Freedom does not add to the happiness of a person who has not been able to meet his or her necessities and then have some extra money.

2. Literature review

3. Measurement of well-being

4. Methodology and data

5. Results

6. Conclusion

Clearly, a greater number of respondents suggest that they were happier in the Soviet period. Stability, certainty of life, guarantee of livelihood, confidence in the ability to live a better Life in future for themselves and their children, were put by these respondents as the causes of their happiness. The respondents who think they are happier now in the present capitalist Russia put freedom and expansion of choices and opportunities as the causes of their happiness— all of which can be put under one heading— freedom. The new finding that stands out is that although freedom is an important element of happiness, to have well-being or happiness from freedom one needs to be able to fulfil her basic needs and some money excess of his needs so that she can invest that money for generating income or spend for entertainment; otherwise, freedom is useless for her. The respondents who suggest that they are happy now because of freedom, they belong to those group who have managed to have some money excess of their basic needs and those who opine that they were happier in Soviet time, are not able to meet their basic needs or have no excess money for entertainment now under the current regime.

Another interesting finding is that even those who considered Soviet period to be happier, do not want to go back to the Soviet system because they fear involvement of uncertainty in the transition because they considered Soviet period happier since there was certainty in that period. Now with the fear of uncertainty in the proposed transition, they do not want to take the risk of going back to the old system, which, with uncertainty in life, would make them unhappier than how they are now in present Russia.

Further work is necessary to make an inference on which system offers more well-being and happiness for the people. A representative sample consisting of all walks of people across all the regions of the erstwhile Soviet Union needs to be used in such an analysis. Besides, in-depth interviews need to be conducted and focus group discussions need to be held and all walks of people having deep insight in life before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, need to be selected for such interviews and discussions, which is beyond our scope. This study, therefore, cannot make inferences on the effectiveness of socialist and capitalist systems in ensuring well-being and happiness. Our study just gives a general impression about how Russian people now tend to compare the level of well-being and happiness between the two systems.