MOSCOW. May 4 (Interfax) – Almost a third of Russians say they sympathize with Marxism despite meager knowledge of the concept, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) said having conducted a poll on the occasion of Karl Marx’s 200th birth anniversary.
“Russians have a faint memory of Marxist ideas (66 percent are unable to describe them, and 16 percent say they know nothing about Marxism) and mostly demonstrate an indifferent attitude (49 percent of those who have any idea of the concept). A third (30 percent) said they sympathized with Marxism, and 9 percent declared negative feelings,” VCIOM said in a statement seen by Interfax on Friday.
An absolute majority of Russians (98 percent) are aware of Karl Marx, yet the awareness is more profound in senior citizens (70 percent) than in the younger generation (25 percent), the sociologists said.
“The public associates the German philosopher and economist with his works on political economy, mostly Das Kapital, which over half (58 percent) of respondents generally familiar with his words read,” VCIOM said.
Forty-one percent of respondents who heard about Marx said they read his works. Opinions differed: 15 percent said the works were interesting, and 26 percent disagreed.
“Marxism-Leninism has been excluded from the higher education curriculum, and even the history course of general-education schools no longer puts emphasis on the Marxist view of history, but the Marx name is still familiar to Russians. The author, scientist, and communist has not been completely erased from memory. Marxism has not been forgotten either. Every economic crisis, either here or in the West, and every instance of discontent with the abyss between the rich and the poor brings the old ideas of Marxism to public mind,” VCIOM senior analyst Ivan Lekontsev said.
“Of course, Russian masses know Marxism not as well as they used to, besides, the ideas of Marx have mixed with the Leninist ideas and political slogans of the Soviet Communist Party. Russians mostly remember economic theories of Marx, which still receive a positive response. The negative attitude to Marxism is mostly explained by disappointed expectations: communism that never took place and ambiguous political slogans such as land to peasants,” the VCIOM press service quoted Lekontsev as saying.
VCIOM held the poll on April 26-27, 2018. Some 2,000 Russians older than 18 were interviewed on the phone by random choice of fixed-line and mobile phone numbers.
