‘A sense of gloom’ What a declassified CIA report reveals about popular sentiment in the late USSR when, like today, a former KGB official was in power
The first half of the 1980s was a period of political, ideological, and economic crisis in the Soviet Union. Aging general secretaries were dying one after another, empty store shelves were a common sight, ethnic tensions were on the rise, and sincere belief in communist ideals had become a cause for ridicule. All of this was recorded by the CIA in a report compiled in December 1982 — just a month after Leonid Brezhnev’s death, when the USSR was, for the first time, led by a former KGB official, Yuri Andropov. That assessment, now declassified, was recently obtained by Transparency International Russia through a Freedom of Information Act request. Meduza shares a summary of its contents.
Consumerism and religion
The report begins like this: “Over the past several years, and especially over the past several months, a number of Western observers in Moscow have detected in Soviet society an air of general depression and foreboding about the future.”
The authors cite two American scholars and two journalists who lived in or frequently visited Moscow during the 1970s and 1980s. According to them, Soviet citizens were experiencing a “crisis of values” and a “sense of gloom,” along with declining support for the regime. The report attributes these sentiments to stagnating living standards, increasingly visible class divisions, and shrinking opportunities for social mobility. The Soviet Union was run by a party elite that enjoyed exclusive privileges and was determined to preserve them for themselves and for their children — while ordinary people struggled to obtain even basic consumer goods.
Our only hope is you. Support Meduza before it’s too late.
The report highlights that under Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev, the USSR had maintained a sense of ideological fervor: people believed they were building a new kind of society, which went a long way in helping them endure hardship. Brezhnev, who succeeded Khrushchev, dialed back the emphasis on ideology and shifted the state’s focus to material prosperity, but he failed to deliver steady improvements in living standards. In the mid-1970s, the Soviet economy began to slow down. At the same time, the authorities relaxed their grip on information, giving Soviet citizens more opportunities to compare life in the USSR with life in the West — a comparison that steadily eroded their loyalty.
The result, the authors write, was a widespread sense of “apathy, cynicism, and disgruntlement” among the Soviet population. These attitudes didn’t help the economy: labor productivity remained low, alcohol consumption (including on the job) was widespread, “episodic strike activity” was reported, and the black market thrived. According to the CIA, members of the Soviet elite complained about a lack of discipline and moral values — especially among young people — and feared popular unrest fueled by shortages and growing ethnic tensions. The report includes several examples that reflect these concerns:
- In December 1981, the head of the propaganda department at the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, Pravda, expressed concern in a conversation with U.S. embassy staff about the Soviet youth’s lack of commitment, growing consumerism, interest in religion, and desire to avoid military service. He also admitted that Soviet officials found it increasingly difficult to communicate with workers, who were “offended” by the privileges enjoyed by their superiors.
- In April 1982, a researcher at the USA-Canada Institute at the Soviet Academy of Sciences told an American official that Soviet society was facing a crisis of discipline, visible labor problems, crime, and interethnic tensions.
- In October that year, the head of a Soviet government department warned that he saw a “very real” risk of unrest, citing rising public demands for better food, more free time, and greater access to consumer goods.
Corruption and demand for a ‘strong leader’
The Soviet leadership’s fears of potential public unrest were further fueled by political instability in Poland, where a wave of massive worker strikes erupted in 1980, organized by the independent trade union Solidarity. Sparked by rising food prices, the protests eventually led to the imposition of martial law in the country.
In 1981, Yuri Andropov, then still head of the KGB, told a Polish counterpart that the political and economic situation in the USSR was not much better than in Poland. That same year, amid worsening food shortages, KGB officers requested that provincial branches be granted access to the same special supply stores that existed in Moscow, according to the CIA report.
Corruption was another major problem. Leonid Brezhnev openly benefited from his position and turned a blind eye as others did the same. By the end of his 18-year rule, bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of power had, in the CIA’s assessment, become “so prevalent and so blatant as to suggest a significant lowering of accepted norms of behavior.”
Against this backdrop, some members of the Soviet elite began calling for a return to Stalin-era discipline. The CIA report includes the following examples:
- In March 1982, a mid-level government official in Moscow asserted that the 25–45 age group was leaning toward a neo-Stalinist orientation.
- In June, party officials discussed the idea that, for the USSR to achieve economic growth and political stability, it would need to tighten domestic controls and reduce social, cultural, and political contact with the West.
- In July, a senior Soviet diplomat in Washington told a former U.S. official that in his view, the Soviet Union needed strict social discipline and a strong, Stalin-like leader in order to survive and develop — someone “Brezhnev was not,” he added.
Several CIA sources believed that Andropov could be that kind of leader. In 1981, before he was appointed General Secretary, an employee at the Soviet Institute for the USA and Canada told an American official that Andropov was the most suitable candidate in the Politburo to become a “vozhd,” or “chief” — a strong, authoritative leader. According to the CIA report, Andropov had built a reputation as someone untainted by corruption and a staunch opponent of “Western ideological penetration” and “any manifestations of civil unrest or disobedience.”
Growing Russian nationalism
The CIA report notes that in 1981–1982, Soviet generals expressed growing concern over ethnic tensions within the armed forces. At the same time, Soviet newspapers and Politburo speeches increasingly emphasized the centralized nature of the USSR and the role of the Russian people in its formation and achievements.
In March 1982, Brezhnev called for more ethnic Russians to be brought into the Communist Party and government institutions of the Soviet republics. In June of that year, an unnamed party official told U.S. representatives that some of his colleagues were discussing the need to strengthen the country’s “Slavic essence.” Their concern, he said, was maintaining control over the Soviet Union once ethnic Russians made up less than half of its population.
Appeals to Russian nationalism may be intended to lay the groundwork for efforts to assert greater central control over the minority nationalities, which Russian leaders doubtless believe are less disciplined and more susceptible to foreign influences than the Russian population. Attempts to associate the regime more closely with traditional Russian nationalism may also be viewed as a means of countering consumer discontent and offsetting the waning of ideology as a legitimizing force in the Russian republic itself.
The report also notes that the rise in nationalist rhetoric and the regime’s renewed emphasis on discipline sparked pushback from the more liberal wing of the Soviet elite and intelligentsia. One example cited is Politburo member Konstantin Chernenko (later Brezhnev’s successor), who believed the crisis in Poland stemmed from the Communist Party there losing touch with the masses. Chernenko advocated creating a special party commission to study public opinion.
Sign up for The Beet
Underreported stories. Fresh perspectives. From Budapest to Bishkek.
Toward the end of the report, the authors write that public attitudes in the USSR had shifted since the mid-1970s: the population had become “more demanding, more skeptical, and less pliable,” while the elite “probably feel less secure about popular quiescence than at any time since the de-Stalinization period of the 1950s.” To stabilize the situation, the report predicted that the USSR’s new leadership under Andropov would likely launch an anti-corruption campaign and implement economic reforms — paired with a more conservative social policy rooted in Russian nationalism.
That prediction only partially came true. Andropov did in fact crack down on labor activism — he became widely known for police raids targeting workers skipping their jobs to go to bathhouses or movie theaters. He also launched high-profile anti-corruption investigations (most notably the so-called “cotton scandal” in Uzbekistan) and began loosening the state’s grip on the Soviet economy. However, he died before any substantial economic reforms could be implemented. Russian nationalism, meanwhile, never became a major element of his policy.
Arguably, Andropov’s most significant legacy was advancing the political career of Mikhail Gorbachev, who would go on to become the Soviet Union’s last leader.
