The Levada Center has compared the attitude of Russians to Soviet regime in the late 70s and early 80s with that of the present day.
Answering the question “name the qualities that characterize the Soviet government,” 29% of Russians called it “close to people,” 25% said it was “strong,” and 22% – “fair”. Russians described the current government mainly in a negative way: 41% of respondents called it “criminal” or “corrupt,” while 31% said it was “far from the people,” 24% called it “bureaucratic”.
In the late 70s and early 80s, Leonid Brezhnev headed the Soviet Union.
The sociologists of the Levada Center have already conducted this kind of study six times in the last 11 years. And each time the Soviet model of rule won. According to sociologists, the current government lost even in the most favorable of its years — in 2008, when there was a peak of mass satisfaction with the economic situation and there was a patriotic-militarist rise in society after the war with Georgia. It also lost in 2015-2016 during the period of the Crimean mobilization, patriotic euphoria and the greatest satisfaction with the actions of the government.
