The Cause And Effect Of Soviet Public Opinion Going To Control And Collapse

With the development of the times, the public opinion of the Soviet has gone through a tortuous evolution. From the exploration of its ideal conditions during Lenin’s reign to its total control under the guidance of Stalin model, even the influence of the “thaw period”, the public opinion of the Soviet because of an ossified system showed “same opinions” authoritarian tendencies. After Gorbachev came to power, he implemented "democratization", "openness", "diversity" policy and chose the theory of "democratic socialism" as the party’s guiding ideology. However, owing to lack of ability of the domination of Soviet own culture,the tradition of cultural authoritarian, closure of ideology and inner-Party struggle,the public opinion of the Soviet tended to lose control and collapse. As a result, people’s thought disrupted, all kinds of media gradually estranged from the leadership of the party, and eventually the social foundation of the communist party collapsed.In this paper, I try to discuss the public opinion of the Soviet in each period, manly analyzing and summarizing on the background, tendency and outcome of the public opinion of the Soviet under Gorbachev’s administration. The first chapter of the article aims to get a descriptive definition of the meaning, characteristics and group expressions of the public opinion. Meanwhile, I introduce the relationship between public opinion and the operation of power. The second chapter states tortuous evolutions of the public opinion of the Soviet in each period and its influencing factors. The third chapter analyzes the public opinion change of the Soviet under Gorbachev’s administration from the perspectives of the Soviet’s efforts to reconstruct public opinion space and the public response to the state and the society. The fourth chapter states the public opinion of the Soviet under Gorbachev’s administration with considerations of content, subject, means of public opinion transmission,attributes its collapse to the ability of the domination of Soviet own culture, the tradition of cultural authoritarian, features of ideology and inner-Party struggle, divorced from the reality, peaceful evolution, etc. It is concluded that the state power should properly play a role in releasing stress of the public opinion which principle is similar to "safety valve” adhere to guiding the public opinion with the leadership of the socialist direction, properly and prudently handle problems left over by history and traditional culture, set up correct view of history, and properly handle the relationship between the state and the society.