The manhunt on participants in the protest actions, the opposition leaders and a tougher legislation – all these things can be taken as the launch of political repressions, 27% of Russians gave this response in reply to the questions, which the Levada Centre sociologists asked at the initiative of the Vedomosti daily (the sociological survey was conducted among 1,600 Russians on August 10-13). 56% of Russian citizens do not think so. The relative majority or 42% of those, who are saying about repressions, expect that they will be continued during the whole presidential term of Vladimir Putin, but 17% believe that the repressions will last no less than a year and several years.
44% of respondents believe that this repressive attack is seeking to disorganize and weaken the opposition. A fourth of Russian citizens believe that the opposition is just being put in the legal framework, the same number of pollsters believe that no one pursues special goals, just after a brief ‘liberalization’ the authorities are getting back to the ways of country’s administration that had taken shape in the 2000s.
Some 56% of respondents constitute pro-Putin’s majority, who do not want to know about the current actions of the authorities over the opposition and does not accept the information that the repressions may embrace all people, the Vedomosti daily cited Levada Centre Director Lev Gudkov as saying. The Russian population mainly does not support the manhunt of the authorities on the opposition, but responds to the news reports on the official television channels.
Meanwhile, the question to assess the Stalin-era repressions is becoming more topical. Now 49% of Russian citizens believe that these Stalinist repressions should be denounced actively and people should not forget their history (there were 44% of them 1.5 years ago and 42% five years ago). Some 37% believe that the past should not be revaluated. The society has split over the question whether someone should repent for the repressions. Some 28% are convinced that the repentance is not needed, 23% of respondents believe that that the living chiefs, who gave the orders for execution, should repent, 21% - perpetrators of those orders should repent and 11% - the whole nation.