POLITICAL VALUES OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIETY (results of the comparative research)

The article presents the results of the comparative study of political-ideological views of the Russian population on the values of freedom, democracy, social justice, the role of the state, etc. The research covers almost a quarter of a century - the surveys based on the same questionnaire were conducted among Muscovites in 1992 and 2016. The results of the comparative study show that the structure of the views on basic political values has not changed significantly. However, there are still different, often opposite social-political representations in the Russian society, which is clearly manifested when opposing freedom and inequality, democracy and socialism, social justice and individualism. Moreover, the shares of respondents expressing opposite views are approximately equal. At the same time, the attitudes structure revealed at the end of the last century has changed if compared to the data of 2016 survey, especially considering the role of individual activities in determining life trajectories. There is growing support for the importance of individualism as opposed to social justice and for the expectations of various types of state social guarantees. The results of the multidimensional statistical classification prove that there are several groups with different political-ideological orientations - from supporters of liberal democratic ideas to those who prefer socialist values. However, most groups still support the paternalistic ideas of the Soviet period such as the importance of social guarantees and social role of the state.