Inertia of state paternalism and its consequences

Abstract

The massive desire to change the state and political system of late socialism in the late 1980s — in the first half of the 1990s led to the emergence of many new public organizations and real competition between the political parties, to freedom of the media, religious associations, everything that forms a “society” as a system of social relations based on mutual interests and solidarity. These processes have given rise to hopes for the country’s exit from a long state of stagnation to democratization, turning it into a “normal country”, the same as other developed countries of the West. But by the end of the 1990s, the negative consequences of protracted and half-hearted institutional reforms turned into mass disillusionment with the ideology of reforms, distrust of democratic parties, the need for stability, craving for conservatism and hopes for a strong leader who could return “order” to the people, a sense of security, predictability of everyday existence, guaranteed prosperity and confidence in tomorrow. Illusions of the transition period were replaced by conservative views and the restoration of state paternalism as ideological residues of Brezhnev’s socialism. Data of sociological research shows, that hopes for the state paternalism over ordinary people are now combined with a pronounced distrust of the social institutions of state, political passivity and refusal to participate in public activities. Trust is limited only to the sphere of private existence. In this regard, “society” in the sociological sense can be considered per se only with a high degree of conditionality.