Fainsod: Russian People Apathetic

"The heroic age of Communism is over" in Russia, Merle Fainsod, professor of Government, declared last night in discussing "Controls and Tensions in the Soviet System" at the first Leverett House Forum this year.

He emphasized that the idealistic revolutionary fervor characteristic of the Soviet Union in its early years has given way to an apathetic conforming to official indoctrination.

This apathy of the mass of the Russian people with Communism as an ideology grows from disillusionment with "the better life too long delayed," Fainsod stated.

He based his beliefs on interviews with 100 former Soviet citizens in German and Austria last summer. Sixty-four of the interviews were detailed biographical studies of expatriates from a wide range of classes and nationalities in Russia. Some of them field from the threat of "A good job one day and labor camp the next."

Fainsod also found that the continuing demand of sacrifices from the Soviet people is breeding dissatisfactions. To cope with these tensions the Communist regime resorts to repressive police controls, indoctrination, and scapegoats.