Russian Center Studies Make-up of Soviet Man

The Russian Research Center, during the next four years, will evaluate material that may increase understanding of a long neglected and little understood part of the Soviet system--the Russian man. For eight months, interviewers from the center talked to Soviet emigres in German Displaced Persons Camps and in the United States.

This particular project, one of the center's many, is supported by the Human Resources Institute at Alabama's Maxwell Field Air Base. The study of the individual is only a part of a much larger project that will construct a provisional working model of the Soviet system.

From the D.P. interviews, the researchers obtained information on specific aspects of Soviet life and institutions basic to the Soviet system. First contacts were made in September, 1950, with Soviet emigre in Displaced Persons Camps in Germany. Researchers also talked with Russians living in other parts of Western Europe, and later questioned former Russians now in the United States.

Directed by Kluckhohn

A team of 16 persons, with skills ranging from clinical psychologists to economists conducted the interviews. The project is under the direction of Clyde K. M. Kluckhohn, professor of Anthropology.

The foremost problem that interviewers had to surmount was the scope and method of the interview itself. This was solved by giving four separate interviews to allow leeway for personal opinions, bias, and other psychological intrusions.

The first interview was oral. Here the interviewer questioned the emigre about his personal life. He was asked about his family life, his work, and his feelings toward the regime.

The next interview was given by one specialist each to uncover information within his own field. These special interviews went into such subjects as the Soviet medical profession German occupation, Soviet family, and the partisan movement during the war.

Clinical Test

Two clinical psychologists who went with the group conducted a clinical interview designed to give personality data. This would show the subject's attitude to the status of a displaced person--something which might bias his opinion toward Russia or, on the contrary, help recall his day-to-day life in the Soviet Union.

Finally, a series of written questionnaires was used. This took ten hours and was given to approximately 500 persons. The entire meeting would usually consume from two to three days.

The total number of interviews given was: 325 personal history documents; 2,500 pencil and paper questionnaires; 50 clinical interviews; and about 450 interviews on special topics. The interviews on the special topics, for example, ran from 60 to 120 pages each.

Hindered by Bias

Bias, the ever-present hindrance in dealing with people who have left a country either by force or their own volition, was met in several ways, according to Alfred G. Meyer, research fellow at the center. In many cases, the response to questioning by emigres was disciplined by a desire to get into the United States. Many thought that they would make their emigration easier by answering in a way favorable to U.S. policies and ideas.

To get around this, all interviews were conducted on a strictly confidential basis, and all names were kept anonymous. Others had a sincere dislike of the Soviet Union. In these cases, the clinical tests brought out leads to unbiased information.

But throughout the interviews, the researchers were constantly aware of the D.P.'s bias toward the Soviet Union. Always a question remained in the examiner's mind, according to Meyer, as to how representative the Displaced Person, an exile or at least an expatriate, is of the Soviet society in general.

Fear

Some researchers ran up against a different problem, however. This was fear.

Joseph S. Berliner, graduate fellow in Economics, said he was interviewing an emigre in one room while an associate was questioning a former Russian in an adjoining room. After a short while, his associate came into the room and said that he couldn't learn anything from the emigre.

A German had come into the room previously, Berliner said, and scared the Russian into silence. After Berliner and his associate had calmed the Russian, a half hour later, the German entered the interview room, looking for a paper. This time the emigre was certain the German was a Russian Secret Policeman. From then on, he would not talk.