GfK Surveys.com Blog

Fifty years ago next week, Hungarians mindful of their nation’s former glory took to the streets in protest against Russian domination. That effort bore fruit more than three decades years later, when the Soviet Union broke up. But breaking away has proved more difficult than expected. Late last month, Hungarians took to the streets again — this time, to protest the current crop of leaders, who, despite time’s passage and the Soviets’ demise, found themselves likened to the Reds of old. The symmetry of the protests suggests that for Hungary, escaping Russia’s influence may be a long-term affair. That Hungary’s neighbours and fellow newcomers to the European Union are having their own problems amid the transformation to a market democracy — both Poland and the Czech Republic are mired in bureaucratic muck reminiscent of their Russian counterpart’s — indicates that its predicament is not unique. For Central Europe — as for Russia itself — 50 years of membership in the Soviet bloc has left a legacy that may be hard to shake.

Few in the post-Communist universe may want to go back to the guns-and margarine days before the Soviet Union broke apart, but our research suggests that, compared with the Western world, those who experienced first-hand the highs and lows of the immediate post perestroika period are ambivalent, if not a bit sceptical, about freedom. Central Europeans ascribe less importance to “having freedom of one’s life.
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