Research Paper Supervisor: Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China 
2006-2007 Academic Year  
Abstract: Communism was once the common faith in many Eastern European countries such as Russia. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, communism lost its leading role gradually. More and more young people pay more attention to the real world and the short-term goals. The Eastern-European youth who lost their beliefs turn out to be complicated.
 
Keywords:  Eastern Europe; Russian youth; Value conception; Changes
 
 
After the disintegration of Soviet Union and the failure of Soviet communism in 1990s, Eastern European countries have been in a sudden social reforming. The communist ideal which occupied the whole society of Eastern European countries for a long time has existed no more in youth’ mind. But the blind envies and yearning to the capitalist system and the western life style occupied a dominant position in their hearts. The value conception of Russian youth have also had a remarkable change, obviously including the transformation from the authoritative orientation to the independent tendency, the social standard to the individual standard, the idealism to the practical realism, and the transformation from integrated value conception to pluralistic which is caused by the lost of believes.
 
 
The value conception of Russian youth before the disintegration of Soviet Union
 
Planned economy of traditional Russia society formed an authoritative social structure. Social value orientation which was formed under this social condition affected the youth profoundly through the education that they got from their families and schools, such as unconditional obedience to the authority, superstition to the power and single standard of evaluating persons and things. Infinite worship to leaders and incomparable trust to the Party caused majority Soviet Union youths to integrate their self-awareness into the leaders’ consciousness during the 80s in 20th century. They thought that being loyal to the enterprise of communist party, the socialism, patriotism, collectivism, responsibility, honor, and conscience and unselfish was, and will be important life goals and the moral value. The Soviet Union youths considered country and society having inestimable function in individual’s life and ideal. When they talked about their ideals and happiness, and made choices in their career, they always considered more about the requirement of the country and the social prestige.
 
When social orientation was excessively emphasized and one-sided strengthened, individual value orientation which took the social orientation as the reference system often neglected individual desire. Therefore, the former Soviet Union youth’s value system also presented to be single and constrained to some extent.
 
 
The characteristics of Russian youth’s value conception
after Soviet Union disintegrated
 
1. The weakness of patriotism and collectivism
At the beginning of 1990s, a social investigation about the patriotism of Russian young students in university indicated that many of them had quite light sentiments to their own country and nation. Even the organs of state power had no prestige in young people’s mind. Many young people treated coldly when regarding the word “motherland”. 33% students gave their answers like “This is merely the place where I was born”. 28% students said that motherland only meant it is a suitable place for living. And another 11% students said, “Motherland is only a word without content.”[1]
 
Since Soviet Union has disintegrated, the country has not nearly provided any protection and help to the common people. The collective that was relied on to keep people’s livelihood in the past went bankrupt also. Collectivism and the unselfish ideas, which resided in the first place in people’s mind originally, have been already substituted by personal interest and attachment to the families. An investigation manifested that 83.1% of Russian youth required high income for their jobs. 64.8% of them hoped their jobs full of delight and 20.9% wanted good conditions for doing their work. As for the importance of the jobs for the collective and society, unfortunately that was not their concern.
 
2. Tendency of pursuing independence and the expansion of ego value conception
Within the social structure of emphasizing the self-orientation and the equal relationships, the socialized youth receive the guidance of being independent unceasingly so that they are fostered to be more independent. The foundation of this point of view is the independent motive. They are expecting automatic, standing on their own feet, making decisions by themselves and without disturbance and protection by anyone.
 
For example, speaking of the political orientation, the judgments to the current political party and leaders of Russian youth don’t completely follow the opinions of their schools, teachers and parents. A social investigation in the light of whether you and your parents are frequently consistent in political opinions has shown that 34% Russian youth held definite attitude, and most of them were in lower age. 40% youth held against attitude, and the rest of them didn’t give their answers. In the light of the appraisals to the school education and the teachers’ viewpoint which affect them, Russian youth had dispersible standpoints. Some thought the opinions that schools and teachers gave them were right, and there were often a lot of consistence between these students and their teachers, especially as the teacher was a successful figure in the students’ hearts. On the contrary, some considered that there was a distance between the teachers’ thought and this new age. The schooling didn’t have enough persuasion to them. Still another students believed that these were own matters and there was no any comparability whether they were consistent. Also there were very few students thinking that they should obey what the teacher said no matter he was right or wrong. They said if one didn’t understand, that is because of his infantility.
 
Another example is about economy. The consciousness of participating economy independently of Russian youth is strengthening unceasingly. The growth of this is nearly synchronous with the reforming of society in Russia. When the country stopped assigning jobs in 1992, Russian youths have experienced a time with confusion and pain. As an investigation of the time shown, over half of the youths felt at loose ends. But another investigation in 1998 demonstrated that the Russian youths was still willing to choose profession independently even at the economic crisis time. Four fifth undergraduate expressed that they wanted to carve out by themselves if there were favorable conditions. These are strong evidences to prove that Russian youths’ independent economical consciousness is getting more and more intensity.
 
The Russian sociologists’ investigations indicated that there were differences on the dependence between different youths who came from different cities, families and ages in Russia. And the education and economic conditions were also very important factors. Youths which accepted higher education had more independence than the ones in low-grade education. In the same way, youths coming from a stable family and whose parents had high school records or high income would have more independence. Youths from ordinary families represented weakly in this aspect.
 
Simultaneously, along with the further deepening of the Russian society reforming today, Russian youths start to attach importance to individual feelings and functions and emphasize the individual values and stations gradually. The individuals have their own value intensity and gradients, in which some values are consistent with the social mainstream and some are not. In a transnational cultural investigation related to the world youths’ consciousness, three items about individual standard indicated that:
i)                    In the advocated life styles, the Moscow youths which “pursue the life conforming to their interests” took the biggest proportion and accounted for 75%;
ii)                   In the view of success, 78% of the Moscow youths thought money and status were the most important standards of estimating success. They were eager to be the upper dogs, but gave ambiguous replies when regarding whether if it harmed the social fair in order to achieve success.
iii)                 78% of the Moscow youths denoted that money was important.
 
3. Realistic practical value conceptions in relief
After having experienced the big social shake in 1990s, Russian youths adapt to observe the society with their eyes and consider the problems which have close correlations with themselves. They change their attention gradually from pursuing spiritual life to real life. They claim that good spiritual life bases on reality materials. And their considerations to the significance of life are established on the reality demands of high income, high consumptions, exorbitant cars, the villas, taking vacation overseas and so on. In addition, the overwhelming majority Russian youths mainly consider the income when they are choosing professions.
 
4. Multiple-choices in believes and value conceptions
In the aspect of choosing value evaluating criteria, unification has been substituted by multiplication. Evaluation system under the Marxist philosophy instruction which was proverbial in the past is no longer considered to be the only correct, but being instead of by omnifarious and mixed multi-dimensional appraisal system. In this situation, more and more youths prefer to pay attention to America and Western Europe, and believe in market economy or some else.
 
 
The reasons for these characteristics
 
1.      Social economic structure transformed from authoritative planned economy to the market economy which emphasized equal and free relationship. This causes the Russian youths tending to decide the direction of diligence in the society.
 
2.      Ideal romanticism fades gradually. Pursuing material [...]

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