The press release was prepared by Anton Hrushetskyi, the Deputy Director of KIIS

From July 6 to 20, 2022, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". By the method of computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting), 2,000 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except AR of Crimea). The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived on the territory of Ukraine (within the boundaries controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022). The sample did not include residents of territories that were not temporarily controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022 (AR of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left the country after February 24, 2022.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) did not exceed 2.4% for indicators close to 50%, 2.1% for indicators close to 25%, 1.5% - for indicators close to 10%, 1.1% - for indicators close to 5%.

Under conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. In particular, if back in May, among all the respondents we interviewed, 2.5-4% lived in the territories occupied after February 24 (and this corresponded to the percentage of those who live there, because the generation of phone numbers was random), now due to the occupiers turning off telephone communication we managed to interview fewer respondents living in occupied settlements, in particular, their number is 0.2%. It is important to note that although the views of the respondents who lived in the occupation were somewhat different, the general tendencies were quite similar. That is, the impossibility of interviewing such respondents does not significantly affect the quality of the results. There are other factors that can affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions (see Annex 2).

In general, we believe that the obtained results are still highly representative and allow a fairly reliable analysis of public moods of the population.

Dynamics of the attitude of Ukrainians to Stalin

KIIS regularly asks question about the attitude towards Stalin in the form of "How do you personally feel about Stalin in general?". The respondent could choose one of the answers: "with admiration", "with respect", "with sympathy", "indifferently", "with dislike, irritation", "with fear", "with disgust, hatred". The first three options actually correspond to a positive attitude towards Stalin, the last three to a negative one.

Even before the Revolution of Dignity, a minority of the population (23%) had a positive attitude towards Stalin. Although, at the same time, the negative attitude still did not dominate (37%). Until 2021, the situation did not change significantly, although the general trend was rather towards a decrease in the share of those who have a positive attitude towards Stalin.

Now, after the full-scale invasion, the public opinion of the population has crystallized Now, after the full-scale invasion, the public opinion of the population has crystallized: now the majority of Ukrainians - 64% - have a negative attitude towards Stalin and only 5% have a positive attitude (another 23% are indifferent to him).

Graph 1. How do you personally feel about Stalin in general?

In the context of the full-scale invasion of Russia, it is symptomatic to compare the dynamics of attitudes towards Stalin among the population of Ukraine and Russia (according to the data of the Levada Center) over the past 10 years. If 10 years ago in Ukraine and Russia approximately the same proportion of the population had a positive attitude towards Stalin, then later in Ukraine in general there were fewer sympathizers of the Soviet dictator, and in Russia, on the contrary, affection for him grew rapidly and now the majority of the population has a positive attitude. In Russia, between 2012 and 2019, the share of those who positively perceive Stalin increased from 28% to 59% (and now, most likely, the indicators are not lower).

Graph 2. Comparison of the positive attitude towards Stalin in Ukraine and Russia

* Data for 2022 is not available, so for illustrative purposes we indicate 59+, since the dynamics of previous years indicate that with a high probability now the positive attitude is even higher.

On graph 3, the data are shown in the regional dimension[1]. On the one hand, we see a consensus that in all regions an absolute minority favors Stalin (from 3% in the West to 12% in the East). In addition, in all regions the share of those who have a negative attitude towards Stalin significantly outweighs those who have a positive attitude towards him. Compared to 2021, there is a significant increase in negative attitudes toward Stalin (and a decrease in positive ones) in all regions. Last year in the South and East, the share of those who had a positive and negative attitude was practically the same. Right now, it is the negative attitude that dominates.

At the same time, on the other hand, there are still regional peculiarities of perception. If in the West and in the Center, a clear majority has a negative attitude towards Stalin, then in the South - a little more than half (55%) (only 6% are positive). In the East, 45% have a negative attitude (another 35% have an indifferent attitude, and a positive – 12%).

Graph 3. Attitudes towards Stalin in the regional dimension

Graph 4 shows the data among linguistic and ethnic categories of the population. Although the attitude towards Stalin is somewhat better among Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine, in fact, negative attitudes prevail among all categories (even among Russian-speaking Russians, 50% have a negative attitude and only 21% have a positive).

Graph 4. Attitude towards Stalin in terms of linguistic and ethnic categories

Among all age categories, the majority has a negative attitude towards Stalin. Although among Ukrainians aged 60+ there are slightly more people who have a positive attitude (8-9% against 3-5% among younger respondents), but even among them more than 60% have a negative attitude towards the Soviet dictator.

Graph 5. Attitude towards Stalin in terms of age categories

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

The attitude towards Stalin is another bright value marker that demonstrates the difference (gap) between Ukrainians and Russians.

In fact, even when 10 years ago the attitude towards Stalin was not favorable, he was unequivocally condemned in Ukrainian society. For example, in one of the polls before the Revolution of Dignity (which covered both Crimea and the entire Donbas), more than 80% of respondents believed that the Stalinist repressions of the 1930s could not be justified. Only about 5% were ready to justify them with "the need for industrialization and overcoming backwardness". That is, the thesis about the "effective manager" in Ukraine did not work and did not displace all the crimes of the Soviet dictator in the public consciousness. At the same time, this thesis worked successfully (and still works) in Russia, where the positive attitude towards Stalin grew by leaps and bounds. Ukrainian society reacted like a normal healthy society to more and more information about Stalin's crimes (perhaps a little slower than we would like, but still the dynamics were positive). Instead, Russian society turned out to be very sick and reacted accordingly.

It is also impossible not to pay attention to the important point that if the majority of Russians have a positive attitude towards Stalin, this is another proof of the moral decline of "ordinary Russians". The soil of such "fans" of Stalin is fertile for the approval of terror by the Russian state against its neighbor and the development of cannibalism of the "ordinary Russians" themselves.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

How do you personally feel about Stalin in general? 

(% among all respondents)

How do you personally feel about Stalin in general? 

(% among all respondents)

Annex 2. Methodological comments on the representativeness of telephone surveys conducted during the war

Even before the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, there were a number of factors that negatively affected the representativeness of the polls (for example, the absence of a census for more than 20 years). A full-scale war, of course, greatly affects representativeness and complicates the work of sociologists, but does not make it impossible. Access to reliable data on the state of public moods remains relevant both for Ukrainians themselves and for our foreign partners (who, as the events of the past 5 months have shown, often underestimated and did not understand Ukraine and Ukrainians).

At the same time, in order to maintain objectivity, it is necessary to understand what limitations the war imposes on the conduct of sociological surveys. First of all, we pay attention to large-scale population movements. At the beginning of July, EU representatives estimated that 3.2-3.7 million Ukrainians - adults and children - are currently in these countries. There is no exact data on how many of them are adult citizens, but, most likely, it is about half. In addition, some Ukrainians left for other countries, except for the EU. In particular, a significant number of Ukrainians were forcibly deported to Russia and Belarus (according to some estimates, about 1 million). Among the approximately 30 million adult citizens (estimated at the time of the full-scale invasion), it can be roughly estimated that about 10% have left the country, and the method of telephone interviews cannot provide a reliable survey of these citizens. Even more citizens have become internally displaced persons, but they have a much smaller impact on the quality of telephone surveys, since almost all of these citizens have mobile phones and are reachable to participate in the survey (in fact, 14% of the respondents of this survey are IDPs).

Another important issue is the accessibility for the survey of the population of the territories that were occupied after February 24, 2022, due to the conduct of intensive military operations or due to interruptions in telephone communication. Now there is practically no connection. In May, 2.5-4% of respondents lived in these territories, now in the sample of residents of these territories - 0.2%. But it should be taken into account that a significant part of the population continues to leave these territories, therefore, most likely, no more than 1.5-2.5% of the total adult population of Ukraine are inaccessible due to communication problems.

In our opinion, a more significant impact on representativeness can have either a generally lower willingness of citizens with "pro-Russian" moods to participate in surveys, or the insincerity of those who did take part in the survey (given the obvious facts and prevailing opinions in the media regarding the Russian invasion , some citizens will not want to say what they really think "in public"). If to talk about the general willingness of respondents to participate in the survey, then in recent surveys we see either the same indicators or slightly lower (although it should be borne in mind that the lower willingness to participate of "pro-Russian"-minded citizens can be compensated by the higher willingness to participate of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded citizens).

We conducted a small methodological experiment in May, which shows that the citizens who are currently participating in the polls in terms of demographic characteristics and meaningful moods are close to those who participated in the polls until February 24, 2022. Preliminarily, we see some shift in the direction of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded citizens, which is reflected in up to 4-6% deviations for individual questions (in the direction of more frequent selection of answers that correspond to the "pro-Ukrainian" interpretation of events). In our opinion, this is a rather optimistic indicator in the current conditions. However, this experiment does not give an answer as to how sincere the respondents are now in their answers.

Taking into account our own observations and the experience of conducting surveys over many years, we still remain optimistic that, for the most part, respondents answer the questions sincerely. For example, the "imagined acquaintance" experiment shows little difference with the direct question. In addition, we assume that the demographic categories of citizens who have gone abroad and are unreachable for a telephone survey, at least now, do not differ very significantly in terms of a number of meaningful moods from similar demographic categories of citizens who have remained in Ukraine.

As a result, in our opinion, we should talk about a certain decrease in representativeness and an increase in error (in addition to the previously mentioned formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added due to the factors considered above), but at the same time, the obtained results still retain high representativeness and allow for a fairly reliable analysis of public moods of the population.