This article assesses the presence or absence in Russia of a political culture compatible with the emergence of democratic institutions. It offers a test of the thesis that political culture may be an important variable linking economic development to transitions to democracy. On the basis of findings from a systematic random sample of opinions about politics in the city of Yaroslavl' in March 1990, the article finds little support for the argument that Russian political culture today is dominated by the autocratic traditions of the past. Rather, the patterns that emerge suggest that Russian political thinking comes closer to what is found in Western industrial democracies.

Much of the analysis of the results of republican and local elections held in the USSR in 1989-1990 understandably focused on the dramatic victories of candidates and groups committed to a radical reform of the old system. Anti-communist majorities were elected to the parliaments of several republics. The city governments of Moscow, Leningrad and Sverdlovsk fell under the control of activists associated with the self-styled “democratic bloc” and, in summer 1990, Boris Yeltsin was elected to chair the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. Conversely, local party officials suffered embarrassing defeats in the face of competition from popular fronts united under the banner of Democratic Russia. That the Party itself was in disarray over how to respond to these challenges was reflected in the open split between rival platforms at the 28th party Congress in July 1990. Taken together, these events could easily convey the impression that old party elites “lost” the local elections of 1990 and that they lost because they failed to adapt to the new rules of democratic politics.

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For western observers, one of the most striking policy shifts articulated by Mikhail S. Gorbachev since he became general secretary of the CPSU in March 1985 has been his insistence on greater democratization (demokratizatsiia) and self-government (samoupravlenie). In his speech to the Communist party's Central Committee on 28 January 1987 he explicitly identified “the many-sided development of democracy and selfgovernment“ as a key component of what he meant by the reconstruction (perestroika) of Soviet society. His speech to the plenum dealt in large part with this theme. In it, Gorbachev startled his audience both at home and abroad with proposals for the introduction of a degree of competitiveness in the elections of party leaders, state officials, and enterprise managers.