UKRAINIANS CHOOSE COMMUNISM

Communist ideology still has a good grip on the majority of Ukraine’s citizens. This can be gathered from the results of a public opinion poll conducted on September 11-18 by the Ukrainian Institute for Social Studies and the Social Monitoring Centre among 2,003 respondents in all the republic’s regions. 14% of those polled answered they were inclined to communism, 12%, to national democracy, 11%, to market economy implying unification with Russia. 7% of the respondents are choosing a social-democratic trend, 5%, environmental protection. Christian-democratic, socialist and liberal trend supporters account for 3% each. Mikhail Mishchenko, head of one of the Institute’s departments, says the socialist ideology proper is patently declining in the republic, which can be explained by an increasing radicalism of part of this trend’s supporters and their turning to communism.