ORIENTATIONS TOWARD AUTHORITY IN AN AUTHORITARIAN STATE - MOSCOW IN 1990

Little is known about citizens' orientations to authority in authorita rian regimes. A 1990 Moscow survey offered an unusual opportunity to e xamine socialist citizens' views of military crimes of obedience, thei r attitudes toward political dissent, and predictors of each. In fact, there was no relationship between respondents' attitudes about disobe dience (whether they would refuse orders to carry out military war cri mes) and their responses about political dissent. However, greater edu cation was associated both with claiming that one would disobey and wi th engaging in dissent. Exploratory analyses of additional attitude qu estions revealed two orthogonal factors-socialist conservatism and pol itical powerlessness-which account for some of the effect of education and help explain the role of Communist Party membership. Party member s felt more politically efficacious, but nonmembers were more likely t o protest.