FEAR OF THE FUTURE IN THE MODERN WORLD - A RUSSIAN CASE

The specific objectives of this article were to research what factors the intensity of fears, in particular, fears of catastrophes spread in post-communist countries; and what the impact of fear is on political , social, and economic life, in post-communist society. This article i s based on the theoretical analysis of fear, as a social construction, influenced by the ''hard facts'' of society, i.e., the economic devel opments, the political and social processes, as well as the ''soft fac ts'' of society, i.e., ideological trends, the character of informatio n available to ordinary people, and the acts of various political acto rs to use fear as a propaganda tool to obtain their desires. The artic le relies on sociological traditions which have been discovered in rec ent studies of the rational and irrational elements in the individual. These studies have also uncovered a trend in the relative role of fea rs on the degree of justification extrapolated from the subjects ''obj ective reality,'' i.e., from well substantiated fears (for instance, t he fear of catastrophes like Chernobyl), to fully absurd fears (for in stance, fears based on various conspiracy theories).