ABSTRACT
Public opinion in the republics of the former Soviet Union reflects the rapidly changing political conditions of the Mikhail Gorbachev era, but it is important not to ignore long-term patterns of the social change that reflect socializing forces which influence present and future attitudes. Greater regional autonomy certainly evolved during the Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union and was greatly accelerated by the August 1991 coup. Especially among ethnic groups indigenous to the southern tier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), forms of solidarity were far more closely bounded and more fragile at the beginning of the Soviet period than they were as the Soviet Union was collapsing in 1991. Changes in work, family, education and residence were more conducive to individuals valuing a narrower ethnic heritage than to their viewing themselves primarily as citizens of the USSR.
