ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes Soviet political relationships and the conventional notions of Soviet political culture. Their findings suggest that the dominant social ethos of Soviet citizens vis-a-vis their government is one of private self-interest. Furthermore, they display clear preference for informal access to and influence on bureaucratic officials and a general disdain for formal and legalistic procedures and norms. This observation leads people to think of the Soviet political culture (or at least the dominant subculture) as covert-participant. The covert-participant individual is oriented toward system outputs, but he exhibits few of the deferential, passive attributes of the classic subject. Their research also indicates that covert orientations are to be found in every stratum in the USSR, but that different educational groups prefer different manipulative strategies, and these variations are probably rooted in both tradition and in the structure of the confrontation between citizens and the state.
