Trends and Patterns in Americans' Attitudes Toward the Soviet Union.

National survey questions have been asked in the United States about the Soviet Union since 1937. with repeated use of standard global favorability questions by Gallup since 1953 and by NORC since 1974. Americans expressed declining negativity toward the Soviets from 1953 until 1974, then rising hostility until 1982–1983. with another decline between 1983 and 1988. Problems in interpreting such survey data are discussed, including discrepancies between closed and open questions. Although closed questions elicit generally negative attitudes, there is reason to question their salience and depth, just as Stouffer (1955) did in interpreting attitudes toward domestic communists during the McCarthy period. Survey data are used to explore two plausible theories about anti-Soviet attitudes in the United States: that such attitudes are (a) primarily ideological, reflecting hostility toward socialism and communism as social systems, or (b) that they are mainly a function of U.S. nationalism, indicating that the Soviets are viewed as national rivals in a competition for world dominance. The available data, although far from adequate to the task, seem more consistent with the nationalism explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]