Abstract

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union some of its legacies still mark the political attitudes of the post-Soviet individuals. These historical legacies have interested scholars before the collapse took place and have gathered a renewed interest in the last years, with some authors focusing on the role of past Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) membership and current economic and political attitudes. Continuing this trend, our paper aims to answer one question: are ties with the CPSU still a predictor of anti-West attitudes? Across this work we explore the role of historical legacies over individual political and geopolitical preferences in Eastern Ukraine. In particular, we focus on the effects of parental and individual CPSU membership over individual support for EU/NATO membership, perceptions of the Soviet period for Ukraine, and perceived legitimacy of the 11th of May "Donetsk People’s Republic" (DPR) independence referendum.

This paper uses survey data collected in Dnipro and Kharkiv in 2018, and in Mariupol in 2020, analyzing it using multivariate logistic regressions. The preliminary results show that, in line with some of the premises of the historical legacies literature but contrary to recent developments studying the macro-effects of CPSU party membership, (individual or parental) affiliation to the CPSU is positively correlated with pro-Western attitudes (i.e., wanting to join the EU and NATO, perceiving the Soviet period as negative for Ukraine, and considering the DPR independence referendum illegitimate). These rather counter-intuitive results suggest that former members of the CPSU and their descendants have revisited their allegiances from a supposedly anti-Western position during the Soviet period towards a pro-Western one in recent years, thus aligning with the Kyiv-promoted line rather than with that promoted by Moscow.