What the Comrades Say

By VSEVOLOD MARINOV Vsevolod Marinov is the senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, and a member of the Soviet Sociological Association, which conducted a telephone poll for TIME of 1,005 Muscovites between March 6 and

How's he doin'?

Not bad -- but . . . According to a TIME poll of more than 1,000 Moscow residents, Mikhail Gorbachev's approval rating stands at 79%. Buoyed by the success of his U.S. visit, Gorbachev enjoyed a popularity rating of 92% in December. By March, those who expressed doubts climbed from 5% to about 12%, reflecting the reality of shortages and dissatisfaction with the progress of perestroika.

Seventy-one percent agree that Gorbachev's reform program is encountering difficulties, and 20% think it has been braked, but only 1 out of 10 believes that perestroika is a deviation from Marxism-Leninism. Though 1 out of 4 says his material life has improved in the past three years, another 25% (and 34% of people over 60) say things have got worse.

Glasnost remains Gorbachev's biggest hit. Only 10%, obviously the conservative traditionalists, contend that there is too much openness, with more than one-fifth of those over 60 claiming that glasnost has already gone too far. Young people are the most eager to press openness to the limit. In ; the under-30 group, 37% demand more glasnost.

There are signs that Gorbachev's revolution has in fact engendered "new thinking" within the Communist Party. When party members are asked the touchy question of whether the Soviet Union might someday have a multiparty system, an impressive 36% express readiness to entertain the notion. Among the general public, 40% of the men thought the Communist Party would eventually have competition, while women were more conservative, with only 27% taking that view. Another surprise: even after decades of official atheism, half of all party members say religious believers can also be members of the Communist Party.

If Gorbachev is wondering how Soviet history will judge him, he will do well to remember that the country's leaders tend to die twice: once in body and soul, and later in public opinion. While Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev were accorded elaborate state funerals, their reputations since then have changed quite markedly. Stalin is viewed negatively by 62% and positively by only 7%, though that rating is almost double among people who see perestroika as a deviation from Marxism-Leninism.

Brezhnev has suffered an even more dramatic fall from grace. His strongest negative rating, 80%, comes from Communist Party members who bitterly blame him for abusing his post and causing the party's prestige to decline. On the other hand, Nikita Khrushchev, a reformer of sorts who was thrown out of office and saw his reputation tarnished before he died, is enjoying a modest boost in popularity. More than 29% view him favorably, compared with only 5% for Brezhnev.

Unless Gorbachev can deliver on his promises of a better life, his popularity is likely to slip further. What may work to Gorbachev's benefit is the fact that only one-fourth of those polled expect their lives to improve. With expectations that low, Gorbachev may never find himself in the ratings cellar.

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CREDIT: TIME Charts by Joe Lertola

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DESCRIPTION: Results of poll taken by TIME in Moscow.