Worries About Workers

This article explores how Russian sociologists contributed to the moral framing of economic reform during the post-Soviet 1990s. Drawing on opinion polls conducted by the famous Russian poll center VTsIOM between 1993 and 2000, it argues that these surveys operated not only as descriptive instruments but also as prescriptive texts promoting a normative model of the ideal capitalist worker. Sociologists advanced a trinity of traits—motivation, self-reliance, and risk affinity—as essential to overcoming a perceived “Soviet deformation” of the workforce. While these ideas reflected global neoliberal currents, they were also deeply rooted in late Soviet concerns with labor productivity. By tracing the genealogy of these discourses from the 1960s through the perestroika era, the article challenges the notion of a sharp post-1991 rupture and highlights the continuity of reformist thinking that added to the urgency of the reform agenda after 1991. It further contends that sociological expertise became a tool of governance, shaping public perceptions of work and economic success while pathologizing specific social groups—particularly women, rural populations, and older workers. In doing so, the article offers a nuanced reading of post-socialist neoliberalism as both transnationally informed and locally embedded. It contributes to ongoing debates about the role of intellectual elites in transition contexts and the cultural politics of economic reform in post-communist societies.