The Soviet Interview Project (SIP) was a
research project conducted in the early 1980s. The project's principal aim was to learn about the life in the
Soviet Union, which in turn would contribute to the disciplines of
Sovietology,
political science,
economics and
sociology.
The study had three principal goals:
*Conducting a study of contemporary Soviet society based upon interviews with recent immigrants now living in the United States.
*Promoting the involvement of young scholars so that the field of Soviet studies developed.
*Making the data and research products developed available to all interested scholars.
The Soviet Interview Project had its origins in a meeting at the
Kennan Institute in August 1979, where senior academic scholars and U.S. government specialists discussed the feasibility of such a project. One of the main obstacles was the "Kissinger rule", named after U.S. secretary of state
Henry Kissinger who had established a policy against the use of federal funds for studies of emigrants from the USSR. The Kissinger rule was revoked after a successful
lobbying effort, and a design phase proposal was funded by the
National Council for Soviet and East European Research in November 1979.
SIP made arrangements with the
Department of Defense, the
Central Intelligence Agency and the
Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
during the summer of 1981 so that the National Council could fund the project. The coordinating agency within the U.S. federal government was the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) of the
U.S. Department of State.
The research team was headed by
James R. Millar
James Robert Millar (1936 – November 30, 2008) was an American political scientist and economist. He was a renowned expert on the Soviet economy.
A native of San Antonio, Texas, Millar attended the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in ...
, economics professor at the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The team completed the draft of a general survey for the project in September 1981, developing an interdisciplinary
questionnaire. The researchers decided to focus on the last “normal” period of life in the USSR, as applying for emigration could lead to marked changes in the applicant's life, thus introducing a possible bias.
The sampling frame for the SIP general survey was defined as all Soviet emigrants who arrived in the United States between January 1, 1979 and April 30, 1982, and who were between ages 21 and 70. 33,618 persons met the criteria, and 3,551 were included in the final sample. There were 2,793 respondents.
The field work for the general survey was conducted by the
National Opinion Research Center.
Among the Soviet Interview Project's findings were that there was a
positive relationship between education and
unemployment in the USSR (as opposed to in the United States, where it was a
negative relationship), that the Soviet wage system rewarded and penalized external political behavior, and that popular support for the Soviet regime was linked to the sense of material satisfaction and the perceived capability of the
KGB.
[{{cite journal
, last = Bahry
, first = Donna
, authorlink =
, author2=Silver, Brian D.
, date=December 1987
, title = Intimidation and the Symbolic Uses of Terror in the USSR
, journal = The American Political Science Review
, volume = 81
, issue = 4
, pages =1066–1098
, publisher = American Political Science Association
, doi = 10.2307/1962579
, jstor = 1962579
]
References
Research projects
Soviet Union–United States relations