Why Levada Center was recognized as a foreign agent. Levada Center was recognized as a foreign agent after the words about “mafia power

The Levada Center, despite open statements about refusing foreign funding, apparently still receives foreign grants. According to data from the US government procurement website, the think tank continues to carry out research commissioned by foreign organizations.

At the end of May 2013, employees of the Levada analytical center announced that they were refusing foreign grants and suspending work on projects ordered by foreign institutions. A month earlier, the organization had received a warning from prosecutors because it could be considered foreign agent due to the conduct political activity with foreign funding.

"Levada Center" then decided to switch to "public funding", which was reported on the official website of the organization. Employees announced a fundraiser in the amount of 670 thousand rubles for representative research projects in Moscow with the help of a private "Yandex Wallet".

In an interview with Vladimir Pozner on Channel One on December 14, 2015, Levada director Lev Gudkov answered a question about research funding.

V.P.: That is, you do not depend on the authorities, or on a private person, or even on those who order research for you and therefore pay?

L. G.: Exactly. Yes. Independence is expensive, and we earn our own money for our research.

On July 20, 2012, the Federal Law "On Foreign Agents" came into force in Russia, according to which political non-profit organizations financed from abroad must independently register with the Ministry of Justice as foreign agents. It was this law that caused the checks at Levada in 2013, and because of it, the center refused foreign funding - analysts did not want to become "foreign agents".

However, according to the government website on US government spending, the Levada Center continues to conduct research commissioned by foreign organizations. After the Foreign Agents Act came into force, the Levada Center received three research grants from US government agencies for a total of more than $121,000. Moreover, the center received the last funds from the United States a month before the aforementioned interview of Lev Gudkov with Vladimir Pozner was broadcast, namely November 2, 2015 - this date is indicated on the US public procurement website.

The latest study was commissioned by the United States Department of Defense. It took place in two stages: the first part was made in 2014, and the second, additional, in 2015, as mentioned in the description of the last purchase. The main grants were given to the University of Wisconsin, and the so-called sub-grants went to the Levada Center.

An amount of $8,400 was allocated for four additional focus groups - two each in Moscow and Yaroslavl. In each group, according to the condition, there should be 8-10 participants aged from 18 to 49 years, it is noted in the text accompanying the grant. It is difficult to single out any one research topic, there are a lot of positions indicated in the description. But there is no doubt that most of the issues are political.

Topics to be covered in the focus groups include how participants perceive their housing situation and other aspects of their socioeconomic status, their relationship to housing issues, major social and political attitudes, their perceptions of the United States, military conflict in Ukraine and other major international issues, their assessment of recent government policy and the state of affairs in the country, the main changes in the economic conditions of the respondents over the past one or two years and other topics, the text accompanying the grant says.

The total amount of the contract for two years is $115,800. The study itself, according to the plan, was carried out from October 1 to December 31, 2015.

It should be noted that previous grants to the Levada Center were issued for holding similar focus groups. And the funds for the 2013 study were transferred almost two months after the statement of the center's employees about the refusal of foreign funding - on July 22, 2013.

The director of the Levada Center, Lev Gudkov, in a conversation with Life, disowned the availability of grants, saying that his employees only conduct international research with various institutions.

We do not have funding in the sense of grants - something that is the subject of crime and the basis for declaring a foreign agent. In this sense, we have neither grants, nor donations, nor any such reasons for accusations, - says the head of Levada. - But we certainly have international projects, we participate in joint projects, including those with foreign universities, we carry out some commercial orders.

These were, apparently, some old grants. Perhaps this is some kind of commissioned research. Or maybe there it is given to some university. And some joint international projects are already proceeding in this way, - said Lev Gudkov. - It's hard for me to say now, I just don't know what it's about. But we don't have direct grants, direct foreign projects.

Member Public Chamber Sergei Markov noted that he had always considered the Levada Center a foreign agent, primarily from the point of view of analysts.

We saw that they gave an interpretation in the data, which is almost always in strict accordance with the course of the US administration. How the United States said its position, exactly how it corresponded to all their interpretations, he believes. - The last example is their study, which showed sharp drop rating " United Russia after the primaries (results published on June 6. - Approx. Life). That is, the Levada Center tried to show that the preliminary voting procedure was carried out so badly that because of this, the rating of United Russia fell by almost 10%. But all other sociological centers did not record anything of the kind. And it seems to me that this is politically engaged, on order, and the goal is just to undermine the evolution of the United Russia in favor of greater openness. She them (States. - Approx. Life) very disadvantageous, because it strengthens the ruling party.

Markov added that "Levada" is "an extremely politicized center", which " extremely important for the organization of microrevolutions" because it can provide falsified sociological data.

If there is information that the Levada Center may be receiving money from US state and quasi-state structures, then, without a doubt, this should be the subject of an investigation in order for the Levada Center to be registered as a foreign agent, - the expert thinks. - First of all, the Ministry of Justice should check, and the Prosecutor General's Office - if the Ministry of Justice turns to them.

Russian research organization "Levada Center". Such an unenviable status was assigned to her after an unscheduled August inspection conducted by the Department of the Ministry of Justice in Moscow. The reason for it was the request of the leader of the Anti-Maidan movement, Senator Dmitry Sablin.

What was the reason for this decision, and is it fair?

As the letter of the law says

According to federal law“On Non-Commercial Organizations”, NPOs that receive funding from abroad and are engaged in political activities are considered foreign agents.

“The reason for the inclusion of the Levada Center in the register of foreign agents was the words of its director about the “mafia power” in Russia, criticism of the annexation of Crimea and citation of sociologists’ research in an article by Boris Nemtsov’s daughter.”

Deputy Executive Director of the Golos Association Grigory Melkonyants that the reason for the new status of the organization was the publication of independent news:

“Obviously, these events are connected with the upcoming elections, moreover: the latest figures published by the center recorded a decrease in the popularity of United Russia. The current law, quite loyal in "peaceful" time, establishes the most rigid framework for the participation of "agents" in election campaigns, while at the same time leaving the list of forms of such participation open."

Grigory Yudin, Professor of the Moscow high school social and economic sciences, the opinion that the whole thing is in the weak influence of the Kremlin on published research:

“You need to understand how Levada differs from FOM or VTsIOM: unlike the above companies, the Kremlin does not give orders, and therefore cannot so easily order what questions to ask and what results to publish.”

Unfortunately, the organization's website has not been working since Monday evening for reasons beyond our control, so the statement is being published only now.

Statement

Director of the Analytical Center Yuri Levada

From the evening of September 5 and throughout September 6 and 7, the Levada Center received hundreds of calls and letters from journalists and scientists concerned about the fate of the Levada Center and the situation around our organization, as well as those who sought to express support and solidarity with us. Not being able to answer everyone who wants to get some information, I am forced to make this statement.

From August 12 to August 31, 2016, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation conducted an unscheduled documentary audit of the activities of the Levada Center for two and a half years from the last audit in February 2014 to the present. Based on its results, the Ministry, without waiting to receive our objections, provided for by the formal verification procedure, already on the evening of September 5 announced that the Levada Center was being entered into the register of organizations performing the functions of foreign agents. Thus, the slanderous campaign unleashed against our organization received a formal legal justification. The audit was initiated and carried out after several appeals to the Ministry of Justice by member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation D.V. abuse. For all his odiousness, this character is just a mouthpiece for expressing the interests of groups that have monopolized the topic of patriotism and threats to national security, and under this flag, demand the redistribution of state resources and legal immunity.

The current situation is extremely complicating the activities of our organization. I'm not talking about the inevitable reduction in the possibilities of financing our work. But the stigma of "foreign agent" itself, which in our country is understood exclusively as synonymous with "spy" and "saboteur", blocks the conduct of mass and other social polls. Fear, left over from Soviet times, paralyzes people, especially those related to government agencies– education, medicine, management, etc. In a number of regions, we are told that employees of state institutions are prohibited from contacting representatives of organizations labeled as “foreign agents”.

In the coming days, after consultations with lawyers, we intend to challenge the received Inspection Act in court.

As many media outlets now claim, the Ministry of Justice "revealed foreign sources of funding" for the Levada Center, although these sources were never hidden, since financial reports were regularly received by the relevant regulatory authorities and the tax service. This circumstance is recorded in the Verification Act itself: “... it was established that documents containing a report on their activities, on the personal composition of the governing bodies, as well as documents on the expenditure of funds and on the use of other property, including those received from international and foreign organizations ... , The Organization provides the specified information to the authorized body annually .... During the audit of the Organization, the facts of manifestation extremist activity not revealed” (p.5).

This is not the first hostile campaign aimed at discrediting, if not destroying, an independent scientific team that has been conducting sociological research in our country since the autumn of 1988. Objective and verifiable data on the state of society and public opinion in the country, especially in situations of sharp changes and crises, cause a sharp and painful reaction from biased politicians, officials, ideologists, since the diagnosis and picture of society presented by sociologists diverges from their expectations and political interests. This applies to both pro-government politicians and functionaries, and the opposition. But unlike the latter, power has powerful tools discredit and legally executed destruction of those who are objectionable to them.

Attempts already in 2002-2003 to take control of the scientific team of the first VTsIOM, headed by Yuri Levada, led to the creation of the ANO Yuri Levada Analytical Center.

The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI) openly presented a program to suppress any independent public and academic organizations in its publications. So, in the report “Methods and technologies of activity of foreign and Russian research centers, as well as research structures and universities receiving funding from foreign sources” (February 2014) listed a number of state and public institutions that receive “funding from foreign sources and carry out ideological or propaganda work in Russia”. Apart from Russian Association political science, Center for Political Studies of Russia, Russian Association international studies(RAMI), the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian School of Economics and other organizations, ANO Levada Center was also named in this list. He was credited with "... the purpose of collecting information to develop methods and tools for influencing the social and political situation in the country, transmitting State Department United States ... a database of opposition activists at the regional level, containing all the necessary information for the subsequent recruitment of a "protest activist", "influence on political processes and public opinion by manipulating meanings when conducting public opinion polls, overestimating or underestimating the required indicators in the results of polls, nominating advantageous positions during conferences, round tables, seminars, vigorous activity in the information space” and other motives. The Levada Center acted as a "mechanism for collecting and analyzing sociological information for manipulating public opinion and providing information impact on the state apparatus and political institutions”.

All these statements only at first glance seem to be the delusions of social outcasts or the paranoia of retired Chekists. Realistically behind this new wave of spy mania, which reproduces the worst examples of totalitarian practices in different countries stand quite cold and cynical interests of power, property and ideological control.

The very presumption of guilt of the interaction of Russian scientists and civil society figures with foreign scientists and organizations should be unacceptable as having an anti-patriotic character and hostile to our country.

Comprehensive and separate inspections in 2013 and 2014, on the same grounds and criteria formulated in similar documents, having established the fact of foreign funding for individual projects, ordered to refuse foreign grants.

The Center was forced to refuse to receive grants from foreign foundations for conducting sociological research, but could participate in joint foreign organizations(universities, foundations, etc.) projects, fulfill orders for socially significant, cultural, marketing and other surveys of the population on the terms of commercial contracts. The 2016 amendments to the law on NGOs and political activities, as well as other recent laws and regulations, open up opportunities for complete arbitrariness of administrative bodies, since the concepts of “political activity” and “foreign funding” are deliberately not defined in any way in the law, and therefore, it provides a pretext for the selective application of repressive measures against organizations that seem undesirable for some influential near-power groups. After that, foreign financing began to be understood as any receipt of funds from abroad, including financing social activities(scientific, educational, charitable) by domestic funds, if they are located abroad. Funds from abroad, received as payment for purely commercial activities, have now begun to be regarded as criminal.

The real consequences of this practice of the Ministry of Justice and other departments are a sharp restriction and subsequent termination of scientific ties between Russian scientists and world science, the termination of the assimilation of world experience, methods, methodologies, concepts, informal norms and rules that is so important for Russia scientific work. One should not think that repressions of this kind threaten only sociology (as the most costly area of ​​social and humanitarian research). If they finish with sociology, they will move on to history, economics, genetics, physics and other sciences, as it was in the Stalin years. The Levada Center is included in the register of foreign agents at number 141, tomorrow there will be hundreds or thousands of these organizations-agents of foreign influence. The consequences of this onset of the social reaction phase will be felt for the next 2-3 generations.

For our country, cut off from the conditions for the development of modern social knowledge for decades, and finding itself in the position of a deep intellectual province, this means the prospect of further conservation of scientific archaism and degradation. Failure to understand this threatens not just with isolationism or a chronic decline in human and social capital in our country, but with its transformation into a reservation of a poor and aggressive population, comforting itself with illusions of national superiority and exclusivity. As one authoritative foreign figure wrote to me yesterday, "the future of a country that does not want to know anything about itself is sad." Such a policy of discrediting and destroying all the best that is in civil society Russia, not only dishonors the country, but more importantly, leads to the suppression of the sources of its development, stagnation, which inevitably turns into general moral, intellectual and social degradation, apathy, and the disintegration of the state and society.

We are proud of the opportunity to work with foreign partners; this is not a reason to discredit us as agents; on the contrary, it is evidence of the high professionalism and quality of our research, the objectivity and reliability of the information product produced, and the depth of interpretation of empirical data. This is what distinguishes the work of the Levada Center specialists from other institutions conducting public opinion polls.

The act of inspection is presented on the website of our organization along with my remarks and comments on certain points of the Act.

Director of the Levada Center, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor L.D. Gudkov

Below you can download.

"It's a lie clean water, juggling". With these words, the head of the Levada Center, Lev Gudkov, reacted to the accusation of foreign funding. As Reedus wrote earlier, public organization Anti-Maidan demanded from the Ministry of Justice to recognize the analytical center as a "foreign agent": according to open financial data,.

According to the organization's latest financial report available on the Web for June 2016, the University of Wisconsin acts as an intermediary between the Levada Center and the US Department of Defense:

We are dealing with research, with the University of Wisconsin. This is a study of the problem of housing, family history. We have nothing to do with the US Department of Defense. And where Wisconsin takes the money - these are their problems, how they are financed, Gudkov's answer is "Life".

According to him, the Levada Center has been cooperating with the university for a long time, which orders organizations various studies. “The University of Wisconsin is doing all kinds of research around the world, this is a common research project- the history of everyday life, families in different countries. For us, this is a commercial project, we conduct a survey, they pay.”

“What catches the eye from the very beginning is how the director of the center reacts to information about the customer represented by the US Department of Defense,” Anti-Maidan activists comment on Gudkov’s statement. “Everything, of course, is possible, but when you take an order and receive money for it, you are usually interested in the nature of their appearance.”

As it turned out, the cooperation between the Levada Center and the University of Wisconsin was not only about “research on the problem of housing and family history,” as Gudkov assured reporters. According to Anti-Maidan, the analytical center was collecting intelligence in the interests of the military department of another state.

This is what the official report posted on the US government website looks like:

The document clearly spells out the functions assigned to the Levada Center under one of the contracts.

• how participants perceive their housing situation and other aspects of their socioeconomic status; their links to housing issues; basic social and political attitudes;
• their perceptions of the United States, the military conflict in Ukraine, the Russian military intervention in Syria and the confrontation with Turkey, and other major international issues;
• their assessment of recent government policy and the state of affairs in the country; views on upcoming elections; worries or optimism about the future of the country;
• the main changes in the economic conditions of the respondents over the past one or two years and other topics.

Obviously, the work of the Levada Center was not limited to the “research of the problem of housing and family history” mentioned by Gudkov. Anti-Maidan activists argue that the deliberate emphasis on the non-political theme of the contract looks at least suspicious.

At the same time, according to the Federal Law “On Non-Commercial Organizations”, the Ministry of Justice still has every reason to recognize the Levada Center as a “foreign agent”: in the event of a decision to conduct an audit against an analytical organization, it will not matter who specifically listed cash- The Pentagon or the University of Wisconsin. Thus, Gudkov simply testified against himself.

In connection with Gudkov's statement, Anti-Maidan reformulated its appeal to the Ministry of Justice. Now it sounds like this: “Does the Levada Center, which receives foreign funding (and this is already a confirmed fact), participate in political activities carried out on the territory of Russian Federation, in the interests of foreign sources?

Why finally? Because de facto everything has been clear with Levada for a long time, and the legal status is only a confirmation to everyone known information, which allows dealing at the level of legislation with "sociologists" in accordance with their activities. It also leaves no room for ambiguity.

Today, September 5, an official announcement appeared on the website of the Ministry of Justice that the Ministry has entered the autonomous non-profit organization "Yuri Levada Analytical Center" into the register of foreign agents. On July 11, the Anti-Maidan movement addressed the head of the Ministry of Justice, Alexander Konovalov, with a request to recognize Levada as a foreign agent.

The reason for the appeal was the fact that, according to the information available to the activists, Levada hid its foreign funding, while since 2012 it has received more than 120 thousand dollars from the United States.

The source of funding is the University of Wisconsin, which allocates money to the Levada Center for some sociological research. Also, according to anti-Maidan activists, the specialists of the center indirectly work for the Pentagon.

“Activists of the movement found out that, despite the announcement that they were suspending their receipt of funding from abroad, the Levada Center receives money from the University of Wisconsin (USA). Moreover, in fact, the US Department of Defense is the end customer of the public opinion research services provided by the center. Therefore, we believe that the Levada Center should be returned to the register of foreign agents. Any activity on the territory of Russia with foreign funding should be marked,” said Nikolai Starikov, leader of the Anti-Maidan.

And today, finally, the Ministry of Justice made a decision on the application of the activists of the movement - not in favor of Levada. Of course, in the sociological center itself they deny everything, call information about foreign funding slander and deny it in every possible way.

“This is a pure lie, a hoax. We are dealing with research, with the University of Wisconsin. This is a study of the problem of housing, family history. We have nothing to do with the US Department of Defense. And where Wisconsin gets the money is their problem, how they are financed, ”said Levada director Lev Gudkov.

Actually, it can be noted here that, as such, Gudkov does not deny the receipt of money from the American military department. Just says they didn't get them directly and their research isn't directly related to military sphere. Despite the fact that information war is also in the sphere of attention of the Pentagon, and on these fronts Levada has done a lot - although without directly mentioning guns and tanks.

Among the latest "information achievements" can be called, for example, a survey on the attitude of Russians to the upcoming Duma elections. The technique is traditional - "formative" questions, that is, those that lead the respondent to a specific answer that the questioner needs. This is how Levada receives shocking data that everything is bad in Russia, and then liberal media and bloggers happily take it away.

At the same time, the information about foreign funding discovered by Anti-Maidan is far from the only one. For example, earlier there was information about the cooperation of Levada with the Soros Foundation. Need to think, known facts- this is only a part of the iceberg, and Levada sits tightly and thoroughly on foreign grants. So dense that in connection with the assigned status of a "foreign agent" Lev Gudkov has already announced the possible closure of the center.

“This is a very bad thing for us, if we are really recognized and this decision is not canceled, this means the curtailment and termination of the activities of the Levada Center. Because it is simply impossible to conduct public opinion polls with such a stigma,” Gudkov said.

Although, it’s worth repeating, everyone who is interested has known about what Levada is for a long time, and for those who don’t know, it’s unlikely that anything will change for those now. What problems will arise with the status of a “foreign agent” is the unadvertised receipt of foreign funding and positioning itself as an “independent” social service.

Conducting opinion polls can be great, but passing them off as objective will become much more difficult. This means that it will be impossible to fulfill orders from abroad, and financial flows will become scarce.

Indeed, all this poses a considerable threat to curtail the activities of the Levada Center. But if they were really independent from foreign influence (let's be honest at least with ourselves) researchers, this would not have happened.