The author, leading specialist, «Public Opinion» Foundation, appeals to numerous sociological researches to demonstrate the model of objective reality perception which is peculiar, in his opinion, to Russia’s people and which he styles catastrophism. The fears, the social pessimism, the social impotence syndrome characteristic of such perception, are conditioned, he maintains, not only by objective circumstances, but also by the predomination of state-paternalistic culture in society. Only as a result of eventual qualitative transformation of political culture is gradual deliverance from catastrophic consciousness possible, the author concludes.