The Transition From Communism To Capitalism: Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin David Lane and Cameron Ross The T...

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The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin

David Lane and Cameron Ross

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism

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The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin

David Lane and Cameron Ross

THE TRANSITION FROM COMMUNISM TO CAPITALISM: RULING ELITES FROM GORBACHEV TO YELTSIN Copyright © David Lane and Cameron Ross, 1999. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. ISBN 0-312-21612-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lane, David Stuart. The transition from communism to capitalism : ruling elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin / by David Lane and Cameron Ross. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-312-21612-2 1. Elite (Social sciences)—Russia (Federation) 2. Elite (Social sciences)—Soviet Union. 3. Political leadership—Russia (Federation) 4. Political leadership—Soviet Union. 5. Russia (Federation)—Politics and government—1991– 6. Russia (Federation)—Economic conditions—1991– 7. Russia (Federation)— Social conditions—1991– I. Ross, Cameron, 1951– . II. Title. HN530.2.Z9E454 1998 305.5'2'0947—dc21 98-45020 CIP Design by Letra Libre First edition: January, 1999 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

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Contents

Figures,Tables, Graphs, and Appendices Acknowledgements

vii xi

Part I Political Elites in the Late USSR 1 2 3 4 5 6

Soviet Society: Institutional Polyarchy The CPSU Ruling Elite, 1966–1991 The Central Committee Apparat, 1981–1991 The Government Bureaucracy The Supreme Soviet of the USSR: From Fusion to Fission The Political Elite under Gorbachev: Cohesion and Division

3 25 47 59 73 89

Part II The Post-Soviet Governing Elites 7 8 9 10 11

The Ascendant Elite:Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, 1990–1993 Mutation: the Political Elite, 1991–1995. Reproduction or Circulation? The Economic Elite, 1991–1996: Reproduction or Circulation? Transition under Yeltsin: Elite Values Conclusions

Appendix 1. Biographies of Soviet and Russian Political and Economic Leaders Notes Index

127 143 167 183 199

206 223 255


Figures,Tables, Graphs, and Appendices

Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 6.1

Higley and Pakulski’s Configurations of National Elites (and Associated Regime Types) Types of Elite Structure Political Stability/Instability Constellations of National Political Elites (and Associated Regime Types)

12 14 18 118

Tables 2.1 2.2 3.1 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3

5.4 6.1 6.2

Politburo 1966–1991: Previous Government and Party Executive Service, by Period of Joining Politburo Ethnic Composition of Politburo, 1966–1991 The CPSU Central Committee Secretariat and Apparatus, 1981–1991 Classification of Ministries by Sector Representation of Women in the Chambers and Presidium, 1984–1989 Date of Birth and Age of Legislative Elite, 1984–1989 and 1989–1991 Background of Members of Presidium and Chairs of Standing Committees/Commissions (when first elected), 1984–1989 and 1989–1991 Voting by All Congress Deputies on Five Issues Influences on Soviet Foreign Policy in Eastern Europe: Frequency Distribution of Responses Core Political Leadership: On Withdrawal from Eastern Europe: Frequency Distribution of Responses

32 35 47 66 75 75

77 85 93 94

viii

Figure,Tables, Graphs, and Appendices

6.3

Influences on Introduction of Private Enterprise and the Market: Frequency Distribution of Responses 6.4 Influences on Gorbachev’s Nationality Policy: Frequency Distribution of Responses 6.5 Causes of Collapse of the USSR:Views of the Political Elite: Frequency Distribution of Responses 6.6 Soviet Elite Perceptions of the Soviet System and Type of Reform Required: Comparisons with European Political Elites 6.7 Attitudes to Soviet System by Categories of Political Elite 6.8A Determinants of Promotion:Total Elite Responses 6.8B Determinants of Promotion: Ranking by Government Ministers, Party Leaders, and Members of Supreme Soviet 6.9A Interests Promoted by Members of the Central Committee CPSU in Terminal Period of USSR (Gorbachev elite) 6.9B Differences in Elite Constituencies in Estimates of Altruism of Members of Central Committee CPSU 6.10A Role of Politicians 6.10B At present, compromise is more important than is efficiency in government 6.10C The general welfare of the country is endangered by the continual clash of particularistic interest groups 6.10D Although political parties and groups play an important role in a democracy, often they uselessly exacerbate political conflicts 6.10E In modern complicated conditions, it doesn’t make sense to speak of increased control by ordinary citizens over governmental affairs 6.10F Creating conditions of equality of income and wealth is one of the major tasks of government 7.1 Voting at Supreme Soviet of RSFSR, 1990–1993 (Selected Issues), by Total Vote and SocialOccupational Background 7.2 Yeltsin Government Elite, by Previous Communist Party Connection 8.1 Party Saturation 8.2 Posts Held in Soviet Government 8.3 Place of Education of Political Elites

97 98 101

103 105 107

107 109 109 113 113 114

114

115 115

130 140 151 153 159


9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7

Age Distribution of Russian Capitalist Elite, 1 January 1997: By Occupational Sector Type of Education of Business Elites, by Sector Party Membership and Participation, by Sector Type of Economic Elite Participation of Economic Elites, by Previous Service in Soviet State Bureaucracy Economic Elite, by Sector: Positions Held, August 1981 to December 1988 Distribution of “Soviet” and New Business Elite between Sectors Determinants of Promotion under Yeltsin: Views of Political Elite Yeltsin elite: Politicians too often interfere with the affairs of government Yeltsin elite: At present, compromise is more important than efficiency in government Yeltsin elite: Government control of the mass media is essential Many politicians in leadership think about their own interests, not of those of the country Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Political Systems in Russia, USSR, and Western Europe Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Russian Political System in 1993, by Sectors of the Political Elite

ix

170 171 173 174 177 179 186 188 189 191 193 194 195

Graphs 2.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3

Politburo, 1980–1991:Total Work in Selected Sectors Sectors of Party Administration in Which Top Executives Worked, 1981–1991 Function and Sector of Previous Government Executives Position of Party Elite Period of Appointment in Previous Occupation of Party Elite Levels of Party Saturation of Government Ministers Party/Non-Party Saturation by Numbers of Ministers in Each Sector Ministry Type by Party Saturation Level

33 48 52 53 62 67 68

x

5.1 7.1 8.1 8.2 8.3 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5


Supreme Soviet Elite:Voting Behavior on Five Issues Yeltsin Ruling Elite Backgrounds: 1960–1985 Russian Political Elites by Service in Soviet Government and CPSU Elite Education Background: Parliamentary, Government, Regional Political Elite Origins: Occupation Begun Before Age 30 Place of Education of Elite by Sector All Economic Elite Occupations, August 1981– December 1988 “Soviet” and New Business Elite: Occupational History “Soviet” and New Business Elite: Occupation Begun Before Age 30 “Newmen” Business Elite: Occupation Begun Before Age 30

84 138 155 160 161 171 175 179 181 181

Appendices 1. 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 2.2

6.1

BIOGRAPHIES OF SOVIET AND RUSSIAN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC LEADERS 206 Growth of Ministries in USSR, 1962–1987 21 Growth in Number of State Employees in USSR, 1970–1980 22 Types of Government Apparatuses 23 Members of Politburo, 1986–1991 41 Key Party, Government Institutions, Republics, Regions, and Other Bodies Represented in the Politburo, 1966–1990 45 Defining the Political Elite 123

Acknowledgements

This work is the product of many years of research that has been partly financed by the British Economic and Social Research Council (grant no. 309253002).We wish to acknowledge the work of the European Science Foundation that supported a network on transition from communism at the sessions of which many of the chapters of this book were presented and discussed. Thanks also for research assistance to Julie Hemment, Rachel Clogg,Tatiana Dudina, and Otto Cappelli. Cambridge, August 1998 Acknowledgement is made to the following sources in which parts of earlier drafts of some sections of the book have been published. David Lane. “Soviet Elites: Monolithic or Polyarchic?,” Edited by D.Lane, In Russia in Flux (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1992): 3–23. David Lane and Cameron Ross. “Limitations of Party Control:The Government Bureaucracy in the USSR,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 27 No. 1 (1994): 19–38. David Lane and Cameron Ross.“The Social Background and Political Allegiance of the Political Elite of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR:The Terminal Stage, 1984 to 1991,” Europe-Asia Studies 46, No. 3 (1994): 437–463. David Lane and Cameron Ross.“The Composition of the Politburo of the CPSU: 1966 to 1991,” Coexistence 31, (1994): 29–61. David Lane and Cameron Ross, “The CPSU Ruling Elite 1981–1991: Commonalities and Divisions,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 28, No. 3, (1995): 339–360. David Lane and Cameron Ross.“From Soviet Government to Presidential Rule,” In Russia in Transition. Edited by David Lane. (London and New York: Longman, 1995.)

xii

Acknowledgments

David Lane and Cameron Ross.“The Changing Composition and Structure of the Political Elites,” In Russia in Transition. Edited by D. Lane. (London and New York: Longman, 1995.) David Lane. “The Transformation of Russia: The Role of the Political Elite,” Europe-Asia Studies 48, No. 4 (1996): 525–39. David Lane. “The Gorbachev Revolution:The Role of the Political Elite in Regime Disintegration,” Political Studies XLIV, (1996): 4–23. David Lane and Cameron Ross.“The Russian Political Elites, 1991–1995: Recruitment and Renewal,” International Politics 34 (June 1997): 169–192. David Lane. “Transition Under Yeltsin: the Nomenklatura and Political Elite Circulation,” Political Studies 45, No. 4 (December 1997): 855–74. David Lane and Cameron Ross.“The Russian Political Elites, 1991–1995: Recruitment and Renewal,” in John Higley and Jan Pakulski and Wlodzimierz Wesolowski eds., Postcommunist Elites and Democracy in Eastern Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998): 34–66. David Lane.“Elite Cohesion and Division:Transition in Gorbachev’s Russia,” in John Higley and Jan Pakulski and Wlodzimierz Wesolowski eds., Postcommunist Elites and Democracy in Eastern Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998): 67–96.

Part I

Political Elites in the Late USSR


Chapter 1

Soviet Society: Institutional Polyarchy

Until the late 1980s, state socialist societies appeared to be stable and permanent fixtures in the architecture of international politics. In the literature of the social sciences as well as in the popular mind they were “alternative” forms of modern industrial society to competitive capitalism. Ideologically, they aspired to communism; economically, they were planned; politically, they had a single dominant Party that was hegemonic. By 1989, this vision was clouded as the states of Eastern Europe declared their sovereignty and independence. In December 1991, following the proscription of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the USSR as a state formation was ended. Concurrently, the critical mass of communist states dissolved. This book addresses but one of the problems of the collapse of state socialism in one crucial country, the USSR: How did it come about that Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership embarked on a course of eliteled change that induced the collapse? We suggest one answer lies in the structure of the political elites. After the collapse of Soviet power, with the rise of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian Republic and other former states of the Soviet Union embarked on a three-fold political process: the construction of a capitalist market economy with private ownership, a pluralist polity, and a legal and social order with a democratic form of integration. Here again we focus on one set of problems: the structure of the political elites that led and attempted to transform the “ancien regime” of state socialism into a modern, capitalist, polyarchic, Western-type state. Specifically, we are concerned to uncover whether a “reproduction” of the previous rulers has occurred, as well as the extent to which there has been a “circulation” with the rise of new elites and, if so, from which social strata they originate. Answers to these questions will help us understand not only the values and priorities of the rulers of Russia, but also the process of transition.

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The book is divided into two parts. In the first, we consider the structure of leadership in the final years of state socialism; and in the second, we address questions of elite circulation and renewal.The thesis of the book is that a differentiated society had developed in the USSR, and that this gave rise to a polyarchy of interests that constituted the political elite. As one of the authors pointed out over 25 years ago, “the Soviet political system is characterized by the interaction of a number of elites both between themselves and with other groups.”1 The political elite was never “a unitary or monistic” one.2 We identify institutional and class interests during the period of perestroika and show how these interests interacted: they pushed on the political leadership, which, in turn, became dependent on them.We contend that in the contemporary Russian state this fragmentation of interests continues, and that a political conflict remains between the new class forces supporting a privatized market society and those backing a statist, administrative type order. Our work has three major components: the structural differentiation of Soviet society, the social background and “life chances” of the political leadership, and the attitudes and values of members of the political elite.

Soviet Elites: Monolithic or Polyarchic? One may distinguish between two approaches to political power under state socialism: one derived from the political sociology of the 1960s and 1970s, the other a Hobbesian view of monistic political power. Political sociology of the 1960’s and 1970s focused on the socio-economic preconditions of democracy in the explanation of the evolution of parliamentary democracies.3 It was confidently predicted that state socialist societies would inevitably follow democratic and pluralist ones with a convergence to the political and economic system of the West.These studies rightly drew attention to some of the underlying causes of political value change, particularly the consequences of the rise of new social strata (such as intellectuals) and classes (the bourgeoisie and proletariat.) Frank Parkin, following Lipset’s social mobilization theory, argued that the maturation of such societies would lead to the ripening of an “ascendant class” formed from the “scientific, economic and creative forces which was indispensable to the quest for modernity and social progress.”4 Such developments would lead to social transformation and to democracy—in the sense of competing political parties and groups.5 This “modernising” paradigm, however, was unable to explain the durability of the state socialist regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. Not only did most “developing” societies adopt authoritarian political structures, but

Soviet Society

5

also the state socialist societies appeared to be maturing along quite different lines, which led other sociologists and political scientists to postulate a major divide between “totalitarian” and “democratic” types of industrialism,6 the former being characterized by the political domination of society through the Party—aptly summed up in Rigby’s phrase, “mono-organizational socialism”7 or the “partocracy.” So strong was this control that any major political change was precluded; in Bauman’s terms, state socialist societies were “revolution proof.”8 Most influential writers on Soviet elites, ranging politically from Alfred Meyer through T.H. Rigby to Hillel Ticktin, all assumed that the elite structure was monolithic and totalitarian, and that the Party, working through its control of the Politburo, was dominant.Alfred Meyer described the USSR as “a modern corporation writ large,”9 and Rigby, in one of his earlier works, in a similar vein, asserted that in modern industrial society it has “become technically possible to run a large nation as a single corporation.”10 This is a Hobbesian theory of power. These assertions beg a number of questions: how do we define the elite (or elites) and evaluate its (or their) power? How is coordination and domination achieved by a mono-organizational elite? How then may one explain the breakdown of the communist system? A comprehensive account of the collapse of state socialism would have to include the role of insurgents11 mobilized on pre-communist traditional ethnic or national identities, the maturation of new social groups and forces (such as the intelligentsia),12 the Gorbachev factor,13 mass opinion and systemic crises in the economy and polity, a crisis of legitimacy,14 and the consequences of hostile Western—particularly American—foreign policy.15 Here we deal with a limited number of topics related to leadership and elites. The more sociological approach to the analysis of state socialism stressed its socially pluralistic nature.Writers such as Lane in 1970, Skilling and Griffiths in 1971, and Hough in 1976, all stressed the fact that urbanization and industrialization had important consequences for the occupational and social structure.16 Hough cogently argued that the processes of state socialism involved wide-ranging participation, and that the Party had incorporated “virtually all societal interests.”17 The state socialist system was one of “institutional pluralism.” As far as the ruling structures were concerned, the growth and complexity of the government bureaucracy was characterized by an evolving autonomy of elites who were not subject to autocratic Party control. Here we follow the work of Higley and others18 who have argued that “democratic transitions and breakdown can best be understood by changes in the internal relations of national elites.”19 The growing literature on elite structures in transitional societies, however, includes little, if any, analysis of the

6


political elite as an agent of transition under state socialism.20 Higley and Burton exclude “Russia and its European satellites” from their analysis of elite transformation.21 They define the USSR as having had an “ideologically unified” elite in the period 1921–1988 and see the origin of the cohesion in the period 1917–1921.22 We shall argue that the appearance of ideological unity belied the highly divided character of the Soviet political elite. In chapter 6, we argue that a major cause of the collapse of the USSR was elite fragmentation and division. The transition lacked a “negotiated” settlement, and elite divergence has continued into the post-communist regime. We define the Soviet political elite as those people in the USSR who consistently were able to exert political power over decisions that were national in scope.The political elite changed in character and structure with the transformation of Soviet society. We adopt initially a “positional” approach to identify the political elite (see chapters 2 and 6, especially appendix 6.1; and chapter 7). They were members of the leading political bodies of the Communist Party, the All-Union government ministries, and the Supreme Soviet. Our empirical research includes 548 members of the Soviet political elite in post before 1991. A major objective of this book is to define the parameters of, and divisions within, the political elite. In chapters 2 through 6, we define and examine the Party elite (the Politburo and the Central Committee Secretariat), the USSR Council of Ministers, the USSR Supreme Soviet, and the Congress of Deputies. Under Brezhnev, the elite structure was a corporatist, segmented power elite enclosed in a Marxist-Leninist framework. The stable and consensual political order was dependent on its political environment: positive sum political outcomes, a dominant ideology, and a pluralist but closed elite structure. This framework was destroyed by the reformers under Gorbachev and replaced by pluralistic elites lacking ideological and political consensus. We demonstrate the extent of ideological differences in chapter 6. The development of elites is linked to the formation of bureaucratic structures. Scale and complexity entail organization, specialized knowledge, and division of authority.The nature of bureaucratic organization necessitates elite formation, and the incumbents of elite positions form a directing group with authority over the resources of an organization. Despite formal controls over political elites seeking to make them accountable to a wider constituency (shareholders and parliamentary bodies in the West, Soviets and the Party under traditional state socialism), in practice, bureaucratic politics entails the accretion of political power to elites. It is an assumption of this book that Soviet society (and the successor states)

Soviet Society

7

was (and is) characterized by segmented oligarchic bureaucratic rule: hierarchical bureaucratic organizations accumulate relative political autonomy. This autonomy, in turn, was conditioned by the ideological environment and by the form of recruitment of the elites.The relationship and balance between the various organizational structures was a potent factor in the dynamics of political change.

The Evolution of the Structure of Soviet Political Elites Prior to perestroika, there were four spheres of political interest articulation in the USSR: the Communist Party, the government executive, the elected system of Soviets, and voluntary organizations. The Communist Party provided the political leadership of the Soviet state. From the early days of the Party’s formation, the Central Committee was the major forum of political authority; the Party elite in the body of the Politburo was formed from it. The Soviet government (Pravitel’stvo) had executive powers: it directed and controlled the economy and provided the administrative apparatus of the state. After the revolution, it was called the Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov (Sovnarkom), the Council of People’s Commissars, though from 1946, the name reverted to it pre-revolutionary title: Sovet Ministrov, Council of Ministers. During the later period of Stalin’s rule, a Presidium of this body was formed, and since the 1970s it had a constitutional status and was composed of the economic members of the Council of Ministers.The formal legislatures (the Soviets) served as mass representative bodies at local and higher levels. Finally, there were a number of voluntary organizations, such as trade unions, women’s councils, friendship societies, and sports clubs, which were organizationally distinct from the other three bodies.They were unsatisfactorily defined as “voluntary” because they were not part of the Party-government complex of organizations. This basic scheme of elite power—Party, government, and Soviets—continued right down to the Gorbachev period and the changes introduced under Gorbachev. As far as the structure of elite political power was concerned, before 1989 only two of these constituencies of politics may be considered as major components: the Council of Ministers and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Soviets (until 1989) were ineffective bodies of interest aggregation, though they did perform other important administrative and representational roles. Voluntary organizations, the essence of Western civil society, were also subject to penetration and control by Party and government agencies, and had little autonomous authority.There was a “closed” elite structure in the sense that autonomous groupings outside

8


the state were either denied the rights of formation or were excluded from access to political power.The crucial problems of elite politics were to be found in the interaction between the various departments, and between institutions of Party and government. To indicate the changing structure of elite positions of the USSR, we may consider two indexes. First: the changes that have occurred in the number of institutions forming the government of the USSR and the size of organizations (measured by the number of dependent employees).23 Second: the size of the top USSR Party bodies.These data will bring out the growing mass and complexity of the All-Union elite structure and indicate the scope of bureaucratic politics.We shall then proceed to outline the interconnection between the government and Party apparatus and to consider the changes that occurred under Gorbachev. In chapters 2 through 5, we take up these topics in more detail where the discussion follows the three major institutions of Soviet rule: Party apparat; government executive; and representative bodies, the Soviets.

The Growth of the Government Bureaucracy In the early period of Soviet rule, the number of ministries and committees directing the activity of the USSR was relatively small—being only 10 in 1924. At this time, the size of the economy was relatively modest and undeveloped. Following the rapid industrialization and investment in social infrastructure of the 1930s the economy became much more complex.The number of ministries mushroomed to 59 in 1947, and coordinating committees on planning, supply, and prices were formed.The number of ministries was reduced to 25 following amalgamations after the death of Stalin, but this consolidation did not last as it was found to be too unwieldy for efficient administration: by 1956, the number increased to 56.The ousting of Khrushchev led to the reinstatement of the centralized ministerial system and to its steady growth. By the mid-1980s, the Council of Ministers was composed of over 130 members: 81 ministries and State Committees; 15 representatives of republican Councils of Ministers; and an inner circle, composed of the Presidium of the Council, which included 14 chairs, vice chairs, and deputy chairs. (See appendix 1.1 for data from 1962 to 1987)

Growth in Number of Employees in the Government Sector These economic and political elites, however, were only the apex of large, complex organizations. The number of people employed may be used as

Soviet Society

9

an index of their size.24 The numbers in paid work (excluding collective farmers) rose from 6.2 million in 1922 to 33.9 million in 1940, 62 million in 1960, 112.4 in 1980, and 117.7 million in 1985.This spawned a vast bureaucracy: in the government apparatus (including administration of cooperatives) in 1922, 700,000 personnel were employed; the figure rose to 1.837 million in 1940, and 2.495 million in 1980.25 This bureaucratic apparatus was in charge of massive sectors of the economy: by 1981, there were over 37 million employees in industry, over 11 million in building, and 10.4 million in education and culture. (For details, see appendix 1.2.) By functional division, the government apparatuses gave rise to elites in the post-Khrushchev period that could be grouped26 into non-economic administrative organs, economic committees, industrial ministries, and building and transport industries. (For details see appendix 1.3.) The major political problem facing the leadership of the Soviet state was how to control and to decide who was to control this large, complex, differentiated administrative structure. The vast size of the Soviet Union led to the growth of Union-Republican ministries in which devolution from the center to the republics occurred. This developed under Gorbachev into a major political division in which the elites in the republics, having a local power base, sought and eventually succeeded in extending their power at the expense of the center.

The Party as an Agency of Political Cohesion and Control The Communist Party (until 1989) and the Soviets (particularly between 1989 and 1991) were institutions that should have provided coherence and control over the bureaucratic structures. This was to be achieved through control of personnel (the nomenklatura), through ideology (MarxismLeninism), and through policy formation. The political institutions of the Politburo and the Central Committee attempted to legitimate and aggregate interests through the cooption of various members of functional groups from the state bureaucracy. Unlike the government apparatus, which in the early years was patterned on and had bureaucratic procedures inherited from the tsarist political order, the Party had a relatively primitive organization. In the immediate post-revolutionary period, the Central Committee of the Party had no full-time executive.While an apparatus in the form of a Politburo, Orgburo, and Secretariat was in place by 1920, the Central Committee under Lenin’s leadership constituted the Party elite. As the Party grew in size and leadership became more complex, the Politburo and Orgburo became the executive bodies.Total membership of the Party grew from some

10


350,000 in October 1917 to 528,354 in 1922, 1.080 million in 1926, 1.678 million in 1930, 3.400 million in 1940, 6.340 million in 1950, 8.709 million in 1960, 14.012 million in 1970, 17.082 million in 1980, and 19.84 million in 1989. The size of the membership of the Central Committee rose from 21 full members and 8 candidate members in 1917 to 27 and 19, respectively, in 1922. The relevant figures for 1939 were 71 and 68; 1971, 241 and 155; and 1986, 307 and 170 (in 1990, there were 412 full members and no candidates.)27 The Central Committee’s expansion paralleled that of the state apparatus, the top membership of which (e.g., government ministers, heads of State Committees) were represented in the Central Committee. From the mid-1920s, the Politburo (called the Presidium of the Central Committee from 1952 to 1966) became the chief deliberative and decision-making body of the Party. Its membership increased in size from 8 in 1919 to 36 in 1952. Since the mid-1950s it remained fairly constant in size with about a dozen members constituting the Party elite though overlapping with membership of the Council of Ministers and the Supreme Soviet. (For full details see chapter 2.) Effectively subordinate to the Politburo (though technically it was responsible to the Central Committee) was the Party Secretariat. This body was the administrative arm of the Party (the apparat.) Its departments paralleled those of the government. In 1978, they included the Departments of Administrative Organs,Agriculture, Cadres, the Chemical Industry, Building, Culture, the Defense Industry, Economic Collaboration with Foreign Countries, General Administration, Heavy Industry, Information, International, Liaison with Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries, the Light and Food Industry, Machine-Building, Organizational Party Work, Planning and Finance Organs, Propaganda, Science and Educational Institutions,Trade and Domestic Services, and Transport and Communications; as well as the Main Political Directorate of Soviet Army and Navy. Other organizations coming under its jurisdiction were: the Party Control Committee,Academy of Sciences, Institute of Scientific Atheism, Higher Party School, Higher Party Correspondence School, Institute for Raising the Qualifications of Leading Party and Soviet Cadres of the Higher Party School, Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Institute of Social Sciences, and a group of the chief editors of the newspapers and journals of the Central Committee.28

Elite Coherence and Integration By the early 1920s, the Party’s coordinating body was the Politburo. It is important to note, however, that this body had no executive powers: the

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executive positions of its leading voting members were in the government—Lenin was the chair of both Sovnarkom and the Labor and Defense Council, Trotsky was commissar for War and chair of the RevolutionaryMilitary Council, and Stalin was People’s Commissar for Nationalities and for Worker-Peasant Inspection (the other two full members, Kamenev and Zinoviev, were, respectively, chairs of the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets); the Party Secretariat was represented on the Politburo by Molotov, who was a candidate member. The overlap of Party and government positions (though in different proportions at different times) continued up to the time of Gorbachev and is discussed in detail in chapters 2 through 5.The growth and complexity of the apparatuses undermined the control function of the Politburo and the Central Committee over the operation of the government bureaucracy. Considerable autonomy remained with government departments though the Politburo had a steering function of influencing the main directions of internal and external policy. The Politburo also was a conduit for ministerial interests and for the aggregation of demands articulated by the government bureaucracy. The center (defined as the Politburo and the Party Secretariat) was confronted with the twin countervailing forces of localism and departmentalism. by the latter, we mean the assertion of autonomy by the ministerial apparat; localism is the practice of units identifying with and maximizing local interests spatially constituted. It is from these sources that demands for regional autonomy came and led to claims for sovereignty and independence in the early 1990s.We would like to emphasize that those central institutions of political power, which are often defined as “dominant” in Western writings, were embedded in a complex and labyrinthine network of organizational structures. In the detailed chapters that follow, we shall show that these structures were the base for the differentiation of political interests under state socialism.

Mono-Organizational Socialism? What is the relationship between these institutions, and how can one characterize the makeup of elite rule? Firstly, the political elite structure has been fragmented, not monopolistic. Secondly, attempts by reformers to displace the government apparatus failed either completely or partially. Khrushchev’s decentralization of the administration did not succeed in breaking the power of the ministries. Brezhnev adapted to the government bureaucracy, and consequently various forms of corruption and self-interest developed that weakened central control: “departmentalism” was a

12


major characteristic of Soviet government administration. Gorbachev was unable to manage the system that had arisen, and he sought to replace it in the early period with greater central control, and in the late 1980s with a market orientation. Thirdly, the “mono-organizational society” approach29 cannot explain the changes that came about under Gorbachev. If, as Rigby has put it, “command is a relationship in which one Party is active and the other is passive in the determination of what is done,”30 how could the Politburo abolish the sovereignty of the Party? Is it conceivable that the Party ruling elite would abdicate its political power? We believe it is more realistic to consider the Soviet government structure as a network of bureaucratic elites.The diversity and differentiation of functions of the bureaucracy we have noted gave rise to a heterogeneity of elites rather than to a monopolistic unitary elite.

The Move to Pluralistic Elites under Gorbachev Higley and Pakulski characterize state socialist society as an ideological elite with strong elite unity and narrow differentiation. (See figure 1.1.) The distinctive factor of the communist system, they argue, is the imposition of a single Party controlled ideology.The “inclusive” communication and influence networks encompassing all elite factions centralized in a dominant faction or Party ensures structural integration.31 While Higley and Pakulski note the growing functional specialization “of most communist elites,” they insist that “ideological unity remained the chief characteristic”32—though they add, “at least outwardly.”This typology may have been useful for the discussion of the system of state socialism in its formative periods, but by the time of Gorbachev it was no

Figure 1.1 Higley and Pakulski’s Configurations of National Elites (and Associated Regime Types) Elite Unity Strong

Weak

Wide

Consensual elite (stable democracy)

Fragmented elite (unstable democracy)

Narrow

Ideological elite (partocratic regime)

Divided elite (authoritarian regime)

Elite Differentiation

Soviet Society

13

longer appropriate. Elite differentiation was certainly “narrow” in the sense that it was limited to persons with formal authority and position in the Communist state. But we shall argue that the appearance of “ideological unity” was deceptive and that there were major disagreements and ideological splits between elite constituents that became manifest under Gorbachev’s leadership. To analyze the configuration of national elites, they define them in terms of “elite unity” and “elite differentiation.” State socialist regimes had an “ideological elite” with strong elite unity and narrow differentiation. Our discussion would lead one to question this typology with respect to the analysis of the transitional elite structure. The Soviet elite had higher levels of differentiation and had much weaker unity than is supposed by those who adopt a “partocratic regime” position. Rather than being “strong,” unified, and narrowly differentiated, the Gorbachev elite was fragmented. A fallacy of much analysis is the assumption that Party membership or “nomenklatura” position entailed ideological and political homogeneity. The “nomenklatura” as a political and social category is not very useful as an analytical tool because it was constituted from very diverse constituencies—a point we shall discuss in some detail in chapter 8. Moreover, ideology, rather than being a dependent variable defining elite structure (the “ideological elite” in figure 1.1), is an independent variable affecting the legitimacy of the elites. Marxism-Leninism has many different connotations, and the ideological environment included social-democratic, liberal, and traditional belief systems. From 1989, the CPSU broke up and it became evident that—like all one-party regimes— the Party contained many ideological factions. These ideological differences were occluded by the appearance of Marxist-Leninist ideology. To analyze comparatively the complexity of elite configurations, one may analyze elite structures in terms of three variables: institutional formation, ideology, and recruitment. Figure 1.2 illustrates the conditions determining different kinds of elite structures. It is defined in terms of: 1. Institutional formation: “unitary” (having a single dominant institution, such as a hegemonic Party, or army command; or displaying a fusion of major constituencies under a ruling class); and “pluralistic” (containing political, economic, and military institutions that are relatively autonomous); 2. Recruitment of elites: “closed” when counter-elites or potential elites are excluded from competing for entry-holding power—for instance, when the formation of economic enterprises or political parties is banned; and

14

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Figure 1.2 Types of Elite Structure Institutional Formation Unitary

Recruitment Closed

1.

Open

3.

Open

Monopolistic power elite Meritocratic power elites —

Polyarchic 2. 4.

Segmented power elites Consensual elites

5.

Pluralistic elites

Ideology Monopoly Dominant Pluralist

3. Ideology: monopoly (which excludes the articulation of any other); a dominant ideology shared by the elites or elite, such as that of traditional Marxism-Leninism; capitalism and systems under which counter ideologies are marginalized and made insignificant; and competition amongst ideologies, such as capitalism, socialism, and anarchism. Box 1 illustrates the conditions for a mono-organizational bureaucratic power elite (closed recruitment, unitary institutional, and a single- value system). Higley and Pakulski’s “partocratic regime” would occupy this box. Boxes 2 to 5 are different types of polyarchic regimes. Polyarchy, in the sense of a relatively but incompletely democratized regime33 rather than democracy, is considered a more appropriate label. Box 3 allows for open recruitment through a circulation of elites. Box 3 illustrates C.W. Mills’s power elite: an institutional bloc of the hypothesized military-industrial complex. It indicates a dominant ideology as hypothesized by the Marxist idea of a dominant ideological apparatus. Elite positions are “open” in the sense that (bourgeois) political parties and economic enterprises compete to occupy the elite positions. Box 4, consensual elites, signifies the formation of stable Western democratic societies. These have open recruitment, a pluralistic form (of competing parties, private business, and trade unions), but a dominant ideology: the elites are agreed about fundamentals of the political and economic system, and respect the law. The important conditioning factor is the presence of “loyal” oppositions. Box 5 has relatively few constraints: it is open in recruitment and has pluralistic institutions and competing ideologies. “Unstable democracies” may be of this type. (See discussion that follows.)

Soviet Society

15

Box 2 is our version of the power structure under Brezhnev: a power elite with segmented constituencies, closed recruitment (in the sense of an absence of political competition), and a single legitimating value system (Marxism-Leninism.) They were largely self-governing elites, formed along the lines of the segmented functional division outlined earlier, administering their own affairs.What was considered to be a growing “pluralism” and democratization under Brezhnev involved greater functional specialization and autonomy to the elite segments. As Hough pointed out in 1979, “The definition of goals formally remains the responsibility of the Party leadership, but except for ensuring that the Marxist goals in social policy are pursued, the leadership. . . . should follow the advice of specialist “complexes” or “whirlpools” in their respective areas, limiting itself to a mediation of the conflicts that arise among them. In practice, policy-making power informally comes to be delegated to these complexes.”34 The segmentation of elites is based on the division of bureaucratic institutions: policy/security, foreign affairs, economics and politics. Hence, “departmentalism” and corruption stemmed from the operational independence of these functional groups. And what was originally operational independence led to strategic independence in the sense that the ministries were able to write their own plans and make their own policies. The appearance of monolithic unity through Party control is derived from the environment in which the elites operated. Marxism-Leninism provided an ideological legitimation not only for state ownership and control through planning, but also for the integration of regional elites into an All-Union one; it prevented the aggregation of an alternative conception of ways of doing things and thwarted the formation of counter-elites. Membership of positions within the elite was closed, and pressures were exerted to secure the loyalty of incumbents to the system.The elites were in agreement about property relations, the distribution of resources, the legitimacy of the system and its institutions of interest aggregation (the Party) and enforcement (the KGB). In this sense, the segmented elites constituted a consensual elite—a power elite: they sought to maintain their position and to exclude contending groups. This system worked fairly well when political outcomes were positivesum: members of the ruling bureaucracies enjoyed security and stability, and non-elites shared in the results of economic growth.When economic growth slowed and when the high level of public aspirations for prosperity and welfare could not be met, however, the system experienced considerable strain. This stable corporatist elite brought about its own downfall: MarxismLeninism as an ideology failed to contain the materialist and ideal aspirations

16


of younger generations—indeed, Soviet leaders, in claiming the superiority of socialism over capitalism, had fuelled consumerist expectations.The more articulate and highly educated population became critical of the closed nature of the elites, and the declining rates of growth increasingly made positive-sum political outcomes problematic. Intra-elite conflict (within the parameters of the existing system) destroyed the political compact of the Brezhnev period. While rejecting the notion that the “nomenklatura” was a unified elite, we suggest that it had the status of a “political class”: it constituted the group from which the political leadership was recruited. We shall argue that this was a divided political class (in Mosca’s sense of those groups exercizing political power and engaged in political struggle) rather than a unitary one (see chapters 6 and 8).We distinguish between those in the administrative class whose life chances depended on an regulatory state system and those who were potentially able to benefit from a move to markets.

Change under Gorbachev The Gorbachev leadership undermined the traditional elite structure by pulling away its major ideological and political supports: the legitimacy of Marxism-Leninism, the hegemony of the Party, and he destroyed the apparat of the Central Committee. Under pressure from the forces unleashed by perestroika, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was confronted with competing political parties and groups.35 From 1986, it had lost its traditional raison d’etre: its discipline, organization, and ideology provided a shell to the Soviet political order. In 1991, even before the attempted August coup, it had disintegrated into a number of heterogeneous groups and interests; many of its former leaders had broken away and formed other parties. Its Politburo was impotent when its general-secretary was held under house arrest by the ill-fated State Committee for the State of Emergency. The elites under Gorbachev lacked coherence and authority, and this ensured that the coup failed. There was a significant shift of policy and ideology: planning was superseded by the market in both politics and economics. Self-interest led to the legitimacy of counter-elites, both on a geographical basis (nation and ethnicity) and functional (work-based collectivities, such as workers and professionals); the market stimulated a class awareness on the part of an ascendant entrepreneurial class and a belief among many others of the advantages of a market-type system with private ownership. Under Gorbachev, there was a movement towards a more pluralistic system in ideology and the institutional formation and, as a result of a more

Soviet Society

17

open political arena, recruitment became open. Before the attempted coup of August 1991, Soviet society was moving in the direction of a pluralistic elites’ structure (figure 1.2, box 5) though there were important qualifications that become evident when one considers the institutional arrangements created under presidential power (Cabinet, Federation Council, and Security Council.) The real political threat to the established USSR elites was over the control of the resources, which were managed by the All-Union ministries, located in the republics. It is here that the legitimacy of markets and privatization on the part of the republican governments may overlap and lead to divisions. Conflict between the center and periphery was not only due to ethnic differentiation, but also had a base in control over productive assets (by different ethnic and social groups.) A consequence of declarations of sovereignty in many of the republics was a claim to All-Union assets located in the republics, and a decree to this effect was enacted by Yeltsin during the state of emergency in August 1991—and subsequently endorsed by Gorbachev. This gave legitimacy to the Republican governments, and the banning of the Communist Party further led to the weakening of the AllUnion state.These developments can only be understood in the context of a diverse and competing structure of elite interests. The lack of an ideology of class and national unity led to the rise of national elites, which undermined the coherence of the pre-perestroika segmented power elite: this was witnessed by the declaration of independence or sovereignty by the leaders of these new political groups in the republics and other units (such as certain autonomous republics.) It was the formation of regional blocs and elites which provided the strongest element of pluralism in the political structure and at the same time the greatest threat to stability. Western liberal democratic societies secure stability through a consensus of elites: they share a dominant ideology that is expressed in the acceptance of the political rules of the game, the sanctity of private property, limited state involvement, and a respect for law. This was not the case in the post-perestroika politics of the USSR—and of course it is not characteristic of most market societies outside Western Europe and the United States of America.

Political Stability/Instability An analysis of political stability and instability is made in figure 1.3. Here four variables are considered: 1. Elite structures are of the power-elite type, consensual or confrontational;

18

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Figure 1.3 Political Stability/Instability Elite Structures Power Elites

Political Outcomes Positive sum Zero sum

1. Stable 4. Stable Dominant/ Monopolistic

Consensual

2. Stable 5. Unstable Consensual

Confrontational

3. Unstable 6. Volatile

Political Organization Interests Social blocs

Antagonistic

Ideology

2. Ideologies are dominant/monopolistic (a single ideology legitimizes the political order and is accepted by the masses—as in traditional Marxism-Leninism), consensual (a number of different ideologies, each with distinctive features but capable of coexistence—ie., Christian democracy, democratic socialism, liberal capitalism), or antagonistic (world views that are incompatible one with another, such as communism and capitalism); 3. Political organization is described in terms of interests (as defined earlier) or social blocs—such as classes, nations or ethnic groups; and 4. Political outcomes are defined as positive sum or zero sum. The conditions for political stability and instability are shown in the various boxes.The independent variables are political outcomes, elite, political organization, and ideology. In this scheme, polyarchies (democracies) have no particular propensity to stability. The combination of power elite and dominant ideology ensures stability whatever the political outcome or political organization. Even where political organizations are formed from social blocs (such as ethnic groups in the United States of America), the combination of elite unity and a dominant ideology secures a stable regime, even when outcomes are zero sum. A consensual elite structure coupled to a positive-sum political outcome and an interest-type form of political organization within conditions of pluralistic ideologies also secure equilibrium.When linked to a zero-sum outcome and social-bloc type political organization, governments are unstable, as are confrontational elites matched to positive-sum outcomes, interest-type political organization,

Soviet Society

19

and antagonistic ideologies. Governments are confronted with serious problems when conditions of box 6 develop: confrontational elite, social bloc-type political organizations, zero-sum political outcomes, and antagonistic ideologies. The consequences of perestroika were a move towards class and ethnic blocs, and increased elite accessibility. A pluralism of values (communism, social-democracy, monarchism, anarchism, capitalism, Christianity) was now articulated by political associations. Elites became confrontational. From August 1991, the political structure was characterized by heterogeneous, conflicting elites.There was a duality of power: the elected government institutions (the Soviets) espoused a democratic order based on popular sovereignty; the economic units operated either on the basis of administrative control or increasingly private ownership exerted through the “hidden hand” of the market. Unlike pre-perestroika, when MarxismLeninism provided a shell of ideological stability and elite legitimation, under Gorbachev a pluralistic value system emerged and, given the sharp drop in gross national product and the rise of income differentials, political outcomes became zero sum (i.e., some players lost out to others.) The elite structure was confrontational. At the close of the Soviet era, the control of assets was a site of conflict between the administrative incumbents seeking to preserve power by a mixture of administrative controls or privatization (the transfer of ownership of assets to themselves), and new entrepreneurial classes originating from outside the old elites—from people in middle and lower executive positions, the alternative economy, and the professions. Engels, in discussing the basis of revolution, asserted that “All revolutions . . . have been revolutions for the protection of one kind of property against another kind of property. They cannot protect one kind without violating another.”36 Control over assets was the basis of the cleavage between the major actors in the class structure. On the one side were those supporting and represented by the leaders of the attempted coup of August 1991. Groups within the military-industrial complex, members of the security apparatus and their backers in the state (including Party) apparatus, sought renewal within the administrative-command economy.They sought to reconstitute their power through quasi-state corporations, through a kind of “state capitalism.” The extent to which these dominant political-administrative groups have continued into the post-Soviet era is a measure of their reproduction. They were confronted, on the other side, by a liberal-democratic opposition composed of people seeking a system based on private property and markets. This group we define as an “acquisition class” (see chapter 8). Some were disaffected members of the old: people who used

20


their authority and connections to further their ownership of assets. A second group was composed of those who made money legally and illegally under the Brezhnev regime and who were able to buy assets following privatization. Initially, they were the basis of the cooperative movement and provided financial support for the new political parties and movements that played an important role in bringing down the Communists. Thirdly were farmers who made profits out of their private plots and kolkhoz (collective farm) surplus produce. A fourth stratum originated from the middle- and lower-level managerial strata previously employed in state industry. Fifth was a section of the “intelligentsia” (physicians, lawyers, engineers) who saw their professional advancement linked to their ability to maximise their skills on the market. All these groups had an elective affinity between their material interests, which they may exploit on the market, and the ideology of a free enterprise system. They constituted a revolutionary social bloc. In chapter 8, we shall show that it is this class that provides the basis of the circulation of elites under Yeltsin. We consider the structure and process of the post-Soviet governing elites in part II. First, in chapter 7, we outline the developments that took place in the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation between 1990 and 1993.This body, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, encapsulated the interests that directly led to the collapse of the USSR. Second, in chapters 8 to 10, we analyze the background, interests and values of the now more pluralist elite structure of the Russian Republic in the period 1990 to 1997. Here we distinguish between the government, legislative, regional, and economic elites. These chapters are based on a detailed study of the social composition of 918 members of the Russian economic and political elites in post from 1991 to 1997, and on 100 interviews with the Yeltsin political elites.37 Throughout the book, we address five major problems: first, we trace the disunity and fragmentation of the elite structure from the Soviet to the post-Soviet structure; second, the lack of unity among the post-Communist elites, which has influenced the transition from authoritarianism; third, the ambiguity of the concept of “nomenklatura” and its inadequacy in analyzing political power; fourth, the political outcomes of the transformation of Russian society: the question of a “circulation” or “reproduction” of elites; and fifth, the class basis of political change: here we evaluate the rise of an “acquisition” class in the context of the state socialist “administrative” class.

Appendix 1.1

Growth of Ministries in USSR, 1962–198738

Year All-Union Ministries Union-Republican Ministries Committees/Commissions Total Ministries/ Commissions Non-voting Members:39 Total

1962

1966

1971

1977

1984

1987

5

22

27

30

31

38

10 31

25 9

31 9

32 19

31 19

19 33

46 34 80

56 32 88

67 39 106

81 52 133

81 51 132

90 41 131

Appendix 1.2

Growth in Number of State Employees in USSR, 1970–198040

Industry Transport Building Education and Culture Administration (“Apparat”) Total* *Including

sectors not included in table.

1970

1980

(000’s) 31,593 7,985 9.052 8,070 1,838 90,186

(000’s) 36,891 10,324 11,240 10,456 2,495 112,498

Appendix 1.3

Types of Government Apparatuses

Non-economic administrative organs: culture, defense, health, interior, justice, state security; education—higher, secondary (ministry), vocational, and technical education (state committee); external relations—external economic relations (state committee) and foreign affairs; and media—communications, cinematography, publishing/printing/books, television, and broadcasting. Economic committees: State bank, statistical administration, finance, administration of Council of Ministers, inventions and discoveries, labor and social, material and technical supply, material resources, people’s control, state planning, prices, science and technology, standards, trade, hydrometeorology, and environmental control. Industrial ministries (37 in all,) with the following important subdivisions: 1) defense: aviation, defense, electronics, general machine-building, machine-building, medium machine-building, radio, and ship-building; 2) energy: coal, gas, oil, oil refining, and electric-power development; 3) food: fish food, fruit and vegetables, and meal, and milk; 4) machine tools: chemical and oil, construction and highways, heavy transport, animal husbandry and fodder, light/food/household appliances, machine-tool and tool-building, power, and agricultural; 5) general industrial: motors, chemicals, communication equipment, construction materials, electrical equipment, iron and steel, geology, instrument-building/automation, light industry, medical industry, non-ferrous industry, timber/paper/wood processing; 6) agriculture: forestry, agriculture, land reclamation, fertilizer production, products procurement, and supply of production equipment for agriculture. Building: building (ministry), building (State Committee), Far East and Transbaikal, heavy-industry enterprises, petroleum and gas, industrial construction, installation and special construction work, agricultural enterprises, transport. Transport: civil aviation, merchant marine, railways.


Chapter 2

The CPSU Ruling Elite, 1966–1991

The Communist Party played a crucial role in the political structure of state socialism. Both Marxist-Leninist champions of the system and their opponents, who prefer the model of totalitarianism, regard the Party as being monolithic, unitary, and united.The distinguishing factor of a “Party of a new type” was that its political power was pervasive: it controlled not only the economy but all aspects of social life. Unlike Western capitalism, where politics is dependent on civil society and its constituent, relatively autonomous units, “mono-organizational socialism” was conceived to entail the “running of all aspects of social life . . . coordinated by the Party apparatus and under the arbitrary direction of a personal dictator or tiny oligarchy.”1 This approach is also shared by sociologists who distinguish between capitalism and state socialism on the grounds of the separation of economy and polity, in the former, and its fusion, in the latter.2 While a minority of commentators on Soviet politics, such as Fleron, Hough, and Solomon,3 have questioned this monolithic approach, it has conditioned our understanding of the Communist system. Moreover, the collapse of Soviet Communism has put this mode of analysis sharply in focus. How could the monolithic Party leadership abdicate political power and undermine Marxist-Leninist ideology? How was it that a complete reversal took place in the spheres of ideology and foreign policy, whereas economic reform was discussed with no significant changes taking place? How did it come about that the CPSU voluntarily abdicated its hegemonic role in 1991? Our own position is that the unitary elite approach has obscured major divisions within the Party administrative structure. Rather than being a monolithic elite, the Party apparat was characterized by different functional constituencies that developed their own identity and political position.The traditional view of the “Party apparatchik” with a working life

26


exclusively in the apparat applies to one important constituency of the top personnel, but it marginalizes other important groups that had a wide range of recruitment, with many people entering the Party elite only in middle age. We demonstrate that the Party executive elite under Brezhnev and Gorbachev shared a common generational background, and that both elites had similar types of division. The reform leadership of Gorbachev attempted to change the composition of the Party’s executive elite to overcome inertia and opposition to change; in a sense this was an attempt to create a “circulation” of elites. In the following two chapters, we distinguish these divisions by a study of the occupational history of the top Party personnel: members of the Politburo, CPSU Central Committee secretaries, and heads of departments, who constituted the Party’s political elite. In this chapter, we consider the apex of the Party’s elite, the Politburo, and in the next, we turn to the apparat of the Central Committee. In chapter 6, on the basis of interviews, we consider the differences in outlook of members of the Party elite.The Politburo has the status, in much of the academic literature, of a “ruling elite”—that is, a collectivity of persons who have the legitimate (or illegitimate) power of taking strategic decisions that are national in scope. As we have indicated, we may consider the Politburo as a body taking decisions, but we should not conflate this role with the making of decisions. Our analysis in this chapter is intended to qualify the political consensus that has focused on the Politburo as the major institution of political power under state socialism. Our objective is to indicate the different constituencies represented in the Politburo; it is to these, to the constituent sectors of the political elites, that one should turn to understand the dynamics of Soviet politics and the collapse of the USSR.4

The Politburo The Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union played a crucial part in the leadership of the Soviet state. It was widely held to be the authoritative decision-making body under Soviet socialism.What kind of authority (or political domination) is a matter of controversy. One school emphasized its domination and another its collective authority. The former is epitomized by the late Leonard Schapiro, writing in the late 1950s. He approvingly quotes Lenin in 1919 that in principle the Politburo “decides policy,”5 the government apparatus was “always subject to the policy laid down by the Politburo, or by some dictator acting in its name.”6 This view is predicated on Lenin’s theory of the


27

Party, which he articulated in 1902: society was to be run by a centralized Party controlled by its leadership; “Forty-one years after seizing power, after an industrial revolution and an educational transformation, the Communist Party still retained all the features which Lenin had considered necessary in 1902.”7 Such writing has buttressed the “totalitarian” approach to Soviet politics in its power elite aspects. Though echoes of this political domination paradigm may be found in concepts of “mono-organizational socialism,”8 this line of reasoning has been modified since the 1960s and has been replaced by a more corporatist approach. Bunce and Echols, for instance, saw the Party’s role as a “catalyst” in leading and coordinating the various sectors of Soviet society.They emphasize, moreover, the primacy of the Party.9 Lowenhardt has also emphasized that “The Politburo has been the top political organ of the Soviet Union since 1919. It is in this body that decisions are taken which are to determine the line of development of the country. It is here that differences between various centers of power on matters such as foreign policy are ironed out.”10 For Rigby, the USSR Council of Ministers “serves in practice as an administrative arm of the supreme executive body of the “Party” . . . it is the Politburo that governs the country.”11 Jerry Hough has been one of the more influential writers in this field. He has likened the Politburo to the British Cabinet. “Since the Stalin years, the leader must at least discuss every major decision with the Politburo, and the General Secretary cannot remove a Politburo member without the agreement of the Central Committee.”12 Though this viewpoint gave the Politburo a measure of legitimacy missing in the domination approach, it clearly concedes that political power lay with the Party-dominated Politburo. “Whatever the division of power among the Central Committee, the Politburo, and the General Secretary, some combination of these Party officials obviously [had] unlimited authority to make any decision that it [deemed] desirable.”13 In our view, both these interpretations need to be revised in relation to the collapse of the USSR and the changes that affected the Party during its terminal stages in 1991. Also, the emphasis on the Party as an omnipotent dominant group has obscured other features of the system of political power. We question whether the Politburo and its apparat could control the operation of the government bureaucracy.As in all major industrial societies, power in the Soviet Union gravitated to the executive. The Politburo had no apparat of its own and had to rely on the CPSU Secretariat in the Party and USSR Council of Ministers to implement its resolutions and decrees. Considerable strategic autonomy remained with the government apparatus, which was legitimated within the ideological and political shell of the Communist Party.

28


From the mid-1920s, the Politburo became the chief deliberative and formally final decision-making body of the Party. Its membership increased in size as follows: 1919—5 full, 3 candidates; 1930—10 full, 5 candidates; since the mid-1950s, it14 has remained fairly constant in size, with about a dozen full members and half a dozen candidate members with overlapping membership of the Council of Ministers and the Supreme Soviet.15 Although the Party maintained the largest grouping in the Politburo over the period 1966–91, this has not always been the case. There can be no doubt that the state administration was the dominant political body under Stalin. As the administration of the economy and the welfare agencies exploded in size during the late Khrushchev and Brezhnev periods, the power of centrifugal forces increased, and bureaucratic autarchy became dominant. Khrushchev recognized the weakness of the Party machine: by the end of 1957, he had reversed the representation in the Presidium of the Party—10 of its 15 members were Party secretaries, and only 2 representatives of the government Presidium remained (Mikoian and Bulganin). In 1958, Khrushchev assumed the chair of the Council of Ministers. But control eluded the central Party institutions. Following the dismissal of Khrushchev in 1964, the Brezhnev-Podgorny-Kosygin leadership initially strengthened ministerial participation in the Politburo and reinstated the centralized ministerial system.16 There was little change in the numbers of government members by 1976, even though Brezhnev had brought into the Politburo in 1973 the ministers of defense and foreign affairs and the chairman of the KGB. Seven out of 22 members held government posts.17 At the end of the Brezhnev period in 1981, the number of government officials fell to 6 out of 22. This balance continued into the early years of Gorbachev’s rule. In 1986, there was a slight increase, with 8 out of 19 members in government posts.18 In 1990 (before the July election), this balance moved slightly, again in favor of government posts (7 government to 9 Party officials). At this time, there were also 3 representatives from the USSR and RSFSR Supreme Soviets, reflecting the rise in importance of the Soviets in the Gorbachev era. (For a comprehensive listing of posts held by members of the Politburo, 1986–1991, see appendix 2.1.) The linkage between these various institutions (with the Party being dominant) is the crux of the argument of Hough and others that the political system took a “cabinet” form. Our discussion so far indicates that there was considerable agreement by Western writers that the Politburo was a site of exchange, if not struggle and conflict, between the government bureaucracy and the Party secretariat.The changing membership was an indicator of the various strengths of the different constituencies.


29

While the Politburo undoubtedly acted as an institution of political aggregation, it was embedded in a highly complex administrative and bureaucratic structure; not only did it feed demands into its apparat, but its component parts also acted relatively autonomously of the central political leadership. Subordinate to the Politburo (though technically responsible to the Central Committee) was the Party secretariat. It was the administrative arm of the Party, constituting its apparat. The “Party secretariat” was not a unitary body—it had many different interests and often paralleled the government structure and acted in concert with it.19 Many have argued that the Secretariat would draw up policy proposals for the Politburo to discuss and ratify.The Secretariat was also charged with overseeing the execution of Politburo resolutions in the lower Party bodies and government ministries. In practice, however, we believe that there was a much more complex relationship between the Politburo and the Secretariat. At times, the Secretariat has sought to usurp the powers of the Politburo and to make decisions on its own.This can be seen most clearly in the late Gorbachev period, when Ligachev attempted to use his base in the Secretariat to oppose Gorbachev’s reforms. In 1988, Gorbachev was forced to take drastic action and weaken the powers of the Secretariat, reducing the number of its departments from 21 to 9. We would hasten to add that the relationship of the Politburo to the USSR Council of Ministers is also less clear-cut than many assume. (We discuss the Secretariat in chapter 3.) Rather than considering Soviet politics as a unique case, one may gather considerable insight from studies of bureaucratic politics. Robert Putnam’s statement about Western bureaucrats may be adapted to our study of the Politburo.“Discretion, not merely for deciding individual cases but for crafting the content of most legislation, has passed from the legislature to the executive. Bureaucrats, monopolizing as they do much of the available information about the shortcomings of existing policies as well as much of the technical expertise necessary to design practical alternatives, have gained a predominant influence over the evolution of the agenda for decision. Elected officials everywhere are outnumbered and outlasted by career civil servants. In a literal sense, the modern political system is essentially ‘bureaucratic’—characterized by ‘the rule of officials.’”20 In the case of communist politics, the “legislature” (strictly the Supreme Soviet) did not have the power of Western parliaments; it was the Party through the Central Committee and the Politburo that had this role. In our view, it would be quite correct to substitute, in the above quotation, “Politburo” for “legislature,” and the government administration located in the ministries for the “executives,” exercising the “rule of officials.”The political institutions of the Politburo and the Central Committee attempted

30


to legitimate, aggregate, and regulate interests through the cooption of various members of functional groups from the state bureaucracy. Who, then, were the people in the Politburo, and what did they represent? Did they have the personal qualities and administrative experience to control the bureaucratic structures? Our analysis of the personnel suggests that they did not.We would hypothesize that power was largely left to the administrative agencies outside of the Politburo.The Politburo, rather than being a group of individuals exercizing collective authority (as in Cabinet type politics) should be regarded as a “collection of posts.” (See Daniels21 and Kress22).

The Changing Composition of the Politburo In this chapter, we provide a biographical analysis of the 85 individuals who were full or candidate members (66 and 19, respectively) of the Politburo over the 25 year period 8 April 1966–29 August 1991.23 In our data base, we recorded their vital statistics and complete occupational history. We have not discussed all of the variables.We might note here that in terms of gender there were only two women members, Aleksandra Biriukova and Galina Semenova, both of whom were appointed in the Gorbachev period. Our study benefited from the publication of biographies of Politburo members in Izvestiia TsK KPSS and from materials collected at the Radio Liberty Archives in Munich.24 Our examination of the composition of the Politburo over the period 1966–90 shows that three major political groups have dominated this body (here we exclude the Politburo elected on and after 14 July 1990, which will be discussed later): 1. Top officials from the All-Union Party secretariat; 2. Leading USSR government officials; 3. Republic and territorial Party and state elites. From the All-Union Party apparat were usually to be found the General Secretary and 3 to 6 other secretaries and the chairman of the Party Control Committee. From the USSR government came the chairman of the Council of Ministers; the first deputy chairmen; the minister of culture; and, since 1973, the USSR ministers of defense and foreign affairs and the chairman of the KGB. Also included was the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. From the republics were represented the First Party secretaries of Azerbaidzhan (candidate member—cm), Belorussia (cm), Georgia (cm), Kazakhstan (full member-fm), Ukraine (fm), Uzbekistan


31

(cm), and usually the First Party secretaries of Leningrad Region and Moscow City. From the government at republic level, one would usually find the chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers. The chairman of the trade union organization was a member in 1966 and 1971.The representation, by time periods, is shown in tabular form in appendix 2.2. Examining groups of members of the Politburo in terms of their overall appointments has some advantages. However, it obscures changes in the recruitment of new members. We have, therefore, scrutinized the background of the members up to the date that they first joined the Politburo. This takes into account of the fact that some members joined as candidates and others entered as full members: here we have taken the first date of appointment. This gives information about their characteristics on recruitment, and does not conflate their work experience following membership, on which it might be contingent. We believe that many studies are seriously flawed by not making this distinction. Also, we have taken account of all types of executive service, not just incumbency of top posts such as ministerial or party secretary positions. In this respect we have calculated two indexes: a government post saturation index and a Party post saturation index. In order to calculate Party and government saturation scores, we analyzed the previous careers of the members of the Politburo in terms of their participation in government and Party work (i.e., executive positions in All-Union and Union-Republican administrations down to posts in district level posts—representative posts, such as membership of Central Committees or Soviets were excluded).We then gave a weight to each position in terms of its status, and multiplied the weight by the number of years in the position. For example, USSR ministers were given a score of 50 as were CPSU secretaries; republican Party first secretaries were awarded 40, and republican ministers were given 30; whereas city-level executives were given 10 points. These scores were then multiplied by the years in post to give a Party and government participation index for each Politburo member.The objective here is to have a measure of the political weight of the persons in the elite, which is indicated by the type of post held. It enables us to distinguish between experience in relatively minor, unimportant positions (say, at a local level) and major elite positions that are national in scope. In such a way, we are able to distinguish between a period in a relatively unimportant Party or government position with time spent in authority roles. Table 2.1 summarizes our data on government and Party saturation, respectively, for Politburo members joining in the appropriate time periods. These show the number of first appointments made to the various Politburos (e.g., 33 before 1981), the number of each set of new appointments

32


Table 2.1

Politburo Period Before 1980 1981– 1986– 1990–

Politburo 1966–1991: Previous Government and Party Executive Service, by Period of Joining Politburo

N

No Government Service

Median Government Service

No Party Service

Median Party Service

33 7 17 28

10 1 6 11

31 144 79 18

3 1 3 1

354 315 313 242

having no government service and no Party executive posts, the median score of government service, and the median score of Party service. From 1990, of course, the Politburo was quite a different body from the earlier ones, as it had been supplanted by other forms of interest aggregation: it is included here for comparative purposes. These data show that the Politburo was recruited overwhelmingly from people who had had a long Party work record. Only 8 of the 85 Politburo members had had no Party experience, and 5 had very low Party saturation scores, when they entered the Politburo for the first time. In the period before 1981, only 4 of 33 members had had no or little Party service.25 In contrast to these officials with low Party saturation, the following had the highest Party saturation scores—well above the average median score for the four cohorts of 306: Chernenko26 (Party saturation score of 1340); Dolgikh27 (1134); Ligachev28 (1178); Ponomarev29 (1528). These scores, we should remind the reader, are for Party service up to the point of entry into the Politburo and do not include Party posts in the Politburo.Thus, this measure does not take account of the very long Politburo tenure of many of its members.30

Government Saturation Scores Overall, the government saturations scores were relatively low for all the cohorts. We should also note the drop in the median government saturation score from 79 in 1986–90 to 18 in 1990–91, which is explained by the fact that the Politburo from July 1990 was a purely Party body with no representation from members of the government. We shall return to a more detailed discussion of the 1990 Politburo. However, we may also note here that the individuals who entered the Politburo in July 1990 had a more varied background than their predecessors, and this is shown in the


33

decline in their median Party saturation scores from 313 to 242 over the same period. This strategy of analyzing Party and government executive service before joining the Politburo has captured the executive government and Party positions prior to joining the Politburo. It has ignored other types of work experience as well as the positions occupied after the executives joined the Politburo.To give a wider and more accurate picture of their careers while in post, we have analyzed all the positions held by the Politburo members prior to the Central Committee elections of March 1981, March 1986, and July 1990.To indicate how the occupational profile of these men31 changed throughout the period, we have selected some key occupations and compared the total number of years of all members of the relevant Politburo. Graph 2.1 shows Party All-Union higher posts (PCHE), Party republican higher executive posts (PRHE), Party professionals (PP), government All-Union higher executive posts (GCHE), government republican higher executive posts (GRHE), industrial executive jobs (IE), manual worker positions (MW), non-manual (NM) posts, and research and education (R+Ed) and trade-union (TU) stations. These posts represent the major occupations held; others have not been included here as they would have added to the density of the text.

Graph 2.1 Politburo 1980–1991: Total Work in Selected Sectors

34


Three cohorts of Politburo members have been defined: those in the Politburo before March 1981, before July 1990 and those after July 1990. These represent the Brezhnev Politburo, Gorbachev’s reforming Politburo and the Politburo during the Party’s terminal period. Graph 2.1 summarizes the major changes. “Years of service” are the total number of years in posts in the relevant period. First we note that members with All-Union government executive experience was much greater than shown above.This is accounted for by the fact that the members gained their experience in the government after being in the Politburo.The reforming Politburo of Gorbachev 1986–90 had proportionally more people with All-Union government and Party experience than did that of Brezhnev and both Republic government and Republic Party executives dropped in numbers. The number of those with manual worker experience declined considerably whereas those with industrial executive and non manual backgrounds rose, as did those with professional Party (such as editors of Party journals and newspapers) experience.

Ethnic Composition We noted above the importance of Party republican posts; they should not, however, be conflated with ethnic background. We analyzed the ethnic background of the 85 members represented in all four Politburos.The results are shown on table 2.2.With the exception of the final Politburo elected in 1990, the table brings out the numerical supremacy of Russians in the Politburo: in absolute and relative proportion the number of Russians increased under Brezhnev and the rise of Gorbachev. One might conclude that the non-Russian minorities had (like women) only token representation in the Politburo. Under Gorbachev’s leadership, from the period April 1985 to July 1990, of the 21 individuals appointed, 18 were Russian, 2 were other Slavs (one Ukrainian, one Belorussian), and only 1 was non-Slav (Pugo—a Latvian). At a time when the nationalities problem had become explosive, ethnic wars were breaking out throughout the Union, and nationality based popular fronts were growing in size and influence, Gorbachev reduced representation of non-Russians in the Politburo. On the eve of the 28th Party Congress, there was only one republic Party secretary left in the Politburo (Ivashko—first Party secretary of the Ukraine). By July 1990, when republic Party secretaries were finally given representation, the Politburo was no longer the key decision-making body. Gorbachev may have succeeded in maintaining power and defeating his more traditionalist opponents at the 28th Party Congress, but he patently

The CPSU Ruling Elite, 1966–1991 Table 2.2

35

Ethnic Composition of Politburo, 1966–1991

Politburo

Before 1980

1981–85

1986–89

1990–91

1 0 3 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 5 1 14 19 33

1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 7 22 29

1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 7 24 31

1 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 21 9 30

Azeris Armenians Belorussians Estonians Georgians Kazakhs Kirgiz Latvians Lithuanians Moldavians Ossetians Tadzhiks Turkmenians Ukrainians Uzbeks Non-Russians Russians Total Source: Authors’ database.

failed to manage the nationalities problem, which soon brought about the collapse of the Party in August 1991 and the Union in December 1991. Clearly, in an ethnic and national sense, the Politburo had not been a representative body; members having a regional affiliation were linked to institutions operating in the area.

The Reforming Politburo of Gorbachev By the early 1980s, the average age of the Politburo member had reached 70, and Brezhnev’s policy of stability of cadres had the effect of denying the Politburo sources of new blood and ideas. It was the deaths of Suslov in January 1982, Brezhnev in November 1982, Kiselev in January 1983, Pel’she in May 1983, Rashidov in October 1983, Andropov in February 1984, Ustinov in December 1984, and Chernenko in March 1985; and the illness and aging of other Politburo members (such as Kirilenko) that was to allow Gorbachev quickly to consolidate power and to launch his radical economic and political reform program in April 1985, just one month after taking office as General Secretary. Significant changes followed in the

36


personnel composition of the Politburo; these are itemized below.The first period (April 1985-June 1990) we may designate as the “reforming Politburo,” the second (July 1990-August 1991), the terminal one. The deaths and illness of the older Politburo members gave Gorbachev unprecedented opportunities to bring in his supporters and to dismiss opponents. Over the period April 1985-July 1990, Gorbachev recruited 21 new members to the Politburo and promoted two (Chebrikov and Shevardnadze) from candidate to full membership. He was able to bring into the Politburo 3 to 4 new members each year from 1985 to 1988. In September 1988, after convening the extraordinary 19th Party Conference and facing fierce opposition from the more traditional wing of the Party, Gorbachev went on the offensive, dismissing Gromyko, Solomentsev, Dolgikh, and Demichev, and appointing to the Politburo 4 new members.32 Earlier in February 1988, Gorbachev had dismissed Yeltsin and had brought in Masliukov and Razumovskii. In 1988 alone, Gorbachev appointed 6 new members and dismissed 5. One year later, in September 1989, Gorbachev dismissed a further 5 members and appointed 1 (Kriuchkov).Among those dismissed was Shcherbitskii, the last remaining representative of the Brezhnev Politburo. The Politburo elected at the 28th Party Congress in July 1990 was markedly different in composition from all other previous Politburos and marked a major turning point in the history of the Party and its relations with other elite bodies in the government and Soviets. (For details of members, see appendix 2.1.) The new 1990 Politburo was, with the exception of only one person (Frolov, the chief editor of Pravda) made up entirely of CPSU Secretaries and Republic\City Secretaries. It was fundamentally weakened by the removal of all government officials, such as the prime minister, the ministers of defense and foreign affairs, and the chairman of the KGB, who now were transferred to Gorbachev’s new power base in the Presidential Council.33 Its membership was also diluted by the inclusion of the Party heads of all 15 republics who were given ex-officio membership. Its younger republican elite personnel lacked experience, with only Gorbachev and Ivashko having been members before the 28th Party Congress.The membership of the Politburo was now largely dependent on local-level politics, over which the center now had little control. All-Union Party secretaries were for the first time outnumbered by republican secretaries. With conflict between the republics and the center intensifying over the period 1990–91 (particularly in the Baltic states) and ethnic rivalry between various republics (Azerbaidzhan and Armenia) escalating into war, the Politburo could no longer be seen to be a unifying or consensus-build-


37

ing body, and now was reduced to a highly disparate and conflict-ridden body. Over the period between July 1990 and the 1991 August coup, a number of All-Union bodies vied for power: 1) The Presidential Council and Federation Council; 2) The USSR Council\Cabinet of Ministers; 3) The Congress of People’s Deputies and Supreme Soviet; and 4) The CPSU Secretariat and Politburo.These All-Union associations were confronted by nationalist groups in the republics, many of whom came to power in elections in the spring of 1990. The Politburo was no longer a site in which the major interests in Soviet society were represented, and its decline was accelerated by the collapse of the Party’s membership.34 It could no longer be considered to be a ruling elite. In March 1990, Article 6 of the Soviet constitution was repealed and opposition parties were legalized. Over the period July 1990 to August 1991, the Secretariat was left to carry on the struggle for leadership, with most Politburo members embroiled in political struggles in their republics.Although the Secretariat fought back and was able to slow reforms over the winter of 1990–91, the Politburo had lost its traditional role and had not found a new one. There was a political vacuum with contending centers of power in the presidency and the Party, and increasing conflict between the center and the republics, with no effective coordinating body or unifying ideology left to bind the state and the society together.

The Decline of the Politburo as a Political “Cabinet” It may be argued, along the lines of Hough, that one of the great strengths of the Politburo lay in its incorporation of key elites. It was the only body that could perform the function of consensus-building and integration, and could bring together top Party, government, and territorial elites. Our data might appear to suggest that the Politburo had the characteristic of being a representative “Cabinet”-type government. However, this position is not the full story.The Politburo was incomplete as a representative body: many vitally important interests were not in it. Before July 1990, only 6 of the 15 republican heads had representation, and only 2 of these were full voting members.The year 1971 was the last time the Chairman of the Trade Union organization was on the Politburo, and from that date most of the major USSR ministries, such as those constituting the military-industrial complex, were left out. Moreover, the Party apparat remained the single largest group in the Politburo if not constituting a majority of its membership. Such Party domination had not always been

38


the case. As we noted above, under Stalin, the reverse was true and the Politburo was dominated by representatives of the government bureaucracy. Under Khrushchev, the Party by 1957 was clearly in the dominant position once again. Under Brezhnev, this trend continued: in 1966, the Party apparat constituted 6 of the 11 full Politburo members; in 1971, 8 of the 15 full members; in 1976, 9 of 16 full members; and in 1981, 10 of 14 full members. Gorbachev shifted the balance away from the Party apparat: in 1986 (after the first Congress, at which Gorbachev was General Secretary), its members fell to 6 out of 12, and in 1990, before the 28th Party Congress, 7 out of 12.35 We would also add another caveat in interpreting the presence of “Party apparatchiks” in the Politburo. Undoubtedly, differences of interest have existed between secretaries involved in separate sectors of the economy, and it would be an oversimplification to include the Party heads of the republics as a unified group with the All-Union Party apparat. We would suggest that the Politburo had the character of segmented elites, which the political leadership sought to make into a unified body.The Party may have striven to control and coordinate these different government and territorial groups but it was far from successful in this endeavor, as reflected in the power of the ministries to thwart Gorbachev’s reforms and the “war of laws” with the republics that took place in 1989–91. Maybe the political system had a Leninist mold, as suggested by Schapiro, but this was becoming more inappropriate in the late 1970s and early ‘80s when the Soviet political leadership no longer reflected the major demographic, social, and economic changes that had taken place in Soviet society. We would hypothesize that the Politburo also began to lose its pivotal aggregative role in the political process. Its failure to provide representation for the majority of workers, ethnic groups, and other major bureaucratic interests entailed the Politburo’s loss of authority. Many key bureaucracies of the Party and state, which were not represented at the “input” side of the decision-making process, turned to the “output” side, or implementation stage, to exert their power.The Politburo could make decisions but it now found it increasingly difficult to implement them. Gorbachev has been reported to have quoted J.S. Mill approvingly in 1988, when he said,“The Tsar himself is powerless against the bureaucratic bodies: he can send any of them to Siberia, but he cannot govern without them, or against their will. On every decree of his they have a tacit veto, by merely refraining from carrying it into effect.”36 The heads of the small number of institutions and territories that were repre-


39

sented in the Politburo would have resisted the entry into the Politburo of other competing institutions or nationalities. Such was the “self-stabilizing oligarchy” of the Brezhnev era37.We would hypothesize that “nobody” ran the Soviet Union. The country went forward under its own momentum in a highly politically differentiated and segmented political system. It was this system that Gorbachev tried to change, but he destroyed what unity and integrity it had. We turn now to consider how the divisions in the Politburo were paralleled in the Party secretariat.


Appendix 2.1

Members of Politburo, 1986–1991

Politburo, 6 March 1986 (27th Party Congress) Full Members G.A. Aliev V.I.Vorotnikov M.S. Gorbachev A.A. Gromyko L.N. Zaikov D.A. Kunaev E.K. Ligachev N.I. Ryzhkov M.S. Solomentsev V.M. Chebrikov E.A. Shevardnadze V.V. Shcherbitskii

First Deputy Chair, USSR Council of Ministers Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers General Secretary, Central Committee (CC) CPSU Chairman, Presidium USSR Supreme Soviet Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Kazakhstan Secretary, CC CPSU Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers Chairman, Party Control Committee Chairman, USSR KGB USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs First Secretary, CC Ukraine

Candidate Members P.N. Demichev V.I. Dolgikh B.N.Yeltsin N.N. Sliun’kov S.L. Sokolov Iu.F. Solov’ev N.V.Talyzin

USSR Minister of Culture Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, Moscow City Party Committee First Secretary, CC Belorussia USSR Minister of Defense First Secretary, Leningrad Obkom (Region) First Deputy Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers\ Chairman USSR State Planning Committee (Gosplan)

Politburo, 14 July 1990 (28th Party Congress) M.S. Gorbachev

General Secretary, CC CPSU

42


V.A. Ivashko M.M. Burokiavichius S.I. Gurenko G.G. Gumbaridze A.S. Dzasokhov I.A. Karimov P.K. Luchinskii A.M. Masaliev K.M. Makhkamov V.M. Movsisian A.N. Mutalibov N.A. Nazarbaev S.A. Niiazov I.K. Polozkov Iu.A. Prokof ’ev A.P. Rubiks G.V. Semenova E.-A.A. Sillari E.E. Sokolov E.S. Stroev I.T. Frolov O.S. Shenin G.I. Ianaev

Deputy General Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Lithuania CP First Secretary, CC Ukraine CP First Secretary, CC Georgia CP Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Uzbek CP First Secretary, CC Moldavia CP First Secretary, CC Kirgiz CP First Secretary, CC Tadzhik CP First Secretary, CC Armenia CP First Secretary, CC Azerbaidzhan CP First Secretary, CC Kazakhstan CP First Secretary, CC Turkmenistan CP First Secretary, CC RSFSR First Secretary, Moscow City First Secretary, CC Latvia CP Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Estonia CP First Secretary, CC Belorussia CP Secretary, CC CPSU Chief Editor, Pravda Secretary, CC CPSU Secretary, CC CPSU

Politburo, August 1991 M.S. Gorbachev V.A. Ivashko D.B. Amanbaev L.E. Annus M.M. Burokiavichius S.I. Gurenko A.S. Dzasokhov G.I Eremei I.A. Karimov P.K. Luchinskii K.M. Makhkamov A.A. Malofeev A.N. Mutalibov N.A. Nazarbaev S.A. Niiazov I.K. Polozkov Iu.A. Prokof ’ev A.P. Rubiks

General Secretary, Central Committe (CC) CPSU Deputy General Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Kirgiz CP First Secretary, CC Estonia CP First Secretary, CC Lithuania CP First Secretary, CC Ukraine CP Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Moldavia First Secretary, CC Uzbek CP Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Tadzhik CP First Secretary, CC Belorussia CP First Secretary, CC Azerbaidzhan CP First Secretary, CC Kazakhstan CP First Secretary, CC Turkmenistan CP First Secretary, CC RSFSR First Secretary, Moscow City First Secretary, CC Latvia CP

The CPSU Ruling Elite, 1966–1991 G.V. Semenova E.-A.A. Sillari E.S. Stroev M.S. Surkov I.T. Frolov O.S. Shenin

Secretary, CC CPSU First Secretary, CC Estonia CP Secretary, CC CPSU Secretary, USSR All-Army Party Committee Chief Editor, Pravda Secretary, CC CPSU

43


Appendix 2.2

Key Party, Government Institutions, Republics, Regions, and Other Bodies Represented in the Politburo, 1966–1990 Year

1966

1971

A. First Party Secretaries of Republics 1. Azerbaidzhan — — C 2. Belorussia C F 3. Ukraine F C 4. Georgia C 5. Kazakhstan C F 6. Uzbekistan C C B. City/Regions 1. Moscow City 2. Leningrad Region C. Other Party 1. Secretaries, AllUnion CC 2. Chairs, Party Control

1976

1981

1986

1990

C C F — F C

C C F C F C

— C F — F —

— — F — — —

—

F

F

F

C

—

—

—

F

F

C

—

4F/2C

3F/1C

5F/1C

5F/1C

3F/1C

6F/1C

F

F

F

F

F

C

—

—

F*

C

F

F

—

—

F

D. Representation of Other Republic Officials Chairs, Ukraine Council of Ministers F — — Chairs, RSFSR Council of Ministers F F C Chairs, RSFSR Presidium Supreme Soviet — — —

46


Year

1966

E. Central Government Chairs, USSR Council of Ministers F First Dep. Chairs, USSR Council of Ministers FF Chairs, KGB — Ministers, Defense — Ministers, Finance — Ministers, Culture — F. USSR Supreme Soviet Chairs, Presidium Supreme Soviet F First Deputy Chairs, Presidium Supreme Soviet — Chairs, Supreme Soviet — Shairs, Council of Union, Supreme Soviet — G. Others Chairs, Trade Unions

C

1971

1976

1981

1986

1990

F

F

F

F

F

FF C — — —

F F F F C

— F F F C

FC F C F C

FF* F C F —

F

F

F

F

—

—

—

C

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

—

—

—

—

C

F

—

—

—

—

Note: C = Candidate Membership, F = Full Membership of Politburo, CC = Central Committee CPSU, Chm. = Chairs, CofM = Council of Ministers, FA = Foreign Affairs, Min = Ministers, Presd. = Presidium, RSFSR = Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Secs = Secretaries, SS = Supreme Soviet, Ukr = Ukraine *Ivashko was first Party Secretary of Ukraine and Chm of Ukraine Council of Ministers. **Biriukova was Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. Source: Authors’ database.

Chapter 3

The Central Committee Apparat, 1981–1991

The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU, with its 20 or so departments, was charged with overseeing the implementation of Party policy in lower-level Party organs, USSR government ministries, and other state institutions. The Party’s apparatus closely paralleled that of the government, though it was much smaller in size and had fewer departments.Table 3.1 details the number of positions between 1981 and 1991. An important role of the Secretariat was to control and guide the activities of the government bureaucracy, which operated through 100 or so USSR Ministries and State Committees. The Secretariat was a parallel or shadow government—though how effective it was in this role is a matter for research. Many of the departments of the Secretariat were organized along economic branch lines, directly duplicating the structure of the government bureaucracy.There were departments of the chemical industry, the defense industry, economics, heavy industry and power engineering, light industry and consumer goods, machine building, transport and communications. Other departments dealt with the supervision of ideology and propaganda, security, foreign affairs, and defense.1

Table 3.1

The CPSU Central Committee Secretariat and Apparatus, 1981–1991

Secretaries Chairmen of Commissions Heads of Departments

1981

1986

1988

1991

10 0 23

11 0 21

10 6 9

13 11 14

48


This administrative structure formed the basis of our data set, which was constituted from all of those holding office as secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the heads of departments (and commissions, from September 1988) in post between February 1981 and the end of August 1991. So defined there were 85 top executives, of whom 41 were secretaries and 44 were heads of departments. Except for 2 women secretaries (Aleksandra Biriukova and Galina Semenova), all the top leaders were men.

Departmental Activity:The Recruitment of the Elites The occupational history of these executives was analyzed by department of work activity. Graph 3.1 shows the number of appointments held by the 85 executives in different departmental sectors: the most numerous departments in which the Party executives had worked were those of industrial production (IP) and direction and planning (DP), followed by propaganda and ideology (PI) and foreign affairs (FA), agricultural products and agriculture (AP), defense and security (DS), culture, education and science (CSE), internal Party affairs (IPA), social and legal (SP), social services (SS), and transport and communications (TC).

Graph 3.1 Sectors of Party Administration in Which Top Executives Worked, 1981–1991


49

These are somewhat unwieldy and uneven groupings, and we aggregated them into four functional sectors: directing and control; foreign affairs, defense, and security; economics; and finally, social and cultural. To give some idea of the density of positions, we counted the number of jobs held in the different sectors during the ten-year period.The largest sector, with 37 percent of positions, was in the directing and controlling departments, followed by another large bloc of 31 percent in the economic departments; foreign, defense and security came to 21 percent, and social and cultural came to 11 percent.

Age Executives joined the Party at a relatively young age—the median age was 25 years. However, there was a considerable range, with some joining as young as 17 and others in their mid-30s (9 were under 21 when they joined and 8 were over 30). While the age they joined the Party may be correlated with political affinity to the Party, it may also indicate little more than convention. A more telling statistic we employ is the age at which the executives began a Party career. Here we have scrutinized the biographies to determine when the first continuous career began in the Party—this is defined as the date beginning a job or series of Party (or Komsomol) executive jobs lasting more than 10 years, or the date of joining the Secretariat as head of department or as secretary (if they came from outside).The median age here was 32 years.We have also calculated the median age the executives joined the Party elite: that for departmental heads was 53 years, 10 months: for secretaries, 56 years, 3 months. Following earlier writers, such as Fleron, we may distinguish between two important divisions in the career paths of the Party elite: one circle, beginning their Party careers in their 20s, formed a nucleus of Party “career” executives, whereas another group, defined as “coopted” executives, entered Party service later in life, being over 35 or even 50 years of age.We have taken 35 as a dividing line, because by that age in the life cycle, most people would have been into a career in a chosen occupation. Fifty began their Party careers under 35 years of age and 35 over that age (surprisingly perhaps, of these, 15 began their Party careers over age fifty). These data make clear the fact that a large proportion of executives began a Party career in middle age. Over 40 percent of the top elite did not begin their Party careers until age 35 or over, after manual or executive positions in industry, or local administration in Soviets or other nonParty bodies.

50


Of the former group, most were recruited into the Party, either through activity in the Komsomol or through Party careers begun when they were in their early to mid-twenties. Only after extensive Party work as secretaries of cities or regions/republics did they move up to the center to work at the apex of the Party in the CPSU Central Committee. Study of their career background shows that these people had work experience that was largely but not exclusively confined to the Party apparatus.The Party acted as an agency of self-recruitment, promoting its own cadres from the localities into central positions in the Central Committee apparatus.The vast majority followed narrow, vertical career paths up the Party hierarchy, with very few coming from lateral cooption from posts outside the Party in industry or government. Such people, we believe, would have strong institutional loyalties and ties to the Party. It was the Party that gave them a lifetime of privilege, power, and status in Soviet society. Such men included Mikhail Gorbachev, Egor Ligachev, and Vladimir Karlov. (For their biographies, see appendix 1.) The second group of Party officials beginning their Party careers over the age of 352 came to the central Party apparat with extensive experience in industry or agriculture or, to a lesser extent government bureaucracy. In the ideological sector, they had been university professors and editors of Party and Komsomol newspapers (what we have called Party professionals), and in the area of foreign policy, they had worked as ambassadors and other high-ranking officials in the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In defense and security, they came primarily from posts in the KGB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and political posts in the army. The apparatus of the Central Committee was far from monolithic or homogeneous in its composition, as illustrated by the careers of Baklanov, Ryzhkov, Dobrynin, and Voronov. (See appendix 1). It seems likely that such people would have different attitudes and expectations to the former group. Such men as Dobrynin brought their wider experience to bear on policies after joining the Party apparat.As we shall show, age of recruitment appears to be related to the sector of Party work undertaken. The two types of Party executive leaders, we believe, would have had different life experiences and most probably a different orientation to politics. The coopted individuals would not have had such a close affiliation to the Party apparat as the career executives, and they would be much more likely to bring to the Secretariat different ideas, values, and modes of behavior.3

Background by Sector of Party Administrators Many studies of the Party apparat have not differentiated between recruitment to its various administrative sections. Our study shows that impor-


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tant differences are apparent when we consider the distinctive areas of the Party’s administration in terms of the occupational background of executives. Distinct differences are shown in the career histories of the different administrative sections of the Party apparat. We analyzed the previous careers of the top Party executives in terms of their participation in the government administration (i.e., executive positions in All-Union and Union-Republican ministries down to districtlevel posts). Our results gave one striking conclusion: by far the largest group, 56 out of 85 of the top Party elite, had no experience of government work at all. Only 4 men could be considered to have had a lifetime of service in the state apparatus;4 7 had previously worked in the USSR government as ministers or chairman of state committees (most of these for only a very short period of time), and a further 9 had held posts as deputy or first deputy ministers.5 Another twelve had only relatively short periods of a few years in lower positions. In order to generalize about these groups and to relate them to different parts of the Party’s administrative elite, we have allocated each executive to one of four functional sectors of the Party’s administrative activity: directing and control (DC), economics (EC), foreign policy and security (FS), and social (SO).We then examined their careers and gave a weight to each position in terms of its status and multiplied the weight by the number of years in the position.This gave us an index of government participation, which we grouped into four ranks—high, medium, low, and none: “high” being people who had a career and top office in the government for several years, “medium” those lower-level executives with only a few years in the government apparatus, and “low” those who had had just a little experience.This gave us four groups: the largest, 56, had no post at all in the government, and a further 12 had low government-saturation scores; 13 were classified as medium. Only 4 people had high scores.We then allocated these persons to the different functional areas of administrative activity. The results are illustrated on graph 3.2.The higher percentage of those with high government saturation in the foreign and security sectors is accounted for by a number of people who came to the secretariat from a post as USSR ambassador.6 The economic departments were conspicuous by the almost complete absence of previously government appointees—note the dominant position of the “none” category here. Even in directing and control (DC), over 60 percent of the executives had had no experience at all in the government sector. This research, therefore, would cast considerable doubt on the hypothesis, advanced by earlier writers, that Party apparatchiks were “coopted” from the government apparatus with the aim of strengthening the links between state and Party to constitute a unitary ruling elite.This was partly

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The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Graph 3.2 Function and Sector of Previous Government Executive Position of Party Elite

true of the foreign, and directing and control agencies; it did not apply in the area of industrial production and distribution. We have spoken above only of people’s careers before they joined the Party elite. Movement from the Party elite to the government was extremely rare. Of members of the secretariat in post between 1981 and 1991, only four people (A.P. Biriukova, B.I. Gostev, N.I. Ryzhkov, and B.N.Yeltsin) left the Party for a government post—and Yeltsin did so in disgrace after his dismissal from the Party’s Politburo. Earlier, we noted that a large portion of the Party’s secretariat joined the Party bureaucracy at a relatively late stage in their careers. If they did not have previous careers in the government executive, where did they come from? Here again, we find important and interesting differences between the different functional sectors of the Party administration.

Changes in Occupational Background over Time We now turn to the question of how the recruitment of different officials changed over time. In this analysis, we consider three time periods: before


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Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Party (i.e., before his appointment on 11 March 1985), during the Gorbachev ascendancy (from his appointment until the 28th Party Congress in July 1990), and the period of Party decline (from July 1990 until August ‘91). Our first task is to consider the previous occupational background of executives appointed in these three periods.This is illustrated in graph 3.3. The occupational background of executives appointed in each period is shown by different graph shadings. Note the rapid decline over the three periods of officials with previous experience as industrial workers (IW), Party professionals (PP), and government administration (GE). In addition to the decline of representation of these groups, the other major change in the Gorbachev period was a significant increase in the number of persons with a non-manual industrial work experience, together with a modest rise in the number of other non-manuals. For the

Graph 3.3 Period of Appointment in Previous Occupation of Party Elite

Abbreviations IW Industrial Workers PP Party Professionals IE Industrial Executives GE Government Executives/Administrators

P AG TU Re V NM

Professionals Agricultural Workers Trade Unions Officials Researchers Workers in Voluntary Sector Non-Manual Workers

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third time period, the main change over the early Gorbachev period was an extraordinary rise in the number of professionals (P), an increase in the number of executives from the “voluntary” sector (V), and a significant drop in those with previous experience as Party professionals (PP). These findings bolster claims that the Gorbachev leadership was increasingly drawn from an intelligentsia rather than from a working class, and is further proof or our contention that an “acquisition” class was a major player in the radical reform movement.

Some Implications: Cadres and Policy On the basis of our empirical analysis of the Party’s leadership, we would offer a summary of its salient character.We also may extend our analysis by considering some implications for policy. First, we have shown that there was a firm core of people who had had a long and continuous position from an early age in the Party’s administrative machine. Second, there was a significant influx of people into the top of the executive; these people had come from other sectors, where they had had successful careers.Third, there had been very little exchange of personnel between the government and Party bureaucracies: such inward movement was only important in the foreign and security agencies. Fourth, there had been insignificant export of personnel from Party to government executive jobs. Fifth, inward mobility came from Party and other professionals to the directing and controlling, foreign affairs, and cultural departments. Industrial executive and shop-floor work experience was greatest among the top officials in the economic departments. At an early stage of their careers, officials in the Party’s economic departments would have worked alongside future USSR Ministers and other top government officials. We might suggest that such divisions were to be a source of both strength and weakness for the reformist leadership of Gorbachev. A strength was that he was able to inject professionals who had experience and a vision gained from outside the Party apparatus into the ideological, foreign policy, and security departments.They were important allies against the more traditional and principled executives. However, in the economic sector, he lacked such allies, and it is our hypothesis that the leaders of the economic departments, by training and inclination, had more of an affinity with the ministerial apparatus. Our conclusions, then, support the earlier work of writers such as Hough, who have talked about institutional groupings within the bureaucratic structures. Unlike in foreign affairs, where Gorbachev could draft in a heavy-weight Soviet ambassador, such as Anatolii Dobrynin (from the


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embassy in the United States of America) or Aleksandr Iakovlev (from that in Canada), to support his foreign-policy stance, and a professor of ideology, such as Vadim Medvedev, to buttress change on the ideological front, it was more difficult to find similar defenders of a strategy of markets and private ownership acceptable to the economic interests in the Party. It seems to us likely that Party and state officials could well have formed a united block to defend their particular areas of the economy in defense of the economic establishment—for the maintenance of the apparatus of planning and public ownership, as legitimated by the traditional MarxistLeninist ideological shell. As Archie Brown has noted, “The relationship between the ministries and their corresponding Central Committee departments had, for the most part, been a cosy one and the extent to which the former could be said to be controlled by the latter was very limited.”7 Hence, the personal power of the General-Secretary was limited by the institutional character of state socialism. Yeltsin has spoken of how the Party apparatus shadowed or paralleled the state bureaucracy, and there is evidence to suggest that Gorbachev abolished the branch departments of the Secretariat in 1988 because he feared the coalition of government and Party officials organized along sectors of the economy.Thus, as in all large bureaucracies, Party officials (who, in this capacity, are similar to civil servants in the West) developed similar interests to the group whom they were charged with overseeing (i.e., the government ministers and the ministries). At the 27th Party Congress in 1986,Yeltsin noted the duplication of work of the departments of the Central Committee and the ministries:“ . . . [T]he Party agencies . . . have become so deeply immersed in economic affairs that they have sometimes begun to lose their positions of political leadership. . . . It’s no accident that the structure of the Central Committee’s departments have gradually become all but a copy of the Ministries. Many people in departments have simply forgotten what true Party work is. There is a complete duplication of the State Planning Committee and the Council of Ministers.We get bogged down in coordinating meetings which can last years for simple questions.”8 Far from being the leading and guiding force, the Party had become (as Lenin would have put it) a body following on the tail of the government bureaucracy. Rather than “leading and guiding,” Party officials were acting in collusion with members of the government bureaucracy, defending and promoting their branches of the economy (i.e., agriculture or heavy industry) within the context of the apparatus of Soviet power. This division within the central Party leadership intensified as Gorbachev put forward radical plans severely curtailing central control of the economy, introducing market relations, and supporting the (as-yetunspecified) introduction of private property in industry and agriculture.

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This explains why, in 1988, Gorbachev dealt a crushing blow to the Party executive when he abolished the Central Committee branch economic departments and weakened the powers of the Secretariat.9 The number of departments was reduced from 21 to 9, and the remaining departments were now supervised by 6 new Central Committee commissions instead of the Secretariat10.The new commissions, each with a membership of 21 to 25 persons, were headed by senior members of the Party who were to be kept in check by the wider and potentially more reformist membership drawn from the Central Committee. In place of the 7 branch economic departments, Gorbachev created one socio-economic department and placed a trusted technocrat,V.I. Shimko, at its head.11 E.K. Ligachev, a defender of change within the traditional structures of Party hegemony and central planning, was demoted from the number two position in the Party and given the troublesome headship of the Agricultural Commission. In July 1990, at the 28th Party Congress, Gorbachev further weakened the Secretariat and transferred power over economic decision-making away from the Party apparatus to his new presidential bodies. The new Congress of People’s Deputies and Supreme Soviet (elected in 1989) began to exercise greater influence over decision-making and became the site of a challenge to the very existence of Gorbachev and his reformers.The new Politburo, Secretariat, and its apparatus were now to be confined to intraParty affairs. The top Party executive was to manage the business of the Party and not the country.12 This was a consequence, we believe, of the power not only of the economic ministries but of an economic block composed of Party and economic executives. One of the major dilemmas for the Party leadership has been how to exercise control over the government bureaucracy and industry without losing its ideological and political leadership—that is, to exercise precisely the role that some writers take as an established fact of communist states as they existed before 1991. But the Party apparat and its executive, the Secretariat, were increasingly unable to perform this fusion as the economy became a modern one and the social structure became diverse. Above all, the Party’s Secretariat was an ideological and political body.To change the orientation of the Party away from traditional MarxismLeninism and toward a market-type polity and economy, traditional ideology had to be jettisoned, and this could only be legitimated if it stemmed from the Party’s own ideological apparatus. While Gorbachev assured this change in legitimation, he was unable to secure the compliance of the economic apparatus. The Party, under both Brezhnev and Gorbachev, was subject to the infusion of new blood: this was composed of both younger people (under 35) and many middle-aged and even elderly people with experience out-


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side the Party.A major role here was played by professionals recruited both from within the Party and outside: the shortfall, however, was in the economic apparatus, which proved inhospitable to Gorbachev’s policies.With hindsight we can see that Gorbachev might have introduced more “radical” economic reformers who came to the fore later. Gorbachev was able to manipulate the Party’s composition, and he introduced new authoritative people from both the Party’s own intelligentsia and professionals outside.The ideological, security, and external affairs divisions of the Party were more heterogeneous in composition, and more subject to exchange with personnel from the government sector. These men displaced the core of the traditional Party elite. In the economic departments, however, a different personnel policy pertained. Our biographical study shows the lack of experience in the economy by the Party’s ruling elite: of those working in the Party’s industrial departments, over 80 percent had had no previous senior administrative experience, and a negligible number had had a top-level career in industrial administration. Moreover, the Party secretariat did not practice the transfer of its own members into the industrial economic sector: the latter’s bureaucracy remained in place during the whole of the period of Gorbachev’s reform policy13. Nevertheless, the ideological and foreign-policy changes set in motion by Gorbachev and his reformers undermined the legitimacy of a planned economy and state industry: the fundamental economic interests, values, and way of life of those who ran the economy were threatened.The Party’s economic departments were more likely to form a traditional bloc with their counterparts in the government sector to obstruct reform. In the economy, therefore, Gorbachev failed, and he resorted to a major change in the Party’s functions: he effectively closed down the economic directorate of the Party.Thus ended an endemic contradiction in the process of communist states as they have developed since 1917: Party leaders with an ideological orientation have vied with technocrats in their quest to secure control over the means of production. The “fusion” of the economic and political had always been an aspiration of the more traditional communists for it ensured some modicum of power over the means of production guided under capitalism by the “hidden hand” of the market and should have secured forms of socialist redistribution. Whereas many commentators have pointed to this fusion of economy and polity as a distinguishing characteristic of state socialism, our research questions this proposition.The industrial and economic bureaucracies, we believe, were largely autonomous and were able to resist Party control. Gorbachev sought to resolve this contradiction by a formal division of politics and economics, not now between Party and government but by the subjection of the economy to the constraint of market forces, which logically implied different

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forms of ownership. Initially, he was opposed by those who saw that a planned economy needed a firm administrative center and political legitimation. Gorbachev destroyed the political legitimacy of state socialism and dissolved the Party’s administrative center. Thus, he undermined his own political support and paved the way for his own defeat and for a capitalist restoration by a counter-elite for whom his measures did not go far enough.

Chapter 4

The Government Bureaucracy

It is in the context of bureaucratic politics that the Party exerted its leadership in addition to its formal oversight of personnel. Western thinking has been dominated by the notion of the Party’s command through its control over appointments under the “nomenklatura.”1 We shall show that it was more effective in its placement in the ideological, cultural, and coercive sectors. In the field of the economy, its command over property was circumscribed by the government bureaucracy. In this chapter, we examine one aspect of this topic: the recruitment of the elite of the government bureaucracy and its relationship with the Party apparat. The Rise of the Government Bureaucracy Under Stalin, and particularly during the period of “mature Stalinism” (1939–52), it is widely recognized that the government apparatus triumphed over the Party. Between 1964 and 1982, the USSR ministries grew in number and strength to over 100. Brezhnev also pursued a policy of “stability of cadres,” whereby officials were awarded long periods in office. By the time of Brezhnev’s death in 1982, there could be no doubt that the government bureaucracy had become a relatively autonomous force in Soviet society—recognized in the Western literature by the then fashionable view of the corporatist state. The power of the ministries to thwart Party policies at the implementation stage has been well documented.2 For instance, over a period of nearly 30 years (in 1957, 1971, 1978, and 1981), the Party passed a number of Central Committee resolutions which sought to transfer the control of housing stock from the jurisdiction of the ministries to that of local Soviets. The ministries that were against relinquishing control of

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housing to the Soviets were able to frustrate the implementation of this policy, and by the mid-1980s, they still controlled over 60 percent of housing stock.3 Here we follow the position of Whitefield,4 who has argued that politicians—defined as those having positions in the Party and representative institutions—lacked authority, and that ministers had direct control over the allocation of resources. The complexity of administration and the role of the state bureaucracy in the allocation of resources enabled the government ministries effectively to resist reform. Brezhnev, alarmed by the weakness of the Party vis-à-vis the ministries, sought to increase the powers of Primary Party Organizations (PPOs) within the government apparatus. Resolutions were passed by the Central Committee in the 1970s and early 1980s charging the PPOs to step up their activities and improve their work of oversight.5 But the fragmentation of the state bureaucracy into tens of branch ministries, and the lack of coordination between PPOs in different ministries, led to circumstances in which the government was able to exert an enormous influence over industrial development. The result was that cities and regions were dominated not by the interests and plans of the Party but by those of the ministries in Moscow.6 As Whitefield has put it:“On the basis of their control over resources and on account of their presence in the heart of the state, which prohibited the emergence of a clear demarcation between politics and the economy, industrial ministries were able to act in their own interests, undermine the control, and even dominate the agendas, of other institutions, and function both directly and indirectly as the most powerful, hegemonic political forces in the Soviet system.”7 Gorbachev, coming to power in 1985, soon found himself locked in a struggle against the government apparatus that was reminiscent of Khrushchev’s battles. In 1988, in his speech to the 19th All-Union Party Conference, Gorbachev spoke out against the excessive powers of the government apparatus; “During the period of stagnation, the managerial apparatus . . . to all intent and purposes, began to dictate its will in the economy and in politics. It was departments and other managerial structures that had charge of the execution of adopted decisions, and through their action or inaction, they determined what would be and what would not be.The Soviets and in many respects the Party agencies as well, proved unable to control the pressures of departmental interests.”8 Gorbachev utilized a number of lines of attack on the bureaucracy that were very similar to Khrushchev’s strategy. He sought to weaken the power of the government by abolishing ministries—reducing their number from over 100 in 1984 to 71 by 1989. In the same period, the number of republic ministries fell from 800 to 600, and more than 1,000 ministerial departments were eliminated. By 1989, approximately one million officials of


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government bureaucracies had lost their jobs, and the central ministries had lost 23 percent of their staff.9 As we shall demonstrate, Gorbachev also sought to raise the level of direct Party control over the government by increasing the numbers of officials sent directly from the Party to head the ministries. In this chapter, we chart empirically how the recruitment of personnel created a different kind of social and political bloc, one which could resist the policies that Gorbachev attempted to introduce. In seeking reform within the system, he failed to reassert Party hegemony, and his other systemic measures undermined the Communist system.The background of the government bureaucratic elite throws much light on the difficulties Party leaders experienced in asserting their hegemony.

The Composition of Government Ministries, 1984–1992 We consider the biographies of members of the USSR Council of Ministers appointed between April 1984 and August 1991. We analyze the occupational history and Party saturation of 212 members of the government who held the posts of USSR minister or executives of the Council with a similar status (chairs of USSR state committees).10 Our first task is to determine the relationship between the 212 ministers and the Party. We are dissatisfied with the approach taken by many commentators who simply use Party membership or participation in Party-representative bodies (such as congresses or central committees) as an index of Party identification. A more crucial indicator is to be found in the work histories of the ministers themselves. Here we have considered the extent to which ministers have had executive statuses in the Party.We have excluded from our analysis purely representative positions (such as membership of the Politburo, Central Committee and lowerlevel committees). We consider Party executive positions that we have ranked and weighted in accordance with their status.11 Three political groups have been defined in terms of position: top leaders (secretaries at the level of the CPSU and republican apparats); middle leaders (staff of the central and republican committee and other apparat), top Komsomol secretaries and heads of Komsomol departments, and lower-level Party executives (secretaries of town, raion, and village committees and middle-level secretariats of republican Central Committees—here all secretaries of primary Party organization and staff and secretaries of the Komsomol are included.Various positions were given a weight ranging from 1 to 50.12

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In order to estimate the extent to which ministers had had a Party career, we multiplied the time (measured in years) spent in each position by the weight given in each position.13 On this basis, we calculated a Party saturation score for each minister. This combines the level of Party position with the time spent in it.We then grouped the ministers into four categories. Career specialists, those who had had no participation at all in the Party executive, was the largest group—119 out of a total of 212 (or 56 percent). We then divided those (93 members) ministers who had had a Party executive position into three groups. Party careerists were those with high Party saturation: these were executives with a long record in high Party posts—typically Obkom secretaries and secretaries of central committees:—these made up 15 percent of the ministers. We distinguish between two groups of hybrid careerists: government officials (15 percent) who had had just a few years in the Party apparatus (at invariably the lowest levels) and an intermediate group (14 percent) having had a more mixed record.We believe that this kind of grouping is indicative of each minister’s linkage to the Party and ministry, respectively.The balance of the groupings is illustrated in graph 4.1. The total non-Party number is shown on the far right; to its left is the total with Party position: high, low and middle saturation refer to Party careerists and the two hybrid groups defined above.

Graph 4.1 Levels of Party Saturation of Government Ministers


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In order to give a qualitative account of the backgrounds of the ministers in the different groups we have demarcated, we have extracted from our database a number of occupational histories to illustrate the life cycles of people14 in these different groups. Non-Party Careerists This group defined by administrative theorists as “career specialists” typically had a career totally within one ministry or sector of the economy. Such ministers had been promoted from work on the shop floor to chief engineer, director of a factory, and then adminstrative work within the central ministerial bureaucracy, reaching the post of minister at an average age of 52. An example here is V.N. Poliakov, who was born in 1915 and started work as an apprentice fitter in 1930 in an automobile factory, where he rose to the post of shop superintendent in 1938. Over the period 1933–38, he also studied at Moscow Automobile and Railway Institute. In 1938, he joined the Soviet army, and then at some point around 1944, moved back into the automobile industry, reaching the post of director of an automobile plant as early as 1946. In 1963, after 17 years experience as a director, he became First Deputy Chairman of Moscow Sovnarkhoz, and then in 1965, he was promoted to the post of Deputy Minister of the USSR automobile industry. He was a deputy minister for nine years and a first deputy minister for one year before reaching the top of his profession as minister of the automobile industry in 1975, at the age of 60. He held this post for 11 years and retired in 1986 aged 71.15 Party Careerists Turning to our group of high Party saturation, typically such ministers were recruited to the government apparatus from positions in the Central Committee apparatus in parallel departments charged with overseeing their current ministries.16 The strategy of Party reformers (such as Khrushchev, and later, Gorbachev) was to infuse the government bureaucracy with transfers from the Party’s own apparatus. Others were promoted from posts as Party secretaries of regional- or republic-level organizations.17 The ministers in the high-Party saturation group have very different occupational histories than those to be found in non-Party ministries.There can be no doubt that their appointments came from the Party “nomenklatura” and that these Party-inspired promotions were designed to give the Party leadership a greater political leverage and political control.

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An example here is the case of the minister of procurement, G.S. Zolotukhin, who was born in 1911. He started his career as an agricultural worker before graduating from an agricultural institute in 1931. Between 1931 and 1938, he worked in executive posts in Tambov Oblast and was chief agronomist with a machine tractor station from 1938–39. Then he moved over to Komsomol and Party work. He moved upward to the posts of secretary in 1944–46 and 1949–51, second secretary 1951–5, and first secretary of Tambov Obkom in 1955–66. He was then posted to Krasnodar Krai, where he was first secretary from 1966–73.Then, after approximately 30 years working for the Party he was appointed USSR minister of procurement at the age of 62.18 Hybrid Careerists Between these two polar opposites of zero and high Party saturation, the authors also distinguished an intermediary group of ministers who moved across the Party government divide and spent time in both institutions. These were the ones with middle-and low-level Party saturation scores. A good example of the middle group is V.V. Listov, minister of the chemical industry. Born in 1931, Listov graduated from the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute in 1955. From 1955–62, he was deputy director, and from 1962–64, director of a chemical enterprise. In 1966, he moved over to Party work as first secretary of Kemerovo City Party Organization where he stayed until another move back to the government in 1971, when he was appointed USSR deputy minister of the chemical industry. After six years as deputy minister, he was then shunted back into the Party apparat in 1977, this time as head of the CPSU Central Committee Chemical Industry Department, a post he held until his return to the government (at age 49), as Minister of the Chemical Industry in 1980. In the low-level Party-saturation group, executives typically spent most of their career in the government sector with relatively short periods in the Party apparatus. A typical example here is B.M. Belousov, USSR minister of the defense industry. Born in 1934, he graduated from Taganrog Radio Engineering Institute and then began work at a senior level in a machinebuilding factory. He rose quickly via the posts of head of a laboratory, foreman, and head of a shop, to become manager of a department at the age of 30.Two years later, he became secretary of the factory Party committee, a post that he held for three years. Belousov then looked as if he was about to embark on a Party career when he was posted to head a department of Udmurt Obkom, a job he stayed in for seven years. But this was to be the extent of Belousov’s full-time Party work. In 1976, he moved back into the


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government as director of the Izhevsk Machinery Plant. From 1980–85 he was deputy minister, and from 1985–87, first deputy minister of the defense industry.Then in 1987, at age 53, he was appointed USSR minister of machine building. Finally, in 1989, at the age of 55, he was made minister of the defense industry.

The Changing Saturation of the Party, 1984–1991 We have indicated that the political leadership of the USSR at different times has attempted to control the government apparatus through administrative changes and through the placement of personnel. We sought to discover from our biographical data set the degree to which Party saturation, as we have measured it, changed over the period 1984–91.19 Here we divided members of the government into three groups according to the time that they were first appointed: those appointed in the pre-Gorbachev period (before 1 April 198520); and two successive periods—those appointed between 1 April 1985 and the end of June 1989,21 and those appointed between 1 July 1989 and the coup of 1991. The pre-Gorbachev ministers had the lowest levels of saturation—over 60 percent were “non-Party”; that is, at no time in their career had they a position, even at the lowest levels, in the Party apparatus. But over the period 1985–89, the percentage of those with Party saturation rose to 52 percent as Gorbachev pursued a vigorous policy of transferring Party officials directly into posts in the government.22 Our data also illustrate that Gorbachev drafted into the government Party apparatus not only officials with a low level of Party executive experience, but also many experienced apparatchiks—over 20 percent of those appointed during this time came into the “high Party saturation category.” Moreover, this policy was short lived: in the most recent period, we observe a return to a non-Party saturation percentage of just below 60 percent and a remarkably sharp drop of experienced Party officials (some 4 percent of the total). There has been a tendency in the literature to discuss “Party penetration” in terms of the government apparatus as a whole. It is important, however, to distinguish between the backgrounds of executives in different types of ministry. In order to differentiate between careers paths of the executives, we have grouped the hundred or so ministries and committees into nine different groups as shown in table 4.1. Viewed in absolute terms (see graph 4.2), the leading economic and directing ministries not only had the largest number of ministers but here the non-Party saturation specialists overwhelmingly predominated.

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Table 4.1

Classification of Ministries by Sector

The ministries and state committees were classified into the following sub-groups: Directing and Planning (DP) includes: 1. All top members of the USSR Presidium of the Council of Ministers—i.e., chairmen, and first deputy and deputy chairmen. 2. Heads of other bodies that are also engaged in supervision, coordination, regulation, procurement and supply: The State Planning Committee; State Committee for Construction; State Committee for Supply; State Committee for Science and Technology; Military-Industrial Commission; Agro-Industrial Committee; and committees on finance, prices, the state bank, foreign economic relations, construction and investment, foreign trade, and procurement. Industrial Production and Building (IP) By far the largest group includes ministries or state committees involved in production and building, such as the automobile industry, chemical industry, coal, defense industry, gas, petroleum, electronics, light industry, metallurgy, timber industry, transport construction, industrial construction, general machine building, and medium machine building. An important group within IP is the military industrial complex (see note 23 for a list of ministries in this sector). Agricultural Production and Industry (AP) Agriculture, fishing, food, forestry, fruits and vegetables, maritime fleet, and meat and dairy. Transport and Communications (TC) Civil aviation, communications, railways. Social Services (SS) Health, labor and social questions, physical education, and sports. Culture and Education (CU) Cinematography, culture, education, higher and specialized secondary education, vocational and technical education, foreign tourism, publishing, and television, and radio broadcasting. Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Security (DFS) Aviation, defense, foreign affairs, internal affairs, justice, people’s control, and security (KGB). Security (SE) This is a sub-category of (DFS) and includes internal affairs, KGB, people’s control, and justice. Scientific (SC) Computer technology, geology, inventions and discoveries, and statistics.


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Graph 4.2 Party/Non-Party Saturation by Numbers of Ministers in Each Sector

IP For explanation of abbreviations, see Table 4.1

Moreover, the picture becomes even more interesting when one considers the quality of Party saturation by ministry. This is shown in graph 4.3, in which the three types of Party saturation are shown. Only in directing and planning (16 out of a total of 75 ministers), Defense/Foreign/Security (9), and Culture and Education (9) was the largest proportion of the Party establishment in the high-saturation group. Such ministers were concentrated in institutions concerned with ideology, security, and control: culture, publishing, television and radio broadcasting, cinematography, education; defense, foreign affairs, internal affairs, and security. These were the ideological and repressive state apparatuses. The military-industrial complex included ministries crossing the groupings we have shown above.23 The biographies of ministers in this complex have been analyzed separately. Here, we found not only that the non-Party ministers were the largest single faction, but also that of ministers with any Party executive experience, those with a low level of participation predominated. Given the high proportion of defense expenditure in the former Soviet Union, the composition of this body had enormous political influence.24

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The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Graph 4.3 Ministry Type by Party Saturation Level

IP

The Power of Industrial Ministries This structural analysis has important implications for our understanding of Marxist-Leninist states and particularly the collapse of the communist states. From the time of Lenin, the notion of the “leading role of the Party” in one form or another has been a central tenet of our understanding of the nature of political power. As we have noted in previous chapters, the Party has not been able to exert its power over the government administration. Here it is important to differentiate between the government apparatus concerned with the control of the means of production in general, including science (what Talcott Parsons has called the “adaptive” functions); and the state apparatus whose role it is to reproduce the relations of production. In the latter constituency, the Party was relatively successful in maintaining its hegemony over the ideological and coercive institutions. In this respect, it was able to exert control over communication and ideology and the means of violence. (We have in mind the internal control; the global dimension is another matter.)25 The nature of production eluded its grasp, and it was confronted with industrial and economic elites whose power was rooted in control of property and the organization of the economy. Such power is not of a “class” nature as conceived of by Marxists since no legitimate rights are enjoyed over the ownership and exploitation of labor through the extraction of


69

surplus value; such executives also have no consciousness of forming a class. In a Weberian sense, however, such people enjoy a similar relation to the market, they control property and other employees, and they are distinguished by a career in a particular sector of the economy.Their power, which is what concerns us here, is given by their administrative and bureaucratic position; hence we define this group, in a Weberian sense, as an administrative class; its leaders were an administrative elite. “Career specialists” began to take over industrial commissariats during the 1930s, an area in which they began to predominate by the 1950s. Soviet political leaders tried to curb their institutional power in different ways. Khrushchev favored Party generalists but he failed in his attempt to exert hegemony over the government bureaucracy. Kosygin himself and most of the other Presidium members had pursued technocratic careers, as had nearly two-thirds of the more junior government members. We have shown that “Party careerists” predominated in such areas as security, culture (including education), media, and agriculture—but not in the enginerooms of the economy. An endemic problem of communist politics has been how to exert political control over this formation.A linchpin of the communist system was the supposed domination over the government ensured through appointments controlled by the “nomenklatura”—which we shall consider in more detail in chapter 8. It is assumed that the nomenklatura was an array of positions filled by people believed to be reliable agents of Party policy. Recruitment of such staff was under the command of executive bodies of the Party apparatus: e.g., the “nomenklatura of the Politburo” for very top positions (such as government ministers) and local Party executives for more lowly ones (trade union functionaries).26 However, as Whitefield observes,“The nomenklatura system of appointments worked ineffectively, at best, in the ministerial hierarchy, and political attitudes and behavior were insignificant aspects of promotion decision-making. At the regional level, not only did ministry interests predominate but regional secretaries were forced to act in concert with ministries in order to achieve their own interests and objectives.”27 Communist Party leaders were confronted with entrenched political interests. Mao Tse Tung regarded them as a new class incompatible with Communist rule and unleashed the cultural revolution against them. Brezhnev effectively conceded power to the government bureaucracy though strengthening his control over the ideological and coercive apparatus of the state. The economic apparatus was rewarded with a social contract guaranteeing its members security of tenure, the maintenance of their privileges, and a secure place in Soviet political decision-making. In this sense, they were dependent on the Party for ideological legitimation—

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and they therefore had a stake in the perpetuation of the administrativecommand economy. In the late Gorbachev period, it was the government bureaucracy and its aging and technocratic leadership which was able to block economic and political reforms. Moreover, one of the factors in the collapse of the Soviet Union was the weakness, not the omnipotence, of the Communist Party.This is not to deny the importance of other factors, such as economic decline, nationalism, and revolutions in Eastern Europe, all of which contributed to the collapse of the system. But these catalysts do not determine how leadership will react to them. The cadres policy of the government bureaucracies lead one to identify the strength of entrenched interests. While many writers, such as Hough, Fleron, Skilling, Lane, and Ross, have previously argued in favor of a “pluralistic” interpretation of politics under state socialism, the competition between—and relative autonomy of—elites has been little emphasized. We would argue that there has been a form of historical continuity in which the government ministries have played a major and dominant role in Soviet politics. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to document in a processual way how such power was exercised.We would point to Stephen Whitefield’s conclusions on the relative autonomy of the government ministries, which confirm our analysis.28 Gorbachev was the last Russian communist leader who believed that he could reform state socialism from within, that he could reassert the role of the Communist Party—albeit in an attenuated form—and assure its hegemony over the resistance of the government bureaucracy. He followed the traditional cadres policy of Khrushchev. In the early years of his regime, he increased the numbers of top Party officials who were moved laterally into government posts.This policy failed. Our data suggest that the traditional bureaucratic style of work organization was deeply embedded in the economic bureaucracy and that Gorbachev was unable to change it. After September 1989, he revoked this policy and began to move power away from the Party to the new executive presidency. At this stage, he was pushed into a more radical reform. He sought to move authority to executive bodies under his newly created executive presidency. Again, in similar vein to Khrushchev, he tried to gain the support of the masses against the bureaucracy. In 1989, he was able to direct the new and more democratically elected congress and Supreme Soviet (where ministers could no longer be elected deputies) to act as a check on the government bureaucracy. In the same year, candidates for government posts had to be scrutinized by the parliament, and nine of Prime Minster Ryzhkov’s nominees were refused appointment: the legitimacy of the old system had been broken. Gorbachev was pushed into accepting a move to a market and, in order to legitimate his policy, to support a policy of glasnost that discred-


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ited the traditional administrative-command system.To strengthen the legislature and his own presidential power, he undermined the Party apparat: the Politburo and Secretariat were effectively taken out of the administration of state and economy. Here, however, he undermined his own political supports: as we have noted, the Party had secured its hegemony over the ideological and coercive apparatuses. Gorbachev created a political vacuum. In the final days of his power, he turned to the traditional forces yet again—witness the rise in the nonParty appointments after the summer of 1989.This process was to lead to the separation of top Party and government bodies after the 28th Party Congress in 1990, which left the Politburo and Secretariat to manage the Party rather than the country.29 The political hegemony of the Communist state was destroyed but, ironically, the bureaucratic elites in the government apparatus were left largely intact though their legitimacy was undermined by the collapse of the Soviet ideological and coercive elites.


Chapter 5

The Supreme Soviet of the USSR: From Fusion to Fission

As we noted in chapter 1, of the institutions of power in the Soviet Union, the popularly elected Soviets were undoubtedly the weakest prior to the reforms instituted by Gorbachev. They were representative and affirmative bodies, rather than decision-making ones. Gorbachev’s reforms in 1989, however, strengthened the Soviets and weakened the other two pillars of power in the USSR—the Party’s apparat and the government executive, the Council of Ministers.The Supreme Soviet and a new body, the Congress of People’s Deputies, became a springboard for radical political change and an arena for political opposition to the Gorbachev leadership. Most of the discussion of the Supreme Soviet has been in terms of the role of deputies and the rise of political factions (parties) and interest groups outside the Communist Party. And studies of the 1989 Congress and Supreme Soviet have been devoted to an analysis of the institutional power of the parliament and its law-making powers and functions.1 We take as a frame of reference the elites of the Supreme Soviet as they developed between April 1984 and August 1991. Our discussion, therefore, focuses on two distinct time periods: that from 1984 to spring 1989, when the traditional structures and processes were in place, and that from spring 1989 to the end of 1991, which was a period during which the Supreme Soviet became a major actor in the process of political change.2 We consider the changes in origin and composition of the positional legislative elite in the terminal period of the USSR. We conduct a study of the social composition of the elite and an analysis, through a study of voting behavior, of its internal division.While many factors led to the collapse of the CPSU, this study illustrates that in the Supreme Soviet a new elite in terms of generational, occupational, and institutional background had replaced the professional politicians of the Brezhnev era.

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We shall show that the Party maintained a large formal membership of the Supreme Soviet elite but as its composition shifted from members of the Party apparat to those from intelligentsia settings, greater fragmentation set in. Nevertheless, on the basis of voting patterns, the Soviet elite had higher levels of internal solidarity compared to the non-elite members of the Soviet. More importantly, as the Party elite fragmented, it was confronted by counter-elites in the Soviet, which had become a major focus of legitimate decision-making.

The Supreme Soviet Elite Defined In the following analysis, we have examined the positions held by leading members of the Supreme Soviet, and we distinguish between two sets of office-holders: members of the Presidium and the Chambers’ elite (i.e., the standing committee chairmen, and the chairs and deputy chairs of the two houses of the Supreme Soviet).The members of both these groups we define as the Supreme Soviet elite or parliamentary elite.3 Thus defined, over the period April 1984 to August 1991, the political elite of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR totalled 166 people, who held between them 221 posts. Between 1984 and 1989, 121 members were appointed and held 125 posts (4 people held more than one post). Only 15 of these were returned to office in the parliament elected in March 1989, and thus 45 of the 60 members (75 percent) of the legislative elite in 1989–91 were elected for the first time and constituted a new relatively inexperienced leadership.4 What were the principal differences between the 1984–89 and 1989–91 parliamentary elites? What kind of occupational or institutional background did the legislative elite have? To what extent were they recruited from the Party and government executives? Were there any significant social changes? And how did they change in the terminal period of the USSR? To answer these questions, we analyzed the age, ethnic, and gender differences of the elites and studied what positions were held by members of the parliamentary elite when they were first elected. We then turn to consider how the incumbent members of the Soviet elite formed factions and divided according to their voting behavior in the terminal period of the USSR.

Changes in the Composition of the Parliamentary Elites The legislative elite during the whole period under consideration was predominantly male.The overall composition of women in the Supreme So-

The Supreme Soviet of the USSR

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viet declined markedly from 32.8 percent in 1984 to 17.8 percent 1989–91.This was paralleled among the Supreme Soviet elite: the share of women fell somewhat from 11.2 percent (14) in the earlier period to 9.3 percent (9) in the latter. (For details see table 5.1.) The rapid turnover and the arrival of new members in the elite during 1989–91 raises acutely the question of generational change. Only 15 out of the pool of 121 deputies elected to elite positions in the Supreme Soviet in 1984–88 returned to power in 1989. This is a significant level of turnover of the elite. Table 5.2 shows a major change in the age structure of the two parliamentary elites. In the earlier body, one-third of the members were born in the decade 1920–29 and one-third in the period 1930–39 whilst a further 23 percent were born before 1920. Only 8 percent were born after 1939.

Table 5.1

Representation of Women in the Chambers and Presidium, 1984–1989 1984–89

Presidium Chambers Total

1989–91

A

B

%

A

B

%

5 9 14

62 63 125

8 14 11.2

5 4 9

52 44 96*

9.6 9 9.3

A = Number of women B = total membership *The total for Presidium and Chambers is 96 as this includes double counting of individuals who were members of both bodies.

Table 5.2

Date of Birth and Age of Legislative Elite, 1984–1989 and 1989–1991 1984–89

Born before 1920 1920–29 1930–39 1940–49 1950–59 1960–69 Unknown Total

1989–91

Total

Percent

Total

Percent

29 40 42 4 5 1 4 125

23.2 32.0 33.6 3.2 4.0 0.8

2 27 51 10 4 2 0 96

2 28 53 10 4 2

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In the 1989–91 parliamentary elite, there was a significant difference in the spread of people across the political generations.The number of those born before 1920 had fallen to only 2 percent, and there was a slight fall in the percentage of those born between 1920 and 1929—from 32 percent to 28 percent. In contrast, the percentage of those born in the period 1930–39 rose substantially from 33 to 53 percent.This was the Gorbachev generation, which was now the major force in the legislative elite.

Ethnic Background 1.

1984–1989. One of the distinctive characteristics of the Supreme Soviet was its federative structure, with built-in constituencies of representatives from different regional areas. In the Soviets elected between 1984 and 1989, and in distinction from other political elites in the Soviet Union, the ethnic composition of the legislative elite did not contain an overall majority of Russians. Non-Russians made up 52.4 percent of the membership of the total elite.There were, however, some differences in representation in the Presidium and the Chambers’ elites: Russians were by far the largest group, encompassing 30 or 47.6 percent of the membership of the Chambers and a smaller figure of 22 or 35.4 percent of the Presidium (which included the ex officio membership of the chairmen of the Supreme Soviets of all 15 Soviet republics). However, if we examine the total Slavic (i.e., Great Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian) composition of the total parliamentary elite, then we find that the number rises to 72, or 57.6 percent. 2. 1989–1991 Among the parliamentary elite elected between 1989 and 1991, 50 percent were Russians, 10 percent Ukrainians, and 7 percent Belorussians, giving a total Slav composition of 67 percent. Eighteen nationalities were represented. Over half of the elite of the Chambers were Russians (54.5 percent), but the Russians were in a minority in the Presidium (46.1 percent). Nevertheless, compared to the top Party elite (we have in mind the Party Secretariat and Politburo) in which few of the non-Slav republics have been represented, the Supreme Soviet (and particularly its Presidium) can be seen as constituting forums in which the major non-Russian ethnic groups and republican elites could participate in the political process and articulate their demands and interests to the top Party and government leaders from the central political institutions. Shifting the locus of legiti-


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mate power to the Supreme Soviet, therefore, strengthened the hands of the republics and regions against the center—particularly the apparat of the CPSU and the All-Union government ministries we have discussed in earlier chapters. Over the period 1989–91, national and regional issues began to dominate the agenda of the parliament and, as we shall show, non-Russian members of the legislative elite became a major dissenting group in the leadership of the Soviet.The leadership could no longer count on even republic officials to remain loyal to the central Party line.

The Political Background of the Legislative Elite The institutional backgrounds of the elite were distinguished in terms of Party/Komsomol executives, leaders of public organizations, leaders of government, officials of Supreme Soviets, managers, professionals (we have included in one category all persons having a professional position and the heads of non-government institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences and institutions of higher learning), and workers. Table 5.3 illustrates the occupational or institutional position of members of the Presidium and chairs of committees/commissions in the Supreme Soviets in the two time periods.We note a dramatic reduction in

Table 5.3

Background of Members of Presidium and Chairs of Standing Committees/Commissions (when first elected), 1984–1989 and 1989–1991 1984–89

Party/Komsomol Public organizations Managers Government Professionals Supreme Soviet Workers Not known Total

1989–91

P

C

Total

P

C

Total

20 4 0 4 2 27 5 0 62

31 1 1 10 6 0 1 1 51

51 5 1 14 8 27 6 2 114

11 3 7 4 14 14 0 0 53

6 4 7 4 12 0 0 0 33

17 7 14 8 26 14 0 0 86

P = Presidium C = Chairs of committees/commissions

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the number of people who combined membership of the Presidium with a position in the Party apparat: from 32 percent in 1984–9 to 21 percent in 1989–91. In the period 1984–89, there were a number of high-ranking members of the Party apparat, including five members of the Politburo.5 Politburo members in 1989–91 (in addition to Gorbachev) included Primakov, (the chairman of the Council of the Union), who was a candidate member; Luk’ianov (first deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and, from 14 March 1990, chairman), also a candidate member; and Vorotnikov (chairman of the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Soviet), a full member. In each period, the Council of Ministers retained its representation of four people.6 After 1989, a sharp rise took place in the number of professionals: people who, in Russian terms, were members of the scientific, technical, and artistic intelligentsia—in the 1989 elections, their numbers rose from 3 percent to 27 percent.The representation of workers fell from 8 percent to zero. Also new to the Presidium were seven managers of enterprises and trusts (ob’edinenie), who were all chairs of standing commissions of the Supreme Soviet and entered the Presidium as ex officio members. Leaders of public organizations (e.g., trade unions, veterans groups, and women’s societies) maintained a small percentage (6 percent). A detailed examination of the composition of the chairs of committees and commissions shows that members of the Party apparat dominated the committees over the period 1984–89, being 60.7 percent of the members. This included five senior members of the Politburo and Party Secretariat,7 ten Republican Central Committee Secretaries8 and fifteen obkom Secretaries. A fifth of the committee chairs were also members of the government elites in the republics—including eight republic government officials9 and a local level city official. The total membership of professionals was 11.7 percent which included one president, and 3 vice presidents of the USSR Academy of Sciences.10 When one compares the backgrounds of the chairs of the committees in 1989–91 with the members of the Supreme Soviet in the 1984–89 period, one notices a sharp decline from 60.7 percent to only 19 percent in the number of executives from the Party apparat.The other major difference is the rapid rise from 11.7 percent in 1984–88 to 36 percent in 1989–91 in the numbers of members of the professional classes. On the basis of this detailed study of the biographies of the committee chairpersons, the following conclusions may be made. The legislative elite had a high saturation of Party executives before 1989 and thereafter recruited more and much younger people with professional executive backgrounds.The Soviet elite was distinguished by its multi-ethnic char-


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acter and the representation of republics and regions. What was decisive, we believe, is that the professional/executive members, in the context of the weakening of the administrative class in the late 1980s, became the social ballast of an ascendant class pushing for radical political and economic reform.

Party Membership in the Congress, the Supreme Soviet, and the Supreme Soviet Elite In the period between 1984 and 1989, Communist Party membership of the Supreme Soviet averaged 71.3 percent. For its elite it was much higher: 95 percent of members of the Presidium were Party members and so were 98 percent of the Chambers. Gorbachev’s reforms had not reduced the level of Party representation: in March 1990, the overall Party membership in the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was an impressive 87 percent; and for the legislative elite as we have defined it, 98 percent.11 What had changed, however, was the representation of senior Party officials in the Supreme Soviet. While one quarter of the members of the Central Committee in 1990 were deputies to the Congress of People’s Deputies, their number had fallen to a mere 6.5 percent of the members of the Supreme Soviet. The percentage of members of the Presidium elite who were members or candidate members of the CPSU Central Committee fell dramatically from 33 (53 percent) in the Presidium in 1984, to 12 (23 percent) in 1989. For the Chambers, the figures were 39 (62 percent) in 1984 and only 12 (27 percent) in 1989. In the latest period, from 1990–91, after the election of a new Party Central Committee at the 28th Party Congress and turnover in the Supreme Soviet, there was an almost-complete withdrawal of members of the Central Committee from the elite of the Supreme Soviet. Only 3 of the members of the Presidium were Central Committee Members (6 percent), and only 4 members of the Chambers (9 percent) were from the Party Central Committee elite.This change represents a virtual withdrawal of the Party’s political elite from the Supreme Soviet.

Political Divisions in the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People’s Deputies The actions of the Communist leadership in weakening the hegemony of the Party, encouraging the development of a “plurality of interests” and shifting the focus of political interest articulation to the Congress of

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People’s deputies and the Supreme Soviet led to the fragmentation of the Communist Party and to the rise of factions and political groupings. By the time of the attempted coup in August 1991, there were three loose political groupings, which we have called “factions,” in the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: the Communist Group, the Interregional Group, and Soiuz. In addition, a large number of deputies were outside these factions.These should not be considered as ideologically homogeneous political groups. Rather, they were moving constellations of people, and there was overlap between them.The study of these political groupings here is relevant because they influenced the formal political leadership of the Supreme Soviet by setting a political agenda and providing a base for support of counter elites and opposition. Our purpose here is not to study the counter-elites, except insofar as the incumbent elite was linked to these new forces.12 The Communist Group had the largest number of members (738), of whom 327 were also members of Soiuz, and 12 members of the Interregional Group; Soiuz had total of 559 members, of whom 14 were in the Interregional group; and the Interregional Group totalled 226. Of the total number of deputies (2250), 508 were not formal members of these factions. The Interregional Group became in practice a radical opposition to the Gorbachev leadership with a liberal-democratic orientation. It was the first faction to be established in the Congress of People’s Deputies, and had five co-chairmen (G. Popov, B.Yeltsin, A. Sakharov, Iu. Afanasev, and V. Pal’m). Although the Group fought for the introduction of a multi-Party system, its leaders were not, and did not intend to become, a “Party.” Members of the Group, however, shared some common perspectives on major political issues, such as support for private property and a market economy, local self-determination, and republican sovereignty. Soiuz (Union) was formed in 1990 and led by two army officials (V. Alksnis and N. Petrushenko). Initially, the main thrust of this group’s activity was the preservation of the USSR as a single entity. Most of its members supported traditional Soviet ways of doing things and sought to sustain the institutions of Soviet power: it soon became known as the “conservative” opposition to Gorbachev and his reforms. Interregional Group and Soiuz were both able at different times to exert considerable influence in setting the parliament’s agenda, in having resolutions adopted by a majority of parliamentary votes. They both produced (or were joined by) political leaders who, mainly through their public parliamentary activity, became well-known nationwide figures. Our concern here is with the leaders of these political movements who were in positions of responsibility in the formal structure of the Supreme Soviet


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(members of its Presidium and chairmen or deputy chairmen of parliamentary committees). Members of these political factions, in turn, were participants in various interest groups.These specific interests united and at the same time divided the deputies, so that the “Communist Group” could not count on the unqualified support of its members—and neither could the Interregional Group, which constituted the opposition. Two relatively large groups were “Workers Deputies” (304 members) and “Agrarian Deputies” (413 members).Affiliation here was mainly based on the deputies’ occupation or profession though these groupings proved to be relatively ineffective as political interests.The bulk of the remaining groups were single-issue or functional groups (from “Ecology,” with 219 deputies; to “Life,” with 215 that represented women’s interests; to “For a Civil Society,” with 83). “For the Development of Scientific-Technical Progress” group was founded early in 1990, and led by A.Vol’skii and A. Vladislavlev. It claimed to enjoy the support of 86 deputies. The “Scientific-Industrial” group, despite its relatively small size (88 deputies), claimed to represent the interests of a very large number of people (directors, managers, and workers employed in the industrial-production sphere of the Soviet economy, as well as scientists and research personnel in production-related branches). From early 1991 onwards, the leaders of this Soviet parliamentary group were the active initiators and leaders of the socio-political movement “Obnovlenie” (Renewal)—also known as the “directors’ Party,” which, in turn, became a founding member of Civic Union, set up in early 1990 by A.Vol’skii and A.Vladislavlev. It is against the activity of these political factions and groupings that the leadership of the Supreme Soviet conducted its activity.The leadership of the Supreme Soviet, once hegemonic operating through the Communist Party leadership, had now to contend with division among it own members and with opposition from these autonomous groups. It was the fragmentation of the political system that was most evident in the new Congress and Supreme Soviet.As noted above, the Party political elite had withdrawn from the leadership of the new legislature, and a separation took place between the Party leadership, clustered in the Central Committee, and the state leadership under Gorbachev, which was legitimated through the Supreme Soviet. After the 28th Party Congress in 1990, the Party had effectively lost its traditional domination of the legislature, and it had been undermined by Gorbachev (though many in the Party executive still thought that its hegemony could be retrieved). As Deputy V.S. Lipitskii has put it, “We now have no real channels for influencing the decisions made by our parliamentarians, since . . . in many cases . . . the Soviets are not so much multi-Party as non Party. Deputies

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there do not represent political parties but are elected to the Soviets thanks to their personal qualities and feel responsibility only to the voters. I think our Party already effectively finds itself in the position of constructive opposition.”13 In seeking to relocate legitimacy in the Supreme Soviet and concurrently being unable to guide it, Gorbachev seriously undermined the power of the state and weakened his own position. This partly explains why, at the end of his rule, he sought to strengthen the post of executive presidency.

Division within the Parliamentary Elite Not only had the traditional discipline of the Communists collapsed on the floor of the Congress, but also division had spread to the Supreme Soviet’s legislative elite, which now had members openly joining different factions, including Soiuz (SZ) and the Interregional Group (IG).Although the Communist Group (CG) remained by far the largest with 29 members in the parliamentary elite, there were also five of its members who combined membership with that of Soiuz, in addition there were four members of the Interregional Group. Twenty-seven members of the parliamentary elite did not belong to the IG, the CG, or SZ. This group included senior members of the Presidium, such as Gorbachev, Luk’ianov, Primakov, Laptev, and Nishanov. These people belonged either to no groups or, more typically, to a number of the smaller interest groups. To discover what positions in the Supreme Soviet elite were held by these people, the committee chairs have been analyzed by factional allegiance. Between 1989 and 1991, the Communist Group chaired 20 of the standing committees, 4 were headed by members of Soiuz, 3 by the Interregional Group, and 10 by members of other interest groups and political factions. The 4 members of Soiuz who also were members of the Communist Group (and were violently opposed to marketization) chaired committees on economic reform and the consumer market in addition to defense and security, and construction. The Interregional Group chaired three committees: education, construction, and science and technology. Of the ten who did not belong to any of the above three major groups, three chaired the important Committee on Legislation. Members of this diverse group also chaired committees on agriculture, budget, construction, consumer market, industry and technology, military internationalists, and the socio-economic development of republics and territories. On the basis of this positional analysis, the Communist Group would appear to be very strongly positioned, and the opposition, in the form of the Interregional


83

Group, was weak. However, this domination of the Soviet is not born out by an examination of political alignments.

Political Alignment of the Legislative Elite The extent to which the established legislative elite was itself divided is illustrated by the voting records.While we do not have the details of individual voting in the Supreme Soviet, we do have voting records in the Congress of People’s Deputies.14 Here we have considered five key votes on issues proposed by the Interregional Group: 1. Not to discuss article 6 of the Constitution, concerned with the hegemony of the Communist Party; 2. Support for the government’s economic program; 3. Allowing the president be elected by Congress (rather than by direct popular vote); 4. Imposing a moratorium on strikes; and 5. Not to recognize republican declarations of sovereignty. All voters in favor of the above formulations would support the line of the Gorbachev leadership: i.e., not to discuss the clause concerning the Party in the constitution, supporting the government’s economic program, allowing the President to be elected by the Congress.The opposition votes would all be “against” the motions as put above.15 Graph 5.1, which illustrates the voting profile of the Supreme Soviet elite, shows that the Supreme Soviet elite had lost its previous levels of solidarity. Only on Issue 3 (on the Congress voting for a president) was there an affirmative vote of over 80 percent. Nevertheless, on the first two issues—hegemony of the Communist Party and economic policy—over 70 percent supported Gorbachev’s policy, though obviously in a Soviet context opposition by more than 25 percent of the elite was a serious indication of political instability.The most divisive issues, however, were the votes on banning strikes and on the recognition of declarations of sovereignty. On both issues, less than 40 percent of the parliamentary elite was in favor of government policy. As was to be expected, the members of the Interregional Group either abstained or voted against issues 1 through 5. Less expected was the dissident voting of 12 members of the CG who did not vote in favor of issue 4, and the 7 who did not support issue 5. We defined two major factions in the Supreme Soviet: those who voted in support of Gorbachev on three or more of the above five issues (Group

84

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Graph 5.1 Supreme Soviet Elite:Voting Behavior on Five Issues

1: 34 deputies) and those who voted likewise against (Group 2: 15 deputies). An examination of the voting behavior shows that there was very little difference in age, educational level, or CPSU membership between the two groups. (All except one had been a member of the CPSU, and all had higher education).The areas where there were some major differences were in nationality, gender, and occupation.16 As noted above, a characteristic of the Supreme Soviet elite was the greater representation of the non-Russian nationalities of the USSR. Changing the fulcrum of power to the Supreme Soviet effectively gave the non-Russian nationalities a much greater role in decision-making, and this, in turn, was to be a decisive factor in dividing the parliamentary leadership. Sixteen members of the Communist Group were non-Russians, and of these, seven voted against or abstained (‘no vote’ in the table refers to those who were not present for the voting session) on issue 5. Of the fifteen opposition members, (i.e., those who voted against the Gorbachev leadership in three or more issues), ten were non-Russians. However, we should also stress that a number of non-Russians, sixteen of thirty four in Group 1 supported the government. There was an even stronger correlation between gender and voting.The voting records of five of the women members of the parliamentary elite (Bazarova, Kafarova, Matvienko, Rakhmanova, and Shevchenko) show that


85

they all voted predominantly in favor of issues 1 through 5 and supported the Gorbachev leadership in the parliament. We have already noted the large number of members of the scientific, artistic, and professional intelligentsia who entered the parliament in 1989. Of the 15 members who opposed the government, almost half were professionals, but of the 34 who voted with the leadership, only 4 were.17 One major difference between the groups was the large number of directors of production associations and enterprises and members of the CPSU and Komsomol apparat to be found in the group of loyalists to Gorbachev. Only one director is to be found in the opposition (Group 2), and there are no members of the Party apparat and only one member of the Komsomol apparat. The extent to which the legislative leadership was at variance with the deputies is easily measured. Of the deputies, only 52.6 percent voted for the first issue (not to discuss the role of the Party and Article 6 of the constitution). And more deputies voted against issue four (37.7 percent) (which would have imposed a moratorium on strikes) than supported it (31.6 percent). On the recognition of republics’ declarations of sovereignty, while only 18.5 percent voted against the leadership’s proposals, the affirmative vote was low (41.2 percent), a high proportion (28.5 percent) did not vote, and 11.8 percent abstained (see table 5.4). As one might expect, deputies in the Congress were more oppositional than the members of the parliamentary elite.

Divisions within the Supreme Soviet Elite The parliament that was elected in the spring of 1989 was very different from its predecessor, with a multiplicity of new actors and institutions given representation in the legislature for the first time. It was a much younger body: 69 percent of its members were under 60 years of age,

Table 5.4

For Against Abstain No vote* *Did

Voting by All Congress Deputies on Five Issues I

II

III

IV

V

52.6 38 2.3 7.1

67.7 18.5 1.9 11.9

68.1 16.4 3.4 12.2

31.6 37.7 9.5 21.2

41.2 18.5 11.8 28.5

not attend the session.

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compared with 42 percent in its predecessor.There had been a significant decline in the overlap of members with the Party apparat, and a significant rise in the representation of members of the scientific, technical, and artistic intelligentsia and managerial strata. The formal Party elite had withdrawn from the leadership of the Supreme Soviet.The power of the Party in the Congress and Supreme Soviet was far less than its 87 percent membership would suggest, and the debates and voting records of the deputies were far from predictable. No longer could the Party Group of the Supreme Soviet dictate policy to the deputies or control their voting. The deputies were able to form a number of loose political factions and interest groupings. In the Congress, the Communist Group, with its membership of 738, had to operate alongside Soiuz, with 559 deputies, and the emerging opposition of the Interregional group, with 226 deputies. There were also 20 smaller groups bringing together such diverse interests as women, farmers, industrialists, Afghan veterans, and the younger deputies. What in the traditional Supreme Soviet had been a consensual and political elite united through the Party’s political hegemony and sustained through its discipline now increasingly became fractured, and the Soviet’s leadership was confronted by a multiplicity of interest groups. Moreover, the political leadership around Gorbachev could not count on the unequivocal support of the Communist Group. Nevertheless, the legislative elite still maintained a relatively high level of consensus. Its political allegiance was still mainly in support of the traditional forces: it is remarkable, however, that three members of the radical Interregional Group, so strongly opposed to Gorbachev, were given places as chairpersons of the Supreme Soviet’s committees. Gorbachev had allowed his arch rival, Yeltsin—leader of the radical opposition—to a place in the Supreme Soviet elite. But it was the regional and republican issues and what appeared to be a government attack on the working class that split most sharply the members of the Supreme Soviet elite.Though it was divided in its voting record, the elite still by and large supported the leadership of Gorbachev. The base of the radical reformers was to be found among the rank-andfile members of the Congress and Supreme Soviet. But their numbers in the Parliamentary elite were certainly strong enough to create an alternative political leadership, especially as Yeltsin was in a crucial position as a member of the Supreme Soviet elite. This was a footing from which he could unleash his opposition to Gorbachev. Yeltsin was supported by members of the liberal intelligentsia whose numbers in the Supreme Soviet increased substantially in 1989, paralleling the Party apparat’s sharp decline. Gorbachev failed to win the support of the intelligentsia deputies in 1990, and this social stratum proved to be a


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base of opposition to him in the parliamentary elite. Later we shall characterize this as an acquisition class; see chapter 8. His stubborn approach to the regional question also led to the alienation and opposition of many deputies with attachments in the regions and republics. However, there would appear to be no other major social division between the emerging counter-elite and the incumbent powers: all but one had been members of the Party, and all had received higher education. One significant social difference was the support given to the Gorbachev leadership by female members of the elite. An alliance of non-Russian deputies with members of the intelligentsia and led by the Interregional Group made it increasingly difficult or impossible for the political leadership under Gorbachev or the Communist Group to maintain control over the procedures of the parliament and its legislative output. The traditional power of the CPSU in the parliament had been broken, and the formal leadership of the Supreme Soviet now included the leaders of what must be considered a counter-elite. Gorbachev was hoist on his own petard: not only had he weakened the legitimacy of the Party, but he was unable to gain a footing among the rising counter-elites. He was opposed by the radical opposition, and, perhaps just as important, by more traditional forces clustered around Soiuz. In shifting legitimacy to the Supreme Soviet and destroying the Party’s hegemony there, Gorbachev opened the lid on elite confrontation, and this proved to be a major precipitating factor in the collapse of the USSR.


Chapter 6

The Political Elite under Gorbachev: Cohesion and Division

Writers on “transition” hypothesize that the structure and process of elite politics are crucial to the understanding of the process of change.1 Guillermo O’Donnell, John Higley, and others2 have argued that “democratic transitions and breakdown can best be understood by changes in the internal relations of national elites.3” For a democratic system to persist and flourish, elites must engage in “politics as bargaining” rather than “politics as war,” and Higley and Gunther further contend that “what principally distinguishes unconsolidated from consolidated democracies, is in short, the absence of elite consensual unity.”4 They do not deny the importance of underlying changes in social structure, which give rise to the enabling conditions of transition; rather, the elite variable determines its political character: as Higley, Burton, and Field put it (quoting Dahrendorf), “classes push, elites effect.5” “Democratic” transitions are the result of negotiated pacts between actors in the dominant elite leading either to sharing with, or conceding power to, ascendant elites.6 As O’Donnell and Schmitter have put it, rulers in “negotiated transitions” conclude pacts in which the dominant elite shares (or surrenders) power to ascendant elites7.The growing literature on elite structures in transitional societies, however, has little analysis of the political elite as an agent of transition under state socialism.8 As we have noted, most interpretations of state socialism conceive of elite rule in terms of an ideologically unified and cohesive political leadership, controlled by a monolithic partocracy.9 If this is the case, then transition politics in communist regimes is not conducive to an intra-elite explanation of political change. In this chapter, we explore the political attitudes of the political elite in the Soviet Union in its terminal period under Gorbachev. It is argued that

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the notion of an “ideological elite (partocratic regime),”10 as postulated by Higley and Pakulski, needs revision with respect to regime collapse and transition. By questioning the elite actors themselves, this study goes further than other accounts of transitions based on retrospective interpretations of the supposed relationships between elite players before and during the transitional period11. It is concluded that the configuration of the national elites (and regime type) in the USSR was that of a fragmented elite with important internal divisions in terms of ideology, institutional allegiance, and political interest; in terms of political culture, it was authoritarian and not prone to popular democratic forms of participation. We show that the Soviet Union in its terminal period was characterized by severe ruling elite disunity. Rather than a “negotiated settlement,” which would have been possible through an elite compact, breakdown ensued from inter-elite conflict. Based on the analysis of the opinions and experience of the political elite under Gorbachev, we contend: 1. that the driving forces of political change under Gorbachev came from groups within the Party political leadership; 2. that elite dissension was one of the major causes of collapse of the political system; 3. that transformation of the regime—from Communism to pluralism and polyarchy12—was led by a faction of the political elite closely allied to the leader, Gorbachev; 4. that the reforming elite did not have a powerful political base and sought support for change from the West, which, in turn, exacerbated elite dissension; 5. that the political elite as a whole was fragmented and lacked moral cohesion13. Such division led to regime instability. 6. that the political culture was authoritarian and lacked a disposition on the part of the administrative elite to “political compromise.” Through the analysis of interviews of the top political leadership, we distinguish the different foci of interests and division, and outline those political interests and forces instrumental in policy change.The respondents’ answers not only provide a record of the various factors that influenced policy change during the terminal period of the USSR, but also indicate divisions within the political leadership. The thrust of the interviews was threefold: first, to utilize the knowledge of the respondents to analyze the different sources of influence on political decision-making during the latter period of perestroika; second, to indicate which institutions and people contributed to the breakup of the USSR; and third, to generalize about the transition from communism to post-communism.

The Political Elite under Gorbachev

91

Definition of the Political Elite Defining the political elite is a complex problem in any society; in the USSR, in Communism’s terminal stage (between 1986 and 1991), such problems of definition assumed new proportions as the political institutions of interest aggregation and cohesion (the Party-state) disintegrated. The research strategy was to define the political elite in terms of two criteria: institutional positions and “reputation.” For the former, two main sets of institutional power-holders were defined: the government elite—those holding the position of minister or equivalent between 1984 and 1991 (230 in all); and the Party elite—those with posts as secretaries to the Central Committee of the CPSU, or heads or deputy heads of its departments (1985–91), 85 in all.Though these people also held representative positions in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (the Soviet Parliament), other regional and republican elite members14 could not be systematically included in the research, and, hence, the Supreme Soviet elite as such was not studied. In order to define the second group of influential people outside the positional elite, two sets of interviews were conducted a year earlier under the direction of one of the authors.15 The latter were the basis of the “reputational” constituency of the study. (Here are also included some leading people in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR).16 Thus, the sample of respondents comprised the following: 1) 59 members of the Soviet government elite (selected from the 230); and 2) 24 (out of 85) of the Party elite; and 3) 33 “influentials,” including members of the Supreme Soviet—a total of 116.17 (The detailed composition of the sample is further described in appendix 6.1). These people, it is contended, provided crucial insights into the motivation and attitudes of the political leadership of the USSR.As the interviewees were no longer in power (and had little chance of returning to positions of authority), their answers may be considered to be relatively unaffected by a desire to legitimate the previous system or to exculpate their role in it.

Elite Attitudes A strength of “reputational” analysis is that it draws on informed insiders having insight into the political process. A weakness has been to consider assertive statements of observers who may not have been close to the policymakers and whose testimony may have been based on hearsay evidence. The research strategy adopted was to ask questions about a specific range of issues.To uncover different influences on decision making in the crucial period of major policy change, questions were asked covering different

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areas of strategy: relations with other states, internal politics, and economic policy. On international relations, the respondents were asked about the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe; on economic issues— the introduction of “cooperatives” (private enterprise) and the market; and on internal security, the relations between the republics and regions in the formation of the Union Agreement. The fourth and fifth questions dealt directly with the disintegration of the USSR: the institutions and groups causing the breakup, and the nature of the economic and political situation inherited by Gorbachev on assuming power as general secretary of the Party. On the basis of results of an earlier study by David Lane, responses were limited to specified political forces and interests known to be important, defined below as “political agents.”18 In addition, open questions were added in which the respondents were invited to make other comments. The aggregation of the views of different sectors of the political elite enables the creation of a matrix of political agencies that influenced the decision-making process.Analysis is made of the responses of different sectors of the elite to determine whether there were any significant differences in perception between them.

Withdrawal from Eastern Europe The decision to recall Soviet armed forces from Eastern Europe signalled a major change in Soviet policy. We asked, on a four-point scale, which “political agents” influenced the policy to withdraw.The results are shown in table 6.1. In the second column, the mean score gives an index of the weighting in terms of a four-point scale given by the respondents. This gives a ranking of the importance of the item. (The lower the score, the greater the importance of the variable; for example, if all the respondents indicated “a great deal of influence,” the mean would be 1.) The influence of Western political leaders appears to have been overwhelming: nearly half (50) of the respondents thought that westerners had “a great deal of influence,” and another 51 considered that they had had “some influence.” Gorbachev’s own advisers were found in the second group. Established Soviet political institutions, even the revived Supreme Soviet, are given little weight, as are leaders of the political opposition. As far as the testimony of the political elite is concerned, the crucial decision to leave Eastern Europe appears to have been decided by those in Gorbachev’s immediate circle influenced by Western political leaders.The military were a very poor third in this ranking—only nine in the sample giving them a great deal of influence. A tentative conclusion here, then, is that the policy of the Western powers did have a significant, even decisive influence.

The Political Elite under Gorbachev Table 6.1

93

Influences on Soviet Foreign Policy in Eastern Europe: Frequency Distribution of Responses Responses

Political Agents Western political leaders Gorbachev’s advisory staff Military leaders Ministers of the USSR government Leaders of the political opposition movement Members of the Supreme Soviet Business/economic interests Trade union organizations

Mean

1

2

3

4

5

Total

1.7

50

51

12

1

2

116

2.1 2.6

37 9

53 43

15 46

2 18

9 0

116 116

2.8

2

36

56

21

1

116

3

4

34

38

38

2

116

3.1

1

14

66

34

1

116

3.3 3.8

0 0

15 1

45 27

55 86

1 2

116 116

Question asked: I’d like you to think back to the period between 1986 and 1991 when Gorbachev was trying to formulate new policy initiatives. We are interested in your views on the kinds of institutions that influenced him on various kinds of policy. In the area of foreign strategy, for instance, under the leadership of Gorbachev, the USSR pursued a policy of withdrawal from Eastern Europe. The Eastern European states became independent and Soviet influence there ended. Considering this area of foreign policy as a whole between 1986 and 1991, in your experience, which of the following had: (Key to responses): 1. A great deal of influence 2. Some influence 3. A little influence 4. No influence at all 5. Don’t know, no answer

It might be objected, however, that the sample included people in the political elite not particularly concerned with the policy issues considered here, and that their views are conflated with those of the top decisionmakers. Members of the Politburo, it might be assumed, were closer to the sources of power than, say, leading members of the intelligentsia. To what extent then did the different groups of respondents share similar views about the salience of political influence? In order to delineate the views of different groups of constituents, we analyzed the responses in terms of five major groups of respondents in the

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sample described above: the 10 advisers to Gorbachev (AdvGo), the 59 government ministers (GovMin), the 23 Party executives (PtyLds), and 15 members of the Supreme Soviet (MemSS). In the last three groups, no members had overlapping membership. The fifth group (composed of 44 professionals [Intels]) and the first group (Gorbachev advisers) did overlap with the other groups (“advisers” were the Party and government chiefs, and for all elite positions Gorbachev pursued a policy of recruitment from academic and research institutes). The “mean score” is a good indication of the level of the response. It ranged from 1.3 (members of the Supreme Soviet) to 1.8 (intelligentsia group).The differences were not significant at the .05 level.The exercise was

Table 6.2

Core Political Leadership: On Withdrawal from Eastern Europe: Frequency Distribution of Responses Responses

Political Agents

Mean

1

2

3

4

5

Total

WesPolLd AdvGorb GovUSSR MilLdr LdsPolOp SupSov BusEcon TrUns

1.78 2.25 2.67 2.71 2.82 3.14 3.42 3.57

11 9 0 0 1 1 0 0

12 9 13 13 10 3 2 0

5 7 11 10 10 15 12 12

0 0 4 5 7 9 14 16

0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0

28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28

Key to responses, see table 6.1. Key to political agents (Tables 6.2, 6.3, 6.4): [WesPolLd] Western political leaders [MilLdr] Military leaders [SupSov] Members of the Supreme Soviet [GovUSSR] Ministers of the USSR government [Nomenkl] Interests within the nomenklatura system (such as Komsomol, Party, MVD, and KGB, or directors of state enterprises) [AdvGorb] Gorbachev’s own advisers [LdsPolOp] Leaders of the opposition movement outside parliament [TrUns] Trade unions [BusEcon] Business interests (leaders of enterprises and entrepreneurs) [ExtOrgLd] Direct influence of people or institutions outside the USSR (such as foreign leaders or the World Bank) [DemEft] as a response to the need to show Western leaders that the Gorbachev leadership was serious about economic reforms?


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extended to all the political agents listed (advisers to Gorbachev, military leaders, the government of the USSR, leaders of the political opposition, the Supreme Soviet, business and economic interests, and trade unions), and similar results were achieved. All groups of respondents shared similar views about sources of the major political influences. This degree of elite agreement about “who was making the decisions” was somewhat surprising, so the responses were re-analyzed and people close to the center of power were grouped into a “core political leadership.”This group was recruited from Gorbachev’s presidential advisers (10 in the sample), members of the Politburo (8), first secretaries of the CPSU (9), and members of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers (11). Occupants of some of these posts, of course, overlapped, giving a total of 28 people.Their responses to the question are shown on table 6.2. Here again, the analysis confirms the preferences above: the ranking and density of preferences were similar to the earlier analysis: top place was given to Western political leaders, followed by advisers to Gorbachev. In the foregoing analysis, to derive the ranking of importance of the political agents we have used the sums of the counts of the responses. Another way of looking at this problem is to ask the respondents themselves whom they thought were the most influential. Hence we asked:“Give the name of just one of those leaders whom you think was especially important.”Those receiving four or more “votes” in rank order are as follows: Iakovlev, Alexandr Nikolaevich, 77 (Central Committee media executive, former ambassador to Canada, member of the Politburo, secretary of the Central Committee and head of its Ideology Department, member of Gorbachev’s Presidential Council) Thatcher, Margaret, 31 (prime minister of Britain) Shevardnadze, Edward Amvrosievich, 26 (member of the Politburo, minister of foreign affairs) Reagan, Ronald, 18 (president of the United States) Bush, George, 7 (president of the United States) Kohl, Helmut, 7 (chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany) Medvedev,Vadim Andreevich, 5 (secretary of CPSU, member of the Politburo, member of the Presidential Council, adviser to the president)

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Ligachev, Egor Kuzmich, 4 (member of the Politburo and Secretary of the CPSU, Chair of Commission on Foreign Affairs of Supreme Soviet USSR) Mitterrand, Francois, 4 (president of France) Sakharov, Andrey Dmitrievich 4 (academic, political activist, and political writer).19 The positions held by these persons confirm conclusively that the policy to pull out of Eastern Europe was largely determined by Gorbachev himself, aided by his self-chosen advisers in response to advice from the leaders of the West. Curiously perhaps for those nurtured on the traditional view of the Soviet-type societies, no mention is made either of the internal security forces (KGB) or the military.

The Move to Privatization and the Market The second topic examined the changes in the economy, the move to private initiative, and the market.The respondents were asked which interests they thought were influential in the policy to extend private initiative and the role of the market.The results are shown on table 6.3. The suggested responses were similar but not identical to those asked in the first question. Another question was added to elicit a response on the “demonstration effect” of Soviet policy: whether there was a desire on the part of the leadership to show the West that they were serious about reform and hence to enhance their legitimacy abroad.Table 6.3 shows the importance of this “demonstration effect,” as well as the influence of Gorbachev’s advisers and external political leaders and institutions.The responses of the “core political leadership” (as we have defined it) are shown in the last two columns. Examination of the results shows once more that there is no significant difference between the core political elite and the total elite population. (Government ministers and leaders of the political opposition were ranked slightly higher, but not significantly so.) Again, the data were resorted to see if there was any significant group that could account for the very large response in support of the “demonstration effect.” Once more, this was not the case: all constituent groups gave a very high rating. Finally, the respondents were asked if there were any other interests or people not included in the questions whom they believed were of significance. Gorbachev himself (mainly in terms of his deficiencies) had the highest number of mentions (13), followed by the crisis facing the country (11),Western institutions and leaders (10)—(Margaret Thatcher topped

The Political Elite under Gorbachev Table 6.3

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Influences on Introduction of Private Enterprise and the Market: Frequency Distribution of Responses All Political Elite

Core Leaders

Political Agents Mean

1

2

3

4

5

Total

Mean

Total

DemEft AdvGorb ExtOrgLd GovUSSR BusEcon Nomenkl SupSov LdsPolOp TrUns

61 50 23 12 7 16 1 9 0

43 52 57 64 48 35 27 33 10

11 7 25 26 48 48 63 36 48

1 3 6 13 11 14 25 30 53

0 4 5 1 2 3 0 8 5

116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116

1.67 1.82 2.35 2.07 2.67 2.75 2.67 2.67 3.39

28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28

1.58 1.78 2.25 2.37 2.62 2.62 2.96 3.06 3.52

Question: During the period after Gorbachev came to power until his downfall in August 1991, a number of initiatives were taken in the area of economic policy. For instance, Gorbachev allowed the extension of private initiative and a greater role to the market. How would you estimate the importance of the following in influencing the introduction of this policy? Key to responses, see table 6.1. Key to political agents, see table 6.2

the politicians with two mentions), academics and groups of academics (9), and the higher Party leadership (9). Raisa Gorbachev came into the picture with 3 votes.

National and Regional Policy One of the most important areas of internal turmoil in the terminal period of the Soviet Union was the policy towards the republics and regions of the USSR. The respondents were asked to estimate the importance of various groups with respect to the formation of nationalities’ policy. In addition to those mentioned above, two more choices were given: political leaders in the republics (RegPlLds) and political movements in the republics and regions themselves (RegPlMov). Table 6.4 shows the responses for all the persons surveyed and the mean for each political agent by the core political leaders.The only slight difference between the valuations of the latter was that the leaders of the internal political opposition were ranked more highly. The responses here introduced two new political forces into the equation: republican

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Table 6.4

Influences on Gorbachev’s Nationality Policy: Frequency Distribution of Responses All Political Elite

Core Leaders

Political Agents Mean

1

2

3

4

5

Total

Mean

Total

RegPlLds WesPolLd RegPlMov AdvGorb LdsPolOp SupSov MilLds GovUSSR BusEcon TrUns

55 49 49 32 16 7 13 8 0 0

48 40 48 58 56 65 49 45 14 3

11 20 12 18 30 32 35 46 62 45

0 3 1 1 11 10 14 13 37 65

2 4 6 7 3 2 5 4 3 3

116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116

1.82 2.14 2.64 2.42 2.21 2.46 2.75 2.75 3.57 3.67

28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28

1.71 1.92 2.00 2.19 2.43 2.45 2.57 2.74 3.26 3.60

Question: During the last few years of Gorbachev’s political leadership, the USSR experienced growing assertiveness of national/ethnic groups (for instance, in the Baltic and in the Caucasus), and in August 1991, Gorbachev formulated his policy on the proposed Union Agreement. On the formulation of nationalities policy in general, how would you estimate the importance of the following? For a key to political agents, see table 6.2, and in addition: [RegPlLds] Political leaders in the republics [RegPlMov] Political movements in the republics and regions themselves

and regional leaders, and regional and republican movements—the former being the most important, and the latter following closely on the influence of Western political leaders. Advisers to Gorbachev were still prominent, but not as dominant as in other areas of policy. As there were many different political agents here, the respondents were asked to say which of the political agents possessed the most influence.20 The results confirm the analysis above: Western political leaders (with 33 mentions) played a predominant role, followed by political leaders in the republics and regions (18), political movements in the republics and regions (15), and advisers to Gorbachev (10). Finally, we asked once more about other influences that might have had an important impact. Few new forces were mentioned: the “Mafia” received 3 votes; Gorbachev himself received the most frequent unstructured response (15)—respondents spontaneously deplored his ambition, shortsightedness, and feeble understanding; other Soviet leaders mentioned, usually without comment, were Iakovlev (13) and Shevardnadze (10).


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Again, at the bottom of the list of influences came the KGB (with only 2 mentions) and the military leadership only 1.21 It is clear that the different constituencies forming the political elite (government advisers, Party and government leaders, professionals, and members of the Supreme Soviet) did not differ as such about the sources of influence.22 Again, the separate analysis of the “core political leaders” confirmed that a wide range of people in prominent positions in the USSR were in agreement about who was making policy.This may be due to the centralization of decision-making and the recruitment of the political elite from a relatively restricted constituency that was connected by a common communication network—rather than a pluralist type of recruitment and networking, as in more open, market-type societies. In other words, while members of the political elite differed in political outlook, they were grounded under state socialism in common networks.

The Main Sources of Influence On the basis of these responses, we might define the major political influences shaping policy in the terminal period of the USSR—at least as far as these crucial issues were concerned. (Bear in mind that here not all the areas of policymaking are discussed.23) It is important to note that there was some variation in influence between the various issues. On the pull-out from Eastern Europe, the rank order was (1) foreign leaders and institutions; and (2) advisers to (and selected by) Gorbachev, giving him considerable political power. An unexpected finding, at least in comparison to the location of political influence under previous Soviet rulers, was the role of Raisa Gorbachev. But the most ubiquitous form of influence was that from abroad, articulated by foreign politicians. The role of Margaret Thatcher is remarkable: she was spontaneously mentioned as the top foreign political influence in every question answered. Her eminence was probably due to the fact that she was able to articulate her market orientation in terms that had been constructed in opposition to British welfare-state philosophy—which had similarities in the USSR—and her determination to pursue change in the face of resistance. Her clarity of exposition and the unswerving certainty of her beliefs also explains her high profile. (She made a powerful impact on Soviet TV, destroying her interviewers.) Clearly, Western influence may have had a significant impact on the internal cohesion of the political elite; it was clear from the interviews that many thought that the West had an undue influence on Soviet affairs. (We shall return to this later).

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Even on internal policy of market reform, it was thought that Gorbachev was influenced in his policy by seeking to placate and impress the West. On nationality and regional issues, however, leaders and movements in the republics and regions were dominant. These were interests largely outside his control. This finding would suggest a lack of congruity between the political elites in the republics and those in the center—a geographical segmentation of elites rather than a confrontation between the rulers and counter-elites with a base in “society” (see chapter 8).24 Perhaps surprisingly, the institutions of Soviet power, even those introduced under Gorbachev, do not appear to have played dominant roles: the Supreme Soviet; government ministries; business and economic interests; and, notably, the “nomenklatura” are given little weight as decisive bodies. Remarkably, the respondents gave very little weight to the KGB and the military. These forces of influence are quite different from those anticipated by the theorists mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Segmented interests with local constituencies in the republics, and leaders and pressures external to the society have to be given a prominent role in the systemic disintegration of state socialism. These, of course, acted in conjunction with other forces.The frequently supposed organic unity and dominant role of the political elite—the partocracy and nomenklatura— is exposed as a myth, a myth concurrently held to legitimate state socialism by its supporters and to denigrate it by its ideological opponents.25 A caveat may be necessary here: we are concerned with those who influenced changes intended by the political leadership. Had we asked about the “veto power” of institutions and groups over other issues (say, the privatization of land), other interests may have been mentioned. Indeed, as we noted in the previous chapter, the “blocking” power of the industrial ministries was important.

The Rulers’Views on the Collapse of Soviet Power The previous discussion focused on specific issues in policymaking from which inferences were made concerning the locus of political power. Moreover, members of political elites—especially those who have lost power—have important views about the nature of internal political conflict and the reasons for political success and failure. Two questions were asked of the respondents concerning the causes of the breakdown of the USSR. The first generalized about the different political forces that precipitated its collapse. The second inquired about the effectiveness of the Soviet system at the time Gorbachev became General Secretary of the


101

CPSU.This question probes the extent to which the elites were divided or in agreement about the need for change. We asked the respondents to estimate the influence of five different forces as shown on table 6.5.The most popular reason for the collapse was clearly attributed to the leadership of Gorbachev. Seventy (60 percent) of the respondents regarded his inadequacies as being of great importance.As shown in the penultimate column, this view was also shared by the core political leadership (his advisers, members of the Politburo, first party secretaries, and members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet).At the bottom of the list came the dissident movement, following public demands. Surprisingly perhaps, given the importance attributed to Western political leaders in other questions, they only came after demands for internal political reforms from the Party and government. Of great importance here

Table 6.5

Causes of Collapse of the USSR: Views of the Political Elite: Frequency Distribution of Responses Total Political Elite Responses

Cause of Collapse WesPoLd IntPolRf PubDem DisMov Renewal InadGor

Mean GrtInf 2.4 2.2 2.4 2.8 2.1 1.5

25 27 19 9 41 70

Core Leaders

Some DKn Inf LitInf NoInf NoAn Total 39 49 48 23 43 37

38 32 37 67 19 7

12 7 9 15 10 1

2 1 3 2 3 1

116 116 116 116 116 116

Mean

Total

2.71 2.75 2.53 2.85 2.39 1.75

28 28 28 28 28 28

Question: In 1991, following the Declaration of a State of Emergency, the Soviet Union collapsed, with the CPSU losing its political supremacy. We would like your opinion about why the old system collapsed. In your experience of the developments in the USSR—in, say, the last ten years of its life (i.e., the period from late Brezhnev to the final collapse under Gorbachev)—what were the effects of the following on its final collapse? Which had: 1) A great deal of influence; 2) Some influence; 3) A little influence; and 4) No influence at all. [IntPolRf] Demands for change and reform from within, from the forces of the Party and government apparatus [PubDem] The influence of public dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions [DisMov] The influence of internal dissident movements [Renewal] The inappropriateness of the which had developed under Stalin to the conditions of contemporary life [InadGor] Inadequacies in the leadership of Gorbachev

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is the perception of the need for renewal and the inappropriateness of the of the command economy. This question was also followed by an open-ended question that invited answers not suggested in the question.26 The responses were categorized into different groups of subjects. The most frequently cited reason (22 mentions) was again the deficiencies of Gorbachev as a leader—his “incompetence,” “hypocrisy,” “indecisiveness” and “lack of understanding.”27 Other responses included regional and republican interests (19), Party institutions (the apparat, central committee; 17), demands from society (15), leaders (13), policy (misguided, mistaken, ambiguous; 12), response to crisis situations (8), ideology (3), named people (3),Western institutions (the World Bank; 2), and other answers and non-responses (27). Interestingly, while the West may have influenced the political leadership of Gorbachev, as far as the collapse of the USSR is concerned, it played a relatively passive role—only two direct mentions were given, one being the harmful activity of spetssluzhby—foreign “special service” operations conducted by the CIA (this point was most forcibly made by a former leading official of the security forces). Two points of general importance may be highlighted here. First, the role of leadership by the General Secretary and President of the USSR. Whereas in revolutionary activity the positive role of political leadership is often emphasized, here is a case of deficient leadership: to paraphrase Bunce28, political leaders do make a difference, not only in government but in its collapse. Second, the political leadership represented by our respondents clearly believed that there was a need for political reform.This was a view held, not by “young Turks” but by Party and government leaders in late middle age with a lifetime of work in the apparatus. Unlike the prognosis of theorists of state socialism, who saw political change coming from below or from ascendant groups and classes, the conclusion to be drawn here is that the political leadership itself impelled reform leading to collapse. While social forces may have been underlying causes, they remained latent and do not appear to have been influential as direct political interests. This becomes even clearer in terms of the question in which we asked about the need for reform and the type of reform which was required.The four alternatives posed to the respondents are shown on table 6.6. This question enables one to distinguish between piecemeal reformers among the political leadership and radical advocates of structural change. Fortyseven of the total upheld the fundamental soundness of the system, whereas 69 believed it was basically flawed—23 urged complete replacement.The percentages are shown in column A. A critical mass of the po-


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litical leadership had lost confidence in the effectiveness of the regime. Clearly, this is evidence of a significant loss of legitimacy of the institutions of state socialism. A caveat is in order here. It might be objected that at the time (before Gorbachev came to power), the respondents may have thought differently, and if there was less intra-elite divergence before the changes which took place, then elite disunity may not have caused the political and economic crisis. We would not go as far as saying that intra-elite divergence caused political and economic crises. What we would contend is that the consequences of the political and economic policies crystallized the views of the political elite, which in turn contributed to political decay and collapse. The relationship between elite consensus and division must be conceived of as an interactive process. During the process of transition, there was undoubtedly a high level of disunity: this was both a cause and a consequence of economic and political crisis. Also, we shall show that the positive and

Table 6.6

Soviet Elite Perceptions of the Soviet System and Type of Reform Required: Comparisons with European Political Elites Responses (percent) N

1. Fundamentally sound with little need for change 2. Fundamentally sound but some reforms were necessary 3. Basically unsound and should have been completely replaced 4. Basically flawed though significant reforms could have been achieved within the existing framework Total N=

A

B

C

1

1

36

60

46

40

54

37

23

19

2

0

46

40 100 116

8 100 456

3 100 420

116

N and A: Gorbachev Elite B: Aberbach et al—European Politicians’ Elite C: Aberbach et al—European Bureaucrats’ Elite Question: Looking back at the political and economic situation inherited by Gorbachev when he took over as General Secretary of the CPSU, do you think the political system at that time was. . .

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negative views about the efficacy of the Soviet system were not distributed randomly among the respondents.This suggests that different sectors of the elite had different opinions. A key point we would make is that distinct parts of the political elite gave different responses. In the literature on transition, no actual survey data are cited to demonstrate the extent of elite unity/disunity. Higley and Burton, for example, rely on historical accounts and macro-level interpretations.29 The empirical research here is able to advance the study of elite disunity. “Stable democracies,” it is widely accepted, are characterized by political leaders who accept the basic parameters of the political social system: its structures, laws, and forms of property, and the legitimacy of its political outputs.The study of European politicians and civil servants by Joel D. Aberbach, Robert D. Putnam, and Bert A. Rockman show the extent to which European political elites were unified. In columns B and C of table 6.6 are comparative data derived from their cross-national study of politicians and bureaucrats in Europe.30 Study of the table shows the asymmetrical attitude to the existing political order by the political elites of Gorbachev compared to European politicians and civil servants. Fifty nine percent of the Gorbachev elite believed the system to have been “basically flawed,” compared to only 10 percent of European politicians and only 3 percent of bureaucrats.The level of disunity is indicated by the fact that 41 percent of the Soviet elite believed that the system was “fundamentally sound.” Which constituencies of the elite were the most critical of the system inherited by the reform leadership? The data were re-analyzed to detect those people who had the most disparaging and most positive responses— requiring that the system be “completely replaced” (row 3)—and those who felt it was “fundamentally sound” (rows 1 and 2). (See table 6.7) Of the 23 responses in the former category, 3 were attributed to Gorbachev’s advisers (10 in the sample), 9 to government ministers (59), 5 the Party elite (23), and 3 the members of the Supreme Soviet (15). As to those claiming that the system was “fundamentally sound,” we should note the rather disproportionate share of the government ministers (over half of the respondents in this group, including the only one who thought there was “little need for change.”) The numbers fell considerably among the Party elite (one-third), and also among the advisers to Gorbachev and to the members of the Supreme Soviet (one-fifth).The results here indicate that a wide spectrum of the elite supported radical (even revolutionary) reform. Members of the government ministerial elite, however, were more concentrated in the center of the spectrum, and accepted the existing system of state socialism. Table 6.7 gives further insight as to why the transition in the Soviet Union has led to a breakdown rather than a democratic transition. Its elites


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were completely “disunified” (to use Higley and Burton’s term) about whether reform or radical restructuring was required. All the major institutional elites—Party, government, Supreme Soviet, even Gorbachev’s advisers—were divided on whether the Soviet regime was “fundamentally sound” or “basically flawed.”Whatever policy was adopted by the political leadership, there was sure to be opposition because the political elites were themselves split over the nature of the Soviet system. The most radical champions of change were to be found among Gorbachev’s advisers and among the Party elite—though even here Gorbachev had to contend with some who believed the system was “fundamentally sound.” On the other hand, among the government ministers, a solid block was opposed to radical reform—just over half of the ministers believed the system to be “fundamentally sound.” Gorbachev tried to broker between these two groups, to steer a course between them or, less charitably, to zig-zag between different kinds of policies.The political space was too wide for compromise. These facts help to explain why Gorbachev was universally condemned by all sections of the political elite—including its inner core—and regarded as a major cause of breakdown and ineffective policy: there was no agreement on what “reform” was supposed to reform. In the context of such internal strife, it seems likely that Gorbachev, in seeking external support from foreign leaders—who were not without their own agendas— may have been unduly influenced by them; the members of the political elite certainly thought this to be the case.

Moral Integration We turn now to consider the extent to which the political elite was a moral community.To test the hypothesis concerning the levels of political

Table 6.7

Attitudes to Soviet System by Categories of Political Elite

Elite Group Advisers Government ministers Party elite Supreme Soviet Total

Completely Replace (Row 3)

Fundamentally Sound (Row 1 + 2)

Total in Group

3

2

10

9 5 3 20

30 8 7 47

59 23 15 107

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integration, two sets of questions were asked.The first probed the basis on which recruitment took place: was the elite promoted on the basis of merit, or Party connection? The second asked about commitment and loyalty to the political system. Did they have a consensus or were they divided? Were they a moral community and, if not, what were the principal differences between them? “Solidary elites” by definition share “common ideas and a common moral ethos” and are “conscious of an overall solidarity.”31 While it is often assumed that this was the case with respect to elites under state socialism, no research has been conducted to measure the degree of agreement or division among the elite. The “nomenklatura” is regarded as distinctive under state socialism with respect to the selection and placement of people in positions of power. Because it was assumed that political criteria (loyalty and commitment to Party ideology) determined elite recruitment, it was contended that the system operated as a “politocracy” rather than a meritocracy. Contemporary Russian academics define the nomenklatura as a monolithic group of Party-Komsomol functionaries and technocrats.32 “[T]he Soviet elite was monolithic in nature, extending across all spheres of Party, state and social life. Its monolithic character was assured by the fact that all its members were communists, and by the manner in which all leading appointments had to be made or at least approved by higher-level Party bodies.33” An implication here is that political decay was caused by such a system of political patronage. Kolakowski, writing in 1971 about the negative characteristics of individuals’ promotion, has asserted that “The mechanism of power produces . . . a negative natural selection of the leading cadres in all parts of the ruling apparatus, but above all, in the Party apparatus.”34 While this is widely believed to be the case, there have been few sociological studies of this process; rather, the evidence is anecdotal35. The respondents were asked,“In your experience of people being promoted to positions of authority, how would you evaluate the importance of the following criteria for advancement?”36 The results for all the respondents are shown in table 6.8A. The major conclusion is that meritocratic factors are predominant—work performance, qualification, and education are in the top four ranks.The “nomenklatura” is in third place. This indicates a role for patronage (personal contact is mentioned fifth) but has to be seen in the context of other, more meritocratic factors. Ascription (family background, rural/urban locale) was ranked very low and is in keeping with the social mobility noted previously. The responses were re-divided into three groups: government ministers (59), Party leaders (23), and members of the Supreme Soviet (15). (The latter had no position in either Party or government elite.) (See table 6.8B.) Study of this table significantly modifies our picture of the determinants of

The Political Elite under Gorbachev Table 6.8a

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Determinants of Promotion: Total Elite Responses Responses

Determinant Work Performance Qualification Nomenklatura Education Personal Contacts Sex Chance Town/Village Social Origin Status of Parents

N

Rank

1

2

3

4

116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116

1.80 1.86 1.89 1.93 2.18 2.47 2.68 2.92 2.99 3.19

41 46 43 35 30 10 17 8 5 3

61 48 53 59 45 54 35 39 23 22

12 19 13 18 34 41 45 28 58 45

1 1 5 3 4 10 12 38 29 43

1. Of great significance 2. Of some significance 3. A little significant 4. Of no significance at all Non-response omitted.

Table 6.8b

Determinants of Promotion: Ranking by Government Ministers, Party Leaders, and Members of Supreme Soviet

Determinant Qualification Work Performance Education Nomenklatura Personal Contacts Sex Chance Town/Village Social Origin Status of Parents

Government Ministers Rank

Party Leaders Rank

Supreme Soviet Members Rank

1.61 1.62 1.71 2.03 2.40 2.40 2.69 3.03 3.10 3.44

1.82 1.86 2.08 2.13 2.60 3 3.30 3.34 3.21 3.60

2.4 1.93 2.46 1.73 1.66 2.26 2.66 2.53 2.46 2.53

N Government ministers (59), Party leaders (23), members of Supreme Soviet (15)

promotion. It is important to note that distinct parts of the elite gave different answers. Here we recognize that nomenklatura is pushed into fourth place by both the members of the government and Party elites: the top three criteria are all meritocratic.37 However, when we consider the views

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of the deputies to the Supreme Soviet, personal contacts (1.66) and nomenklatura (1.73) position are paramount.38 This finding is of some importance: people who were actually in leading bureaucratic positions, while conceding the role of nomenklatura links, believed that meritocratic criteria were of greater relevance. However, people in the “elected elite,” whom we may infer were closer to public opinion, emphasized patronage. This is the kind of evidence on which many researchers rely: McAllister and White, for example, emphasize the “cooptative recruitment pattern” running through “nomenklatura families.”39 While there is an element of truth here, their approach does not tell one which members of “nomenklatura” families were preferred, and one cannot assume that the values of fathers and sons or mothers and daughters were the same. Certainly, our discussion of social background does not lead one to believe that a “caste”like form of cooptation prevailed. Another dimension of the ascription/achievement pattern variable is explored through the networks of advice and support of the political leaders. We asked, “During your period in politics or work in politics, when you were confronted with a very difficult political decision, to whom or to which of the following people or groups would you have turned for advice?”40 The respondents had friendship patterns that were based on specific and performance characteristics. In the “often” category, colleagues (81 percent) were in first place, followed by friends (29 percent) who shared their political views, and previous colleagues. Family, though less important than colleagues, was still fairly significant (22 percent).41 The results would suggest a professional, work-related network rather than a family/locality pattern of support. To summarize: the political system had the characteristic of a modern, goal-orientated polity rather than a traditional one. Clearly, cooptation and family connections played a role in recruitment as it does in all societies, but the system had the characteristic of achievement rather than ascription. Such linkages would have undermined the nomenklatura as a system of political control and value consensus.

Political Integration To study the extent of moral solidarity of the political elite to the Communist political system and to government in general, the following question was posed: “In the last ten years of the USSR (i.e., in the late Brezhnev and Gorbachev period), whose interests do you think were most defended or promoted by individual members of the Central Committee of the CPSU?”42 The ranking of responses for all the elite is shown on


109

table 6.9A.The mean is an index to measure the response rate (the lower the rank the stronger the attachment). In first place came the collective interest of the Party, followed by that of the country as a whole.The members’“own” interests were ranked last, with 32.7 percent of the respondents giving a “mostly” response compared to the “interests of the country”— with a 51.7 percent rating. Does this infer a relatively high level of consensus—a moral community—on the part of the respondents and bear out the assertions of McAllister,White, and Kryshtanovskaia noted earlier? We shall argue that it does not. In order to determine whether these answers were concentrated among different groups of the elite, the respondents were disaggregated

Table 6.9a

Interests Promoted by Members of the Central Committee CPSU in Terminal Period of USSR (Gorbachev Elite)

Interest Responses (percent) Collective interest of party Country as a whole Group interests Working class/collective farmers Interests of Soviet institutions whom they represent Own personal interests Regional/national

Mean

1

2

3

4

N

1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9

54.3 51.7 43.1 40.5

31.9 31.9 43.1 33.6

11.2 12.1 9.5 21.5

2.5 4.3 4.3 4.3

116 116 116 116

1.8 1.9 1.9

33.6 32.7 26.7

56.0 44.8 59.5

6.9 17.2 12.0

3.4 5.2 1.7

116 116 116

N = 116. 1. Most of the time 2. Sometimes 3. Never 4. Don’t know; no answer

Table 6.9b

Differences in Elite Constituencies in Estimates of Altruism of Members of Central Committee CPSU (Percent)

Response “Country as a Whole” Mostly Never “Own Self Interest” Mostly Never

Government Officials

Party Leaders

Intelligentsia

59.3 10.2

65.2 4.3

43.2 13.6

20.3 25.4

26.1 17.4

34.1 1.4

110


into three constituencies: government ministers (59), Party leaders (23), and “intellectuals” (i.e., all members of the elite having, or having had, professional positions) (44).This last group overlaps with the others. Here, important differences may be detected in the rankings between these groups. (See table 6.9B).The least alienated groups from the dominant institution of power of Soviet socialism were the Party leaders themselves. Here, 65.2 percent believed that the Central Committee served the “country as a whole” though 4.3 percent thought that it never did. Government ministers also had a relatively high estimate of the Central Committee. (Remember that all were also members of it.) Nearly 60 percent believed that it served the country, and 25.4 percent believed that its members never furthered their own interest. Despite the positive appraisal of the role of the Central Committee by the Party and government elites, it is remarkable that significant minorities among them had very little confidence in the role of the Central Committee to act altruistically and in the country’s interest. Moreover, there were important differences when one examines the members of the political elite with an “intelligentsia” background (these included people overlapping with the other two constituencies). This group had the highest level of political alienation. Over two-fifths believed that Central Committee members “mostly” served their own interests and 13.6 percent believed that they never served the interests, of the country as a whole.43 We see here an indication of ideological and political division within the political elite, making it far from a moral community “totally committed to the system.” In a Weberian class sense, the intelligentsia (all employees with higher educational qualifications, or “professionals”) have better “market” chances than “bureaucrats”—those solely dependent on administrative position and administrative redistribution. The market would allow them to realize their intellectual assets and would also give possibilities for the possession of private property.They were a latent “acquisition” class.44 However, as members of the political elite, they enjoyed status and privileges under state socialism.Their political position was ambiguous. Depending on the likelihood of political success, they would endorse one or the other system of power. Gorbachev severely weakened not only the solidarity of the political class (those dependent on top bureaucratic government or Party positions) but reduced considerably the costs of opposition by a potential acquisition class. Hence, the “outward” ideological unity of the political elite was a function of the costs of dissent, rather than a consequence of shared sentiments. The leadership of Gorbachev was decisive in changing this relationship: it indicated to the acquisition class that it had more potentially to gain than it had to lose. As the political leadership of Gorbachev moved to accept the market and


111

other political reforms, the Party’s own professional cadres were among the first to shift their ideological allegiance away from the political class to the acquisition one. At the elite level of Soviet power, this research shows ideological and interest division among the members of the political elite. To analyze the configuration of national elites, Higley and Pakulski define them in terms of “elite unity” and “elite differentiation” (see figure 1.1). State socialist regimes had an “ideological elite” with strong elite unity and narrow differentiation. Our discussion would lead one to question this typology with respect to the analysis of the transitional elite structure. The Soviet elite had higher levels of differentiation and had much weaker unity than is supposed by those who adopt a “partocratic regime” position. Rather than there being “strong” elite unity and narrow differentiation, the Gorbachev elite was fragmented. A fallacy of much analysis is the assumption that Party membership or “nomenklatura” position entailed ideological and political homogeneity.The “nomenklatura” as a political and social category is not very useful as an analytical tool because it was constituted from very diverse constituencies. There were 14 different ranks within the nomenklatura, including position-holders in the Party and Komsomol, government executives, managers, and directors in industry, those with leading positions in the cultural sphere (widely conceived), as well as other, lower-level authority positions, such as head teachers and physicians. Moreover, ideology, rather than being a dependent variable defining elite structure (the “ideological elite” in figure 1.1) is an independent variable—affecting the unity or disunity of the elites. Marxism-Leninism has many different connotations, and the ideological environment included social-democratic, liberal, and traditional belief systems. As the CPSU broke up from 1989, it became evident that—like all one-Party regimes—the Party contained many ideological factions. To analyze comparatively the complexity of elite configurations, elite structures may be analyzed in terms of four variables; elite differentiation, policy agreement, political culture, and ideological affinity.

The Political Orientation of the Political Elites What values gave rise to the “solidarity” of elites? To what extent did the leaders share similar beliefs concerning the role of government and the participation of the public? To what extent were they agreed about the legitimacy of the Soviet system? A number of questions were asked that explored the moral values, and the understanding of the role of government,

112


and of the participation of citizens in the evaluation of the political system. The questions posed were comparable to those in the study of Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman.45 We first consider the elite political culture in the sense of the attitudes of the respondents to political participation and we make comparisons with data on European executives. We consider the attitude of the respondents to politicians, then turn to their opinion of the public. We posed the following statement: “The interference of politicians in affairs which are properly the business of the government is a disturbing feature of contemporary public life.” The distribution of answers is shown in table 6.10A. Over 80 percent of the elite regarded politicians as an illegitimate interference (columns A and B). It is clear that the elite under Gorbachev was completely at variance with Western European civil servants—in Britain, the comparative figure was only 9 percent. Hence, the political leadership was not inclined towards a participatory Parliamentary system. “Compromise” is the hallmark of “political” administrators as contrasted to “classical” bureaucrats, whose values are primarily for efficiency. A number of questions established that the Gorbachev political elite was of the “classical” bureaucratic style. The respondents were asked whether, “At present compromise is more important than efficiency in government.” Rather more than half of the respondents showed respect for “compromise”: of the total elite, 52 percent; of the government elite, 64 percent. (See table 6.10B.) These data are more comparable to the views of Japanese (66 percent) than American (41 percent) civil servants reported by Aberbach and others.46 An assessment of the compromise/disagreement variable may be made by the respondents” attitudes to the role of interests in politics. We asked their opinion on the following assertion: “The general welfare of the country is endangered by the continual clash of particularistic interest groups.” Table 6.10C illustrates that attitudes to the activity of interest groups were almost completely asymmetric compared to those in Britain and Germany. Quite clearly, distrust of pluralist politics was universally shared by the Soviet political elite. A third assertion probed attitudes to political parties and groups (table 6.10D)47: “Although political parties and groups48 play an important role in a democracy often they uselessly exacerbate political conflicts.”The responses showed a fairly strong value system of intolerance for a pluralist political process (over 95 percent of the government elite agreeing with the proposition). Here they differed from Western European bureaucrats and were very similar to the attitudes displayed by the Italians. Support for political liberty was weak.


113

Table 6.10a Role of Politicians A

B

C

D

E

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

All (116) 61 Govel (59) 40 Supreme Soviet (15) 5

52.6 67.8

34 13

29.3 22

8 4

6.9 6.8

9 2

7.7 3.4

33

7

47

2

1

7

Britain Germany Italy

1 16 62

N

13

8 27 21

28 32 12

N Percent 2

1.7

63 25 5

A Strongly agree B Agree with reservations C Disagree with reservations D Strongly disagree E Difficult to say F Non-response (not shown) Data for Britain, Germany, and Italy from Robert Putnam, “The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants of Western Europe,” British Journal of Political Science 3, (1973): 257–290, 270. Putnam’s question referred to the business of “Civil Servants” rather than “government” as in our question.

Table 6.10b At Present, Compromise Is More Important than Is Efficiency in Government A N All (116) 39 Govel (59) 23 Supreme Soviet (15) 6

B

C

D

E

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

N Percent

33.6 30

30 15

19 25.4

16 9

13.8 15.3

22 9

19 15.3

4 3

4.4 5

40

3

20

2

13.3

2

13.3

1

6.7

Japan agree: 66 percent United States agree: 41 percent Data for Japan and US: J.D. Aberbach et al., “Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites,” British Journal of Political Science 20 (1990): 473.

Fourthly, we asked whether, “The freedom of political propaganda is not an absolute freedom and the government should carefully regulate its use.” Sixty eight percent of the political elite agreed with this statement, and 41 percent of the government constituency was “strongly in

114


Table 6.10c

The General Welfare of the Country Is Endangered by the Continual Clash of Particularistic Interest Groups A

B

C

D

E

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

All (116) 71 Govel (59) 42 Supreme Soviet (15) 8

61.2 71.2

31 13

26.7 22

4 1

3.4 2

8 3

6.9 5

53

4

26.6

0


4 9 48

N

3

14 10 40

N Percent 1

.9

20

48 45 11

34 36 1

Data for Britain, Germany, and Italy from Robert Putnam, “The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants of Western Europe: A Preliminary Report,” British Journal of Political Science 3, (1973): 270.

Table 6.10d Although Political Parties and Groups Play an Important Role in a Democracy, Often They Uselessly Exacerbate Political Conflicts A

All (116) Govel (59) Britain Germany Italy

B

C

D

E

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

68 41

58.6 69.5

34 16

29.3 27.1

5

6.9 0

8 2

6.9 3.4

22 13 65

31 17 20

35 40 9

N Percent 1

.9

12 30 6

Questions related to Germany, Britain, and Italy refer only to “parties” (not groups). Data for Britain, Germany, and Italy from Robert Putnam, “The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants of Western Europe: A Preliminary Report,” British Journal of Political Science 3, (1973): 270.

agreement,” the government elite again being similar in character to that in Italy and being at variance with the two Western European countries. Finally, we probed elite attitudes to public participation: clearly, the political elite was opposed to popular political control; over 60 percent of the political elite and 73 percent of the government elite was against more


115

Table 6.10e In Modern Complicated Conditions, it Doesn’t Make Sense to Speak of Increased Control by Ordinary Citizens over Governmental Affairs A

All (116) Govel (59)

B

C

D

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

73 43

62.9 72.9

21 8

11 13.7

11 5

9.5 8.5

11 3

9.5 5 16 26 21

40 37 16

36 24 25

8 14 38


Data for Britain, Germany, and Italy from Robert Putnam, “The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants of Western Europe: A Preliminary Report,” British Journal of Political Science 3, (1973): 277.

Table 6.10f Creating Conditions of Equality of Income and Wealth Is One of the Major Tasks of Government A

All (116) Govel (59)

B

C

D

E

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

26 20

22.4 33.9

26 11

22.4 18.6

24 11

20.7 18.6

38 16

32.8 27.1

N Percent 2 1

1.7 1.7

Japan agree: 58 percent United States agree: 30 percent Data for Japan and U.S.: J.D. Aberbach et al., “Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites,” British Journal of Political Science 20 (1990): 484. Question for Japan was: The most important problem of government is to rectify differences of imcome among the people. Question for U.S. was: Rectifying differences of income among the people is a proper task of government.

public participation in the affairs of state—even more so than the most elitist of the West European countries studied. (See table 6.10E). In terms of the political culture variable, in Western pluralist polyarchies the ruling elite accepts the rights of participation by the non-elite. Clearly, the Soviet elite under Gorbachev was highly authoritarian. The political culture variable is an important component in understanding the elite structure because if indicates elite attitudes to non-elites. In elite theory, this is a crucial determinant of its democratic (or other) nature.

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One of the distinguishing features of state socialism was the comprehensive role of government and its regulatory role over the economy and the distribution of income. As to the role of the government in creating equality of income and wealth, the Soviet elite was significantly divided on this issue. Of the government elite, 52.5 percent were in favor of such a policy, slightly less than the Japanese. However, over 53 percent of the Soviet elite thought that creating conditions of equality and wealth was not a major task of government. This was a somewhat unexpected result and indicates considerable disagreement over policy issues. (As might be expected, the American administrators were more resolutely against such interference with the market.) (See table 6.10F.) Members of elites in stable polyarchies (either corporatist or pluralistic) by definition concur about the major institutional features of the regime, about the sanctity of private property, the market, the constitutional framework in which political power is exercised, and the legitimacy of political outputs. It is when the political elite becomes divided about values and goals that political decay and ultimately collapse may occur. Compare the ideological affinity49 of (stable) political elites in Western Europe with those in Gorbachev’s Russia. The country under Gorbachev was “in transition”—but transition to what? What type of political order did the members of the political elite have in mind? One way of tapping the vision of the future held by the leaders was to ask what kind of alternative system they thought would be appropriate to replace the existing one. The respondents were therefore asked whether there was any foreign country that could provide a model for the development of Russia.50 It is clear from the responses that the members of the political elite had no consensus about which country could be used as a model. The most frequently cited country was China (15), followed by Scandinavia (13), Germany (12), and the United States (11)51. By far, the majority of the elite respondents (66) believed that Russia had to find its own way, and spontaneously declared that no other country could be used as a paradigm.These responses showed considerable divergence between members of the Gorbachev political elite on the future course of development. There was clearly no generally held vision of a movement to capitalism on the model of the Western countries.52 The political elite either wanted no change, or were exceedingly unclear about how to replace or modify the Soviet system. The large minority looking to China is interesting for it shows that an economic reform, without a political reform, would have had considerable support among sections of the elite, and with hindsight this might have provided political stability in the short run from which Gorbachev could later have moved to political reform. Clearly, such a policy would


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have been congruent with the political elite’s “classical” bureaucratic outlook and autocratic values.Wanting a “Russian” path is a formula for muddling thought. These views undoubtedly indicate significant elite division, not only on the need for reform but also on the basis of how reform could proceed. An elite, in which a significant minority did not want change and others believed that its structure was fundamentally flawed, is unquestionably unstable and is a sure recipe for breakdown. As a large proportion of the political elite had psychological orientations of a “subject-political” rather than democratic type, it is obvious that a “democratic transition” was impossible. Figure 6.1 summarizes the elite structure in terms of the four variables we have discussed (political values, political culture, ideological affinity, elite differentiation).To analyze the transitional elite structure, we suggest a number of different possible outcomes. A stable polyarchy (“consensual elite”) may be of two types (see Boxes I and III): pluralistic (with wide elite differentiation and strong ideological affinity) or corporatist (narrow differentiation and strong ideological affinity).53 A characteristic of both is agreement on fundamental systemic political values between elite members (and between constituencies). Polyarchy rather than democracy is considered a more appropriate label. Unstable elite configurations are illustrated in boxes II and IV.The Soviet elite under Gorbachev had neither strong ideological nor interest affinities. A section of the political elite led by Gorbachev was the major mover of radical political reform whereas other sectors supported correcting the traditional state socialist system.The political elites under Gorbachev were “divided”—an authoritarian, unstable elite.The elite had a narrow differentiation (a limited set of institutional actors) compared to other transitionary societies54, it was divided in terms of ideological integration and related political issues, and its political culture was authoritarian. It was an authoritarian and divided elite—hence an unstable regime (box IV).

Transformation and State Socialism If the literature on transition, which conceives of political change as a “consequence—direct or indirect—of important shifts within the authoritarian regime itself,”55 is correct in the context of state socialism, it involves a reappraisal of elite politics in the USSR in its final terminal period under the leadership of Gorbachev.Traditional analysis of Soviet-type systems, encapsulated in terms of partocracy, unitary elite, and nomenklatura “caste,” has proved to be incapable of explaining systemic reform led from

Figure 6.1 Constellations of National Political Elites (and Associated Regime Types) Policy Agreement Wide Elite Differentation Narrow

Disagreement

I. Pluralistic elite (stable polyarchy) III. Corporatist elite (stable polyarchy)

II. Fragmented elite (unstable polyarchy) IV. Divided elite (authoritarian unstable regime)

Strong

Weak Ideological Affinity

Participatory Political Culture Authoritarian


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the top. Study of the evidence provided by the Gorbachev political elite has shown that its members were fundamentally divided in terms of both ideological affinity and political values.This research confirms the conclusion of Archie Brown’s study of Gorbachev:“ . . . nothing was more obvious than the fact that the Soviet elite was deeply divided and that only a minority within the Politburo and the Central Committee and its departments, not to speak of the KGB and the army, were in favor of change as far-reaching as Gorbachev was prepared to countenance.”56 By the end of Gorbachev’s rule, the political elite was no longer a moral community.The widely held notion of the “nomenklatura” having a ubiquitous, cohesive function must be rejected.The “nomenklatura” system of recruitment had failed to instill a unitary ideology; the pattern of political mobility was relatively open and not unlike that of Western European politics in the 1970s. The testimony of the members of the former political elite casts doubt on the exclusive patronage form of promotion, and values of “achievement” were widely shared. Nomenklatura position was symbolic and nominal in many cases, and did not entail political solidarity or ideological conformity. The political elite was fundamentally divided, members of the “nomenklatura” were in ambiguous (or contradictory) class locations57 (see chapter 8), and sections of the Soviet “intelligentsia” within the political elite—clustered in the Supreme Soviet and the Party elite—were at variance with the values of the Soviet system and alienated from it.This group provided Gorbachev’s political ballast for the move to radical reform. The breakdown of the USSR was not a revolution driven by forces in society, it was a consequence of failed political reform, propelled from the top, essentially by Gorbachev and other colleagues within the elite of the CPSU. Unlike political elites in stable Western European countries, the Soviet elite not only was severely divided internally but also contained significant individuals, including the head of state, who were intent on total reconstitution of the regime. Rather than a unitary elite under state socialism, there were important divisions that were exacerbated by the policy of radical reform. Our interviews have shown that there was a range of views on the need for change, and on the type of change. Hence, a negotiated settlement with ascendant elites pushing for reform and making “pacts” with the incumbent elite—which is the typical scenario of “democratic transition”—was not achieved. Elite dissention created a political vacuum that was filled by the democratic movement led by a fallen elite member,Yeltsin. This was essentially a negative, anti-communist movement rather than an organic outcome of the modernization process. Study of the views of the political elite leads one to conclude that in major policy matters, in the terminal period of the USSR, demands “from society” (epitomized in Poland by Solidarity),

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anticipated by writers such as Parkin and Giddens, appear to be minimal. The main agents anticipated by the Marxist view of revolutionary change—new economic institutions and the working class—were also minor actors.58 Such interests, of course, may have had latent effects in creating more amorphous demands shaping expectations but they did not impinge as direct political forces.Two political groups external to the political elite successfully projected their interests: (1) regional and nationalist leaders seeking to replace the center with their own authority; and (2) the politically conservative and economically capitalist leaders of the leading Western nations who advocated a policy of competitive markets in the polity (parties and elections) and economy (privatized production for exchange).The process of internal reform provides a classic case in which the radical reform leadership under Gorbachev in its domestic disputes sought a common interest with foreign world actors politically and economically to further its policy.59 A consequence—in a state which had had a relatively autarkic form of policy-making—was to amplify elite dissension. Theoretical analysis of radical change and “transition politics” therefore, has to include the international linkages between regimes, especially the consequences of political dependence. Interaction between systems is as important as what happens within them. The ways this influence may be exercised have not been explored here; they include direct intervention, indirect pressure, and ideological and cultural subversion.60 In many other respects, the political culture of the political elite was different from that of Western European political leaders who, as a whole, were committed to pluralist institutions and participatory political processes.The disposition of the Soviet administrative elite was not one of “political compromise” but of “administrative efficiency.” Their political orientations and culture were authoritarian and not favorable to Westerntype participatory politics. Within-system reform, as contemplated by Gorbachev, could never have succeeded concurrently with political stability because the political elites were divided about the fundamental nature of the Soviet system. While members of the political elite universally attributed blame for the failure of reform and for the collapse of the USSR to Gorbachev himself, it was also a consequence of major disagreements between the elite actors themselves about the nature of the Soviet system and the possibility for reform. Though many of the Party elite and elected legislators concluded that the system was basically flawed and favored radical reform, a large number of leading government executives believed that the Soviet system was “fundamentally sound.” The political space between the components of the political elite was too wide for a “negotiated settlement” (associated with transition to democracy), and consequently the transition from state


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socialism was one of systemic breakdown. An implication for elite theory is that the political preferences and alliances of incumbent political leaders are salient issues in understanding regime change. Moreover, demands on such leaders have to take into account the policy of dominant actors in the international arena,61 which, as Pipes62 has forcibly argued, can undermine an unstable dependent regime. In the case of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reformers’ identification with the policy interests of foreigners intensified elite instability and furthered collapse. A possible “conservative” pattern of change would have been that of the Chinese pattern-a move to markets and greater efficiency in the economy coupled to the traditional one-Party system in the polity.There was not a strong preference among the elite for the promotion of equality of wealth and income, and hence the greater economic inequality consequent on market forms would not have had great opposition. Gorbachev, however, formed an alliance with the “intelligentsia” intent on political change. As we noted in earlier chapters, he had changed the criteria for entry to the ruling elite and shifted the balance from the traditional supports of state socialism to the intelligentsia which, in our view, was an incipient “acquisition” class.This shift, in turn, exacerbated elite division.As a ruling group, the elite collectively had lost its will and purpose to rule. With the divisions over ideology, policy, and the strategy of reform, political collapse was inevitable. Like Kerensky in February 1917, President Yeltsin did not seize power; the established leadership relinquished it.


Appendix 6.1

Defining the Political Elite

The political status of the people in the sample may be illustrated by analysis of the positions held in the Party apparatus and the government (including the advisers to the president), and by other positions during the period 1 January 1985 through 31 December 1992. Those interviewed included the following from the Communist Party elite: 9 members of the Politburo, 9 secretaries of the Central Committee CPSU, and 18 departmental heads. Other posts held by the Party elite included: first deputy and deputy heads of All-Union Central Committee, 10; obkom secretaries, 12. Lower-level posts in the Central Committee apparat, including personal secretaries and aides to Gorbachev, 10; All-Republican apparat, 8; local Party organizations (CPSU), 1.The total is greater than 24 due to mobility between positions. The other major component of the Soviet structure of power was the government apparatus to which, in the terminal period of the USSR, may be added the apparatus of the president. Our sample included 11 members of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, 53 people with the status of ministers or chairs of State Committees, 4 ambassadors (or previous ambassadors) and 11 presidential advisers to Gorbachev.These numbers are greater than mentioned in the discussion earlier because of movement between positions over time.Also, some people had joint positions in Party and government bureaucracy. To handle this problem, the person was allocated to the highest position or to the one held for the longest period of time or for which the person is best known. Though these people also held positions in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (the Soviet parliament), other regional and republican elite members could not be systematically included in the research, and hence the Supreme Soviet elite as such was not studied.The representatives from republics and regions had long departed from Russia, and it was impossible to contact them with the resources available. To define the “influentials,” we interviewed in a prior study 68 people— deputies to the Supreme Soviet, government officials, Party leaders, political advisers, and journalists—to determine whom they thought were influential on certain issues, and we later took advice from specialists in public opinion research at ROMIR (a public opinion polling organization). These responses, of course,

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included people with positions as defined previously in the Party and government elites, as well as other influential people (such as journalists, writers, academics, and politicians) outside the formal apparatus of power.The latter were the basis of the third constituency of the study, forming the “reputational” political elite; six of the respondents held posts in international organizations (such as UNESCO and Comecon). The largest group (36 people) was employed in research and higher educational institutions. Another important and related group of intellectuals was “political” professionals—heads and professors in the Party’s and trade union’s higher educational institutions (8 persons); voluntary associations (such as the Soviet Peace Committee) and trade union’s (31). In the economic institutions of the former Soviet Union were 4 people, and in new ones (associations linked to the emerging market sector) were 30. (Many of the officeholders, of course, overlapped). Fifty-nine members of the sample were deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and 19 were deputies to Supreme Soviets of the republics, almost exclusively the Russian Republic (RSFSR). As these members overlapped with the Party and political elites, they are not analyzed separately. We were unable to include a representative number of members of the Supreme Soviet elite, though in the analysis 15 of the sample who were exclusively members (i.e., they were not jointly in the government or Party elites) are placed in a “Supreme Soviet” group. These should be considered as a Soviet deputies constituency rather than a Supreme Soviet elite. The collapse of the USSR (from August 1991), when the project was being organized, led to numerous problems in the interviewing of elite members. Following the breakup of the Union, many leaders from the republics and national areas returned there. The Communist Party was disbanded, its political elite were scattered, and a few were even imprisoned.Time and the momentous events of 1991 also took their toll on the elite members: many were over 80 years old in the late 1980s, and some had died by the time the interviews commenced in the autumn of 1993.The events of that year—the storming of the Russian Parliament building and the death and imprisonment of some its occupants—diminished further the elite constituency. Thirty six of our potential interviewees, for one reason or another, did not participate in the research, including some who were influenced by the psychological climate of late 1993-early 1994. Finally, the collapse of the Soviet administrative and political system made contacting many members of the elite impossible.

Part II

The Post-Soviet Governing Elites


Chapter 7

The Ascendant Elite:Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, 1990–1993

The collapse of the USSR government and the declarations of sovereignty by the previous republics of the USSR pose important questions concerning the role of political elites in political change. The role played by the leaders of the Russian Parliament was crucial in the collapse of the USSR and the evolution of the Russian state. In chapter 5, we showed that the USSR parliamentary elite—at least until 1989—was dominated by people who also had positions in the elites of the government and Party. This was not true of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. We shall show that the political counter-elite, which played a dominant role in deposing Gorbachev, contained a different balance of people to that in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The composition of the former body, we believe, was typical of the kind of people who were instrumental in other republics in leading cessession movements away from the USSR.We make this comparison because if there were significant differences in the composition of the two bodies, and is evidence that a circulation of elites had taken place. Composition of the Russian Supreme Soviet 1. Deputies with Previous Government Posts Prior to the elections of 4 March 1990, of the 236 members of the elite of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR1, only 55 had had any previous position in the Soviet government at an All-Union or republican level.2 None had been a major figure in the USSR government. Only one,Yeltsin, had

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been a government minister—he had been a first deputy chair of the USSR State Building Committee.3 It was at the middle levels of administration in the provinces that a significant representation of the government apparatus was present. Thirtyfour people had leading oblast posts, such as chair or deputy chair or head of department (including deputy chairs of the Supreme Soviet, Agafonov and Iarov)4. Thus, there were very few people elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic who could be said to have had very high status in the government apparatus of the RSFSR or the USSR. These were largely men of middle-ranking officialdom. 2. Deputies with Previous CPSU Posts Of the 45 people with a position in the Party apparatus, there was only one who had reached the rank of All-Union secretary of the CPSU. This was the fallen figure of Yeltsin, who had held the position briefly under Gorbachev. There were no heads or deputy heads of the AllUnion Central Committee apparat. Only four persons—Abdulatipov (chair of Council of Nationalities), Bokov (sub-committee chair of the Commission for International Relations), Saenko (co-chair of National Salvation Front), and Syrovatko (deputy chair, Council of Nationalities)—had held the minor posts of “instructor” in the Central Committee apparat. Again, it was in the provincial Party apparatus that a significant number had held positions of power. There were 13 people who had been obkom first or second secretaries5. Here again, the picture is one of middle-ranking Party members whose roots were in the provinces. None of the established Party leaders ran for office in the Russian Republic, because they believed that its government was only a minor source of power. We make two conclusions from this analysis. First, the members of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet elite had only a minor stake in the major institutions of Soviet power in the USSR. Second, it can hardly be argued that the RSFSR Supreme Soviet replicated the traditional form of Soviet power: the leaders of Party and Soviet state were largely absent. Study of the political behavior of these groups sheds considerable light on the class interests of the political elites, a fact that we believe helps to substantiate the division between an administrative and an acquisition class.We demonstrate how this may be shown by studying their voting records in the crucial issues that divided the RSFSR Supreme Soviet between December 1990 and March 1993.

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Voting and Political Alignment One of the most important attributes of elites is the extent of their consensus and division. It is widely held that one of the major determinants of political stability is consensus among leaders.We noted earlier (see chapter 5) the divisions in the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Here we consider, first, the extent to which these divisions were paralleled among the elite of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic; and second, whether there were any significant groupings of interests among the leaders.6 Many commentators have asserted that the factional or political alignments of the deputies in the Russian Parliament are not good indicators of political preference. Richard Sakwa, for example, in discussing the voting at the Sixth Congress in April 1992, has remarked that “Factors other than allegiance to a bloc have to be found to explain actual voting behavior.The key factor in voting patterns was the social and occupational structure of the Congress.”7 The notion here is that parties lacked an ideological basis and were shifting associations of individuals clustered around leading figures. In order to explore these topics, we considered the voting records of the Congress between December 1990 and March 1993. Issues were selected on the basis of their importance and whether there had been division of votes. In order to test the hypothesis that voting was linked to occupation and social background, we analyzed the voting of the elite of the Supreme Soviet in three social categories and then turned to consider the factional alignment. As to the social categories, first we found those who had held senior government or Party posts during the period from 1 January 1985 to 1 March 1990 (this included persons in post or taking up a post during this time). Out of a total of 212 on whom we could find adequate biographies, 77 came into this category; of the 77, 22 had posts in both the Party and the government executive. The objective here was to discover the voting pattern of members of the Soviet elite with experience in the apparat in the Soviet Union.This, we believe, is a better way of understanding the social class of the deputies than considering their last or present occupation, which is given in the records of the Congress and is usually utilized by most commentators. Second, we considered elite members who were from the “intelligentsia” in the sense of deputies having professional positions (senior researchers, journalists, academics, doctors) between the period from 1 January 1985 to the end 1993.This gave a total of 82 people.

Table 7.1 Voting at Supreme Soviet of RSFSR, 1990–1993 (Selected Issues), by Total Vote and Social-Occupational Background

Motion Silaev reforms

Date of Vote (m/d/y)

Result

12/07/1990 Adopted

For institution of private property 12/12/1990 Rejected

For private ownership of land

12/12/1990 Rejected

For presidential power to perform anti-crisis 4/05/1991 Adopted

For adoption of Draft Union Treaty 5/22/1991 Adopted

Vote Pref *

Vote +

Total Vote %

Gov/Pty N

Gov/Pty %

Govt/Pty N

Prof %

835 41 32 164 283 650 59 80 379 552 36 105

77.9 3.8 3 15.3 26.4 60.6 5.5 7.5 35.4 52.5 3.4 9.8

55 2 3 17 17 53 3 4 21 48 3 5

71.4 2.5 4 22 22 68.8 3.9 5.2 27.2 62.3 3.9 6.5

68 2 0 12 40 41 5 6 18 44 4 16

82.9 2.4 0 14.6 48.7 37.8 6.1 7.3 21.9 53.6 4.8 19.5

491 383 50 148 635 76 36 325

45.8 35.7 4.7 13.8 59.2 7.1 3.4 30.3

31 39 1 6 45 7 3 22

40.2 50.6 1.3 7.8 58.4 9 3.9 28.5

57 12 3 10 41 10 2 29

69.5 14.6 3.6 12.2 50 12.2 2.4 35.3 (continues)

Table 7.1 (continued)

Motion


Result

To give Yeltsin right to rule by decree

11/01/1991 Adopted

Impeachment of the president

12/01/1992 Rejected

Confidence in the government

12/01/1992 Rejected

For pre-term elections of president and Supreme Soviet

3/12/1993 Adopted

Vote Pref *

Vote +

Total Vote %

Gov/Pty N

Gov/Pty %

Govt/Pty N

Prof %

575 266 58 173 352 428 77 215 423 357 54 238

53.6 24.8 5.4 16.1 32.8 39.9 7.2 20.1 39.5 33.3 5 22.2

46 16 5 10 22 33 7 15 29 25 6 17

59.7 20.7 6.5 13 28 42.8 9 19.4 37.6 32.4 7.8 22

44 19 4 15 14 44 6 18 21 33 3 25

53.6 23.1 4.8 18.3 17.0 53.6 7.3 21.9 25.6 40.2 3.6 30.4

532 222 42 276

49.6 30.7 3.9 25.7

38 12 2 25

49.3 15.5 2.6 32.4

47 8 2 25

57.3 9.7 2.4 30.4 (continues)

Table 7.1 (continued)

Motion Sets out referendum questions against Yeltsin


Result

3/27/1993 Adopted

Vote Pref *

Vote +

Total Vote %

Gov/Pty N

Gov/Pty %

Govt/Pty N

Prof %

621 223 36 192

57.9 20.8 3.4 17.9

48 14 4 11

62.3 18.1 5.2 14.2

37 24 2 19

45.1 29.2 2.4 23.1

Key * Voting Preferences: + For – Against = Abstained ? Did not vote (i.e., did not turn up to voting session) + Total members of Congress of People’s Deputies of Russion Parliament

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Third, we analyzed elite members by age; here we divided the elite into those under and those over 40 years on 1 March 1990 when they were elected to the Congress. The detailed voting is shown on table 7.1. The total vote refers to the Congress voting given in the Protocols.We searched the voting records for each of our elite members, and the aggregate for each group is shown in the Gov/Pty columns (votes by the Party government elite), and Prof (professionals). The distinction in terms of voting between those under and over 40 years old was not significant and is omitted from the tables. The first issue considered was the vote on Silaev’s report of the Council of Ministers with respect to the government’s policy of economic stabilization and conversion to a market economy. Here there appeared to be general accord between the members of the Supreme Soviet elite and the deputies in the Congress.Those with a professional background were particularly enthusiastic—83 percent voting in favor. The members of the Party government elite were also overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, though 22 percent did not vote. The second vote was a resolution on the introduction of private property; it aimed to insert into the constitution the principle of “sanctity and inviolability of private property.”This was a divisive issue and was rejected by the Congress: 61 percent voted against it and 26 percent for. Here we see some division among the Soviet’s elite: voting in favor were nearly half (49 percent) of the professionals; however, 69 percent of the previous government and Party leadership were against. A similar distribution of votes occurred with respect to the private ownership of land for agricultural production: the Party and government executives voted somewhat more strongly against it than the other elite members. The fourth vote gave to the government bodies of the RSFSR greater powers to carry out measures to deal with the economic and political crisis; to vote in favor was to support the Yeltsin leadership. Here, there were important differences between the members of the Soviet’s elite: a majority of the one-time executives voted against, whereas 70 percent of the professionals were in favor. The sixth vote, defined on table 7.1, was also concerned with strengthening the powers of the executive branch in the period of radical economic reform. Here, the Soviet executive and the Congress had similar levels of voting, though the ex-Party and ex-government executives were rather more in favor (i.e., 60 percent had a positive vote).The vote on the Union Treaty (vote 5) was passed with relatively little dissention, though over a third of the deputies did not vote. When one considers the impeachment of the president (vote 7), divisions in the Congress as a whole were replicated among its elite: notable here, however, is the firm backing given to Yeltsin by the professionals—

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this was the only category in which more than 50 percent voted in his support.They also voted rather more positively against a resolution to put on the agenda a motion of no confidence in the government. By March 1993,Yeltsin’s support had waned in the Congress and also among the elite of the Supreme Soviet. Motions that called for the elections of president and Supreme Soviet before the end of the constitutional period, and the questions in the Referendum of spring 1993 (votes 9 and 10) were all adopted. The final vote that defined the questions in the Referendum—including one of confidence in the president—had considerable support from the ex-Party government officials (62 percent) and rather less so (45 percent) from the professionals. On only three issues did social background have any statistically significant effect (at the 0.5 level)8.Those with a professional background voted in favor of private property and strongly supported Yeltsin and his policies whereas the previous government Party executive members voted consistently the other way on these key issues. Overall, however, study of the voting patterns in the Congress of the Parliament shows that the elite reflected the divisions of the Congress. There were significant divisions within these social categories though previous occupational background correlated with left-right issues. Hence, one could agree with Sakwa that on some issues there was some relationship between occupational position and political preference, but this was not always the case.

THE INTERREGNUM: REPLICATION OR CIRCULATION OF THE GOVERNING ELITE? While seizing political power and deposing the formal leaders of a regime is one important aspect of political revolution, an even more significant question is the extent to which the previous governing elite may be removed and replaced with another one. The political institutions in countries under communist rule had a much greater salience over the distribution of political and economic power than in Western societies where the economy is privately owned and controlled. The personnel of the government apparatus had legitimate control not only of the coordination of the economy but also of economic production and exchange. Seizure of the communist apparatus of government, therefore, is potentially of greater immediate consequence than in capitalist type societies. Following the collapse of the Communist regime under Gorbachev and the assumption of power by Yeltsin, new political institutions were created and a new political elite was installed. However, the extent to which the post-Soviet political leadership represents new class and social

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forces is a major concern of this book.To examine the “reproduction” or the “circulation” of elites, we consider the extent to which the holders of top political positions under Yeltsin had origins in the previous Soviet political elites. We studied the backgrounds of all 145 government leaders9 in post under Yeltsin between June 1991 and October 1993: this included the leaders in four administrations headed by Prime Ministers Silaev, Gaidar, Yeltsin, and Chernomyrdin.10 This group we define as the Russian governing elite.To establish continuity or renewal, we trace the origins of this group in the previous Soviet administrative, Party, and Supreme Soviet elites.11

Overlap with the Gorbachev Governing Elite Between April 1984 and August 1991, there were 230 persons who had the status of minister in the USSR government.12 Of the people with USSR ministerial status in post before 21 August 1991, only nine were absorbed into the Russian government under Yeltsin.13 In addition to the USSR government, which controlled the major institutions of Soviet power on an All-Union level, were the governments of the republics, which also had their own ministerial apparatus.Yeltsin, it will be recalled, was elected chair of the RSFSR (the Russian Federation) Supreme Soviet in May 1990 and President of the RSFSR in June 1991. In June 1990,Yeltsin was able to form a new RSFSR government under the leadership of Ivan Silaev, which was to replace the jurisdiction of the USSR government after Yeltsin’s successful counter-coup of August 1991. Of those who were appointed to Russian government posts over the period 1990 to August 1991, 33 ministers—and 3 members of the Presidium, Silaev (RSFSR prime minister 1990), Skokov (1990), and O. Lobov (1991)14—continued into the post-August 1991 governments of the Russian Republic.15 These men16 provided important continuity with the previous Soviet government. Many of the new governing elite were “in place” under Yeltsin before the collapse of the USSR.This fuels a suspicion that even if the attempted coup (which consequently was used to legitimate Yeltsin’s own coup) of August 1991 had not taken place, an alternative governing elite was waiting in the wings to take power. However, it is important to qualify the above analysis in two ways: first,Yeltsin inherited Gorbachev appointees to the administration of the USSR and the RSFSR; and second, many of these leaders did not stay permanently in the political elite.

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We contend that there was relatively little overlap between the Gorbachev and Yeltsin political elites, and we shall show that the Russian governing elite was constituted from two groups: first, new people who had entered government from positions outside the state administration and were placed in position by Yeltsin; and second, a significant number of the Yeltsin elite who were appointed to the government of the Russian Republic before the significant events of the autumn of 1991.

Posts Held under the Soviet Regime Our first task is to consider the origins of the new ruling elite. We have noted that relatively few were in the USSR governing elite. It is possible, however, that they may have held, if not the very top posts in the Soviet regime, ones of influence in lower positions in the administration or in the Party network. In order to examine these propositions, we analyzed the careers of the Yeltsin government elite in previous government and Communist Party posts. Following the procedure we adopted with the Gorbachev elite (see chapters 2–4), we created a government saturation index (GOVSAT) in which we measured the number of years in Soviet government executive posts weighted by their rank.17 It should be noted that only previous executive positions in the state apparatus (ministers and lower-level executives) are included here; representative and elected positions (such as deputy status in the Supreme Soviet or local soviets) are ignored. While our data are based on published biographical data and cannot be considered to include every position held by every member, they certainly contain all the major figures and their chief posts. What, then, of the government apparatus; did its members continue in a new guise under Yeltsin? We studied the positions held by the elite members of the four different Russian government administrations (those of Silaev,Yeltsin, Gaidar, and Chernomyrdin) and the president’s apparatus to determine what positions they occupied in government and Party before 21 August 1991—after that date Yeltsin and his supporters strongly influenced appointments to the USSR government even when Gorbachev was nominally in power. The average government participation of the 145 executives as measured by our index was only 152 (we included here all posts up to and including those held on 21 August 1991).This included 34 people who had had no participation at all in the government apparatus. By way of comparison, the 212 government ministers in post under Brezhnev and Gorbachev had an index average of 693 (including all their posts).18 These

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results would indicate that there had been a “circulation” rather than a “reproduction” of elites. On closer examination of the careers of the 145 making up the Yeltsin ruling elite, we were able to distinguish three types of executive: 1. Those with a saturation of over 200: 35 people whom we have defined as “career officials.”This group was headed by people such as Guzhvin, Silaev, Vorontsov, A. Iakovlev, Lazarev, Chernomyrdin, and Gerashchenko.19 2. Those with indexes of 40 to 200: 64 leaders we have called “intermediates.”This group includes people who had recently joined the state bureaucracy, such as Yeltsin, Oleg Lobov, Stanislav Anisimov, and Iurii Skokov. (Yeltsin, of course, also had experience in the Party administration). 3. Those with scores under 40, including the majority (34) who had no government experience at all.This group of 46 we have termed “New Men.” In terms of elite circulation, this group is the most important to study as its members have entered state service from the outside and may represent new class interests. Only by a careful analysis of their background can one establish whether they are in fact a “new class” or whether they had links with the previous institutions of Soviet power. They include people such as Egor Gaidar, Georgii Khizha, and Vladimir Shumeiko. (For occupational histories, see biographies in appendix 1). We have made the cut-off points rather severe to bring out the differences between the top group of established officials and the new men. Remember that here, in order to establish the continuity of the political elites, we are measuring their time in government (and presidential) executive posts begun before 21 August 1991.

The Occupational Background of the Yeltsin Political Elite In order to generalize about the extent to which the new political elite represented a new political stratum or class, we have to analyze their previous occupational background as a major indicator of their class position (and we use class in a Weberian sense). Here, we appraised the work backgrounds of the governing elite in the period before Gorbachev lost power in August 1991. Each activity was coded as shown, and an index was constructed on the basis of time in each category. (No weights were used in this strategy.)

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The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Graph 7.1 Yeltsin Ruling Elite Backgrounds: 1960–1985

Abbreviations AE Agricultural Executive G Government Executive Post IE Industrial Executive IW Industrial Worker M Military (career) NM Non Manual

P PE PP R ST TU

Professional Party Executive Party Professional Research Student Trade Union

Moreover, a further qualification is necessary. As some of the political elite owed their promotion to Gorbachev himself (notably Yeltsin), they could not be considered to have been part of the “traditional” Soviet administration.Therefore, we examined the background of every member of the Yeltsin elite from January 1960 to March 1985.We also excluded periods of employment of less than three continuous years on the grounds that their occupational status would be determined by fairly long periods of service. Graph 7.1 summarizes the years of service in various activities of the careerists and the New Men. The former had already begun a career in government service and had overlap with spells in the Party executive and in agricultural and industrial supervisory work.A significant number of the

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New Men, who were overwhelmingly of intelligentsia background, having had positions in the professions (law, journalism, university teaching) or research (particularly in the Academy of Sciences) had also spent a considerable time in study (often at a post-graduate level); a small number, unlike those under Gorbachev, had had a military background.

Links with the Previous Communist Party Elite Membership and participation in the Communist Party is obviously an important determining characteristic of the previous Soviet elite. Of the total Yeltsin governing elite, 69 (or 47 percent) of the 145 claimed to have been members of the Party, though here one must bear in mind a possible tendency on the part of the respondents not to make public previous involvement. (We have searched for biographical information in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, and most of our information is derived from the latter.) Only 40 people had had any position in the Party apparatus or in one of its institutions: here we include what we have defined as “Party professionals,” who may have been working on Party journals or in its educational institutions (such as higher Party schools or academies). Only one of the new governing elite had had any significant position in the Komsomol. A caveat here is necessary: for many people, Party membership may have been something of a ritual, a necessary condition of certain jobs, though it was an important agency for socialization and the making of contacts. An analogy may be made with Church membership in the later Middle Ages: all citizens were members, though not all believers. Non-membership, however, may be important in a negative way by indicating those who had not been part of the previous system and therefore could not in any way be said to be exercising “inherited” Party privilege. What is important from the point of view of the replication of previous status is the overlap of people with top executive and political posts. Only three people—Primakov, (chair of the Russian State Committee on Foreign Intelligence),Yeltsin, and A. Iakovlev—had been Politburo members. A total of 12 had been members of the Party’s Central Committee. Twenty-seven had been full-time members of the Party bureaucracy in some capacity—7 had work experience of 10 years20 or more, and another 7 had between 5 and 10. Party professionals are intellectuals whose role is ideologically to legitimate the system of Communist power. They are people who may have worked on the leading Communist Party journals and newspapers, or taught and researched at the Party’s leading higher schools and academies—

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which awarded their own degrees and diplomas. There were only seven men who had served in such capacities in our study, and three had over 25 years service (Kostikov, press secretary to Yeltsin; Poltoranin, Russian deputy chair and minister of Mass Information and Media; and Primakov, noted earlier.) Table 7.2 shows the Party linkages between the members of the three government groupings that we have defined. The table shows that the Party membership was greatest with the first two groups. Here, too, the density of members in the Party executive (see Apparatus) was greatest. Previous Party professionals, it may be concluded, provided a relatively small but important number (only 7) of the new Yeltsin ruling elite. As far as the New Men are concerned, as one would expect, they had relatively little participation—even in terms of Party membership, where some onethird had been members. Overall, apart from a few senior politicians, such as Yeltsin himself, the background of the Russian ruling elite contained relatively few people with a Party career or background; by far the majority have come from careers outside the previous power structure. However, though the numbers of ex-Party office-holders are relatively small (from 17 percent to 22.8 percent), the new governing elite did absorb, even at its highest levels, a significant number of people with established positions under Gorbachev—and this may have been the basis of division under Yeltsin. Such a hypothesis would be consistent with our findings with respect to the voting of the ex-government and Party executives in the Supreme Soviet that we have discussed. But the evidence does not suggest that the traditional Soviet Party elite reconstituted itself as a political elite under Yeltsin.

Table 7.2

Yeltsin Government Elite, by Previous Communist Party Connection

Government Saturation Career (35) Intermed (64) New Men (46) Totals

Party Member

Central Committee

Apparatus

Party Professional

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

19 34 16 69

54.3 53.1 34.7

6 6 0 12

31.5 17.6 0

8 11 8 27

22.8 32.3 17.3

1 4 2 7

2.1 11.7 12.5

Percentages indicate proportion of the group in the relevant Party position.

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Links with the Soviets As we have already emphasized, two of the most important agents of change in the transition from Soviet rule to capitalism were the Congresses of People’s Deputies and the elected Soviets, which were important institutions for the legitimation of change under both Gorbachev and Yeltsin. These bodies became springboards, as it were, for aspiring politicians. How far, then, did persons with a position here make it into the new ruling elite? Among the 145 members of the governing elite under Yeltsin, relatively few had been major figures in the Soviets: nine had been chairs of standing committees from the USSR Parliament, and eleven from the Russian parliament. Primakov had previously held the post of chairman of the Council of the Union in the USSR Supreme Soviet. Yeltsin had chaired a committee in the USSR Supreme Soviet (on architecture and construction) and was chair of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. Filatov (head of the presidential administration) was a first deputy chair, and Iarov (deputy chair of Russian government) and Shumeiko (first deputy chair of Russian government) held deputy chairs in the RSFSR Supreme Soviet.21 Important as these men were, however, the Congresses and Soviets did not provide a major avenue of political promotion.

Elite Circulation In August 1991,Yeltsin and his supporters effectively destroyed the power of the USSR government. The Russian government then began to take over in its territory the institutions previously controlled by the USSR government. Such actions were legitimated by the Parliament of the thenRussian Federation, and at first its members were generally in accord with a policy of sovereignty for Russia.This body had no previously high-ranking political personalities. It was composed overwhelmingly of people with a non-manual, higher-education background with roots in the provinces. However, after Yeltsin gained power, divisions appeared in the elite of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic. Socially, the president’s power was most firmly supported by those people having a professional background, and more strongly opposed by its members coming from the middle ranks of the previous Party and government hierarchy. Such social division was greatest on left-right issues; on other issues personal allegiances and preferences appear to have been the most significant forms of division.There are significant and consistent differences reflected in voting behavior between members of the elite depending on their allegiance to different political factions and groups. Our research shows that Russian

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politics were developing along lines that were highly correlated with ideological stances on a left-right axis.The parliamentary elite was internally divided. By January 1992,Yeltsin had created a new “reform government” and, under the guidance of Egor Gaidar, Russia embarked on a program of price liberalization and radical economic reforms. Our study has shown that the reform government contained very few members of the previous ruling elite—of either the USSR or the Russian Republic—in post before 1989 (only one, Silaev, was in post before 1985).Very few of the previous Party elite continued into the Yeltsin period:Yeltsin himself is most exceptional. The basis of continuity was formed by people appointed to the Russian government and in place in the 1990–91 period. We may hypothesize that Yeltsin, under his authority as president of the RSFSR, had already formed the core of a counter-elite to that incumbent under Gorbachev.At least half of the elite in power under Yeltsin were people new to government. A significant renewal of the ruling elite had taken place: the “New Men” did not occupy even lowly positions in the apparat of Party or government, they were recruited largely from academic institutions, particularly research institutes. While the Congresses of People’s Deputies provided a focus for and legitimation of the reform program, relatively few of its members were subsequently recruited into the ruling elite. As far as the ruling elite is concerned, the revolution in Russia cannot simply be regarded as the same wine in different bottles—the old nomenklatura has not reproduced itself. Rather, some middle-ranking officials from the old apparatuses have been promoted, and these have provided continuity. More important, moreover, is the influx of New Men who have formed an important part of the policy-making, cultural, and social apparatus.A circulation of elites would seem to have taken place.

Chapter 8

Mutation:The Political Elite, 1991–1995. Reproduction or Circulation?

By 1995,Yeltsin had secured control of the Russian government and was intent on a policy of radical transformation of the country.The society had embarked on a triple transition: from autocratic rule to pluralistic competitive parties (polyarchy); from a centrally planned economy to a market one; and from a collectivist, organic-type society to an individualistic “civil society.” The political elite of the transition period was now in place, and we turn from understanding the character of the elite that brought about the collapse of state socialism to the one that created the new transitional society. In the study of post-communist systems, the previous communist “nomenklatura” is taken to be a major indicator of elite change. A “circulation of elites,” it is contended by many writers, would imply that the collapse of state socialism has led to substantial variation in the character of the political leadership: in this case, the form of political recruitment associated with state socialism (the system of nomenklatura) has been broken and replaced by the rise of a different social stratum or class. A “reproduction of the nomenklatura,” on the other hand, means that the forms of previous domination continue—the Communist political elites have been reconstituted in a new political form, and the post-Communist political order is merely a new shell legitimating the previous forms of domination.1 Nomenklatura: Ruling Elite or Political Class? In the study of post-communist societies, the nomenklatura has moved to the center of the stage both as a major institution under state socialism and

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also as a bench-mark for the “transformation” and a focus for the “circulation” or “reproduction” of the political elites. A similar position is adopted with respect to the economic elites, who are discussed in chapter 9.2 The nomenklatura was a list of executive and authoritative posts in state socialist society for which the apparat of the Communist Party had the formal right of nomination, veto or dismissal. All such posts came under the Party’s scrutiny either directly—in the primary list (osnovaya nomenklatura)—or indirectly—when other organizations (state bodies) had secondary lists (uchetno-kontrol’naya nomenklatura) in which decisions were made in consultation with the appropriate Party apparat.3 The original function of this system of appointments was to enable the Party to maintain its political hegemony. Its control function was inaugurated under conditions of civil war during which “bourgeois” executives and professionals were suspected of disloyalty, and it continued in a much expanded form into the Soviet era. In its mature form, the nomenklatura was organized into 14 different ranks, from the Politburo to primary Party organizations.4 A vast number of posts were involved: Harasymiw calculates 330,000 on the CPSU primary nomenklatura alone in 1977, Rutland has suggested 1.8 million (excluding republican posts), and Willerton estimates 3 million (using data for the 1980s).5 Remember that we are concerned here with all “leading” posts in the Soviet economic, political, scientific, and cultural bureaucracy—including not only those in the Party’s own apparat but also positions in industry, parliaments, police, military, foreign affairs, science, and culture.The list would include chief engineers, head physicians, and head teachers. Even collective farmers and manual workers acting as (unpaid) Party secretaries or having posts in the Soviets would be included. The role and significance of the nomenklatura is subject to a variety of interpretations—particularly in its impact on the process of transition.The system had enormous potentialities for political control, and it is in this context that the nomenklatura is conflated with the ruling elite. Kryshtanovskaia and White define the ruling group as a monolithic and hierarchical “Soviet nomenklatura elite.”6 The studies by Szelenyi and Szelenyi, Hanley,Yershova, and Anderson define “the elites” in terms of the nomenklatura.7 Concurrent with its definition as a “political elite,” Szelenyi and Szelenyi define it as a “bureaucratic caste;”8 similarly, McAllister and White date the emergence of a “nomenklatura ‘caste’” to the 1960s and 1970s.9 Eyal and Townsley define the nomenklatura in the early days of Soviet power as an “estate”—in the sense of a rank-ordered society; later, however, they contend that “the nomenklatura was transformed from an ‘estate’ into the organisational base for ruling class formation.”10

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Higley and Pakulski are somewhat more guarded. They argue, “Although the differentiation of sectors and the elites heading them had increased with industrialisation and greater social complexity, the relative autonomy of most elite groups was still sharply limited.This was due to a semi-formal hierarchy of elite authority that ran through the Communist Party and was based in the nomenklatura system which licensed individuals for elite position-holding according to their political-ideological credentials.”11 Higley and Pakulski’s work highlights what is implicit in many other accounts—the elite’s high levels of ideological consensus, which, in turn, furthered the pattern-maintenance and political solidarity roles of the system of nomenklatura.The political elite is considered to be “unitary” in the sense that the autonomy of political interests are severely proscribed by the ruling party. People with dissenting views would not enter the elite after the rigorous selection procedure, and Party control of the nomenklatura would ensure consensus—both of individuals and institutions. Clearly then, while there are conflicting notions of nomenklatura, all the accounts considered it a dominant institution of rule: as a governing elite, as a social group possessing “closure” over positions of power and privilege, and as a means of securing loyalty and solidarity. The thrust of current research into the political settlement in Russia is that there has been a reproduction of the previous ruling elites, defined as the ruling “nomenklatura.” Olga Kryshtanovskaia reported a continuity between the Soviet and Russian political elites and claims that 75 percent of the new Russian political elite (including 74.3 percent of the government elite and 82.3 percent of the regional elite) originated in the old Soviet nomenklatura.12 This view is echoed by Dmitri Iurev, who has concluded that “the nomenklatura era has certainly ended, but the nomenklatura system remains.The nomenklatura . . . retain 80–90 percent of the actual positions in the bodies of power at all levels . . .What we have called the revenge of the nomenklatura is developing right now.”13 Lilia Shevtsova and Scott Bruckner argue that, “there has been only minimal turnover in the elite that ran and profited from the Soviet system. Indeed, those who eventually undertook to reform the regime were people who made it into the communist nomenklatura under Brezhnev and Gorbachev. Communism may have fallen, but most of the communists have not.”14 Similarly, Ian McAllister and Stephen White emphasize that “revolutions are always elite transformations” but conclude that “The collapse of Soviet communism and the empire that it created has not . . . produced an alternative political elite to govern the country.”15 It enjoys analogous (or even enhanced) forms of privilege and has the same social origins and type of recruitment. In a nutshell, the previous political interests have been “reproduced.” In terms of elite solidarity and division, the logic of

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this approach is that a similar consensual, ideological elite to that of Soviet socialism characterizes the elite under Yeltsin—though no evidence is provided on this point. A comparable, though more circumspect, conclusion is reached by Szelenyi and Szelenyi,16 who argue that in Russia “51 percent of the 1993 elites were in a nomenklatura position in 1988.”17 Contrasting Russia to Eastern Europe, they point out that “the former nomenklatura in Russia was more successful at retaining its position of power and privilege,”18 though they conclude that their “data do not support a simple elite reproduction or power conversion theory.”19 Moreover, they do not theorize these changes and, like other authors we have mentioned, they conflate nomenklatura into the ruling elite. We maintain that it is untenable to define the nomenklatura as a “ruling elite” as its magnitude belies a ruling political elite in the accepted sense of a group of people with power to affect regularly substantive decisions that are national in scope. Not only did the nomenklatura include non-elite people, but its role was much more than executive decisionmaking.The function of the nomenklatura was to strengthen the loyaltysolidarity integrative system, to perform functions in the resource mobilization system, and to act as a foundation in the political support system. In Durkheimean terms, it was a form of mechanical solidarity20. In elite theory, a better case can be made that the nomenklatura was a “political class” in the sense used by Mosca. He distinguishes between a class and an elite: a political class contains “all those groups which exercise political power or influence and are directly engaged in struggles for political leadership; . . . within the political class a smaller group, the political elite, comprises those individuals who actually exercise political power in a society at any given time.”21 Within the political class, then, Mosca anticipated a struggle for political power between different groups. It is important to note that a political class may not be unitary but may include groups in conflict with each other, who are vying for power. In the case of the USSR/Russia, structural differentiation gave rise to different interests, which were expressed within the nomenklatura. The nomenklatura as a political group and as a control mechanism fragmented with the development of state socialism. Mechanical solidarity, associated with an agrarian type of society, gave way to the organic type—characteristic of urban, industrial society. Hence, the fault in the “nomenklatura as a ruling elite,” as developed by the writers mentioned above, is to assume that it was the political leadership of a unitary class having a common interest and consciousness opposed to others outside it.22 With the decline in the post-Stalin period of overt class conflict and the rise of an intelligentsia and a technical bureaucracy, the “control” that was supposedly exercised by the nomenklatura was ineffective.What is ignored

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by many commentators on the nomenklatura is that recruitment to positions is determined not only by the recruiters but also by the availability and character of the recruits. People’s motivation for a post; their occupational status, education, and training; and their institutional affiliation all act as constraints on the appointer.This was particularly the case in the second list (uchetno-kontrol’naya), in which selection was made by a ministry and “checked” by the Party.The widening structure of opportunities operated to the advantage of the potential recruit, especially when the system became less overtly politicized. Institutions also became differentiated and relatively autonomous. As the social and administrative system became more diverse and stratified, the “control” and solidarity/loyalty functions of the nomenklatura began to fail. It was structural differentiation that undermined the nomenklatura as an instrument of control. The evidence, based on personal testimony of the elite members, of a weak and divided nomenklatura substantiates the conclusion of Whitefield that “the practice of recruiting top officials in the ministries primarily from those who had made their careers inside the ministry bureaucracy and with technical rather than political backgrounds tends to confirm further the view that either the nomenklatura appointments at the top tended to be purely formal or that non-political criteria were more important.”23 Patronage and ascriptive features of recruitment, then, have to be seen in the context of meritocratic ones and the structure of opportunities open to the potential recruit.A methodological conclusion to be drawn here is not only that social and occupational origins are determinant factors, but also that values and beliefs have to be seen as independent elements. In other words, the nomenklatura was not a unitary ideological class, and the ruling elite was fragmented. In this chapter, we consider the origins of the ruling political elite, and in chapter 9 we turn to the economic elite.

Elite Recruitment and Renewal We shall argue that idea of the “reproduction” of the “Soviet nomenklatura” not only miminizes the changes that have taken place since the collapse of Communism, but it ignores the movement of an “acquisition class” into the ruling stratum. The dynamics of the political movement from state socialism are undefined. The terms “reproduction” and “circulation” are concepts used ambiguously. By “reproduction” of an elite, we mean the continuation of the individuals occupying elite positions in the old regime in similar positions in the new regime. Hence, the individuals (and the stratum of which they are part) do not change: they adopt new identities, but the bodies remain the

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same.We distinguish between two types of circulation: substitution circulation, in which the incumbents of elite position are replaced by others from within the same class or status group; and structural circulation, in which a new political leadership from a different stratum displaces an incumbent group.While members of the former (substitution) group may join the latter (“jumping ship”) to ensure a structural circulation, a new political group—the expression of another political, economic, or social interest— must replace the old elite and its political supports. In many of the studies quoted earlier, the “nomenklatura” is defined to include persons with any formal attachment to positions of authority in the former Soviet system, and the definition of elite position is either vague or unspecified. Executive political elite positions are also conflated with other leading professional posts.24 Such studies rarely consider the embeddedness of the elite position in terms of the occupational histories of the elite members. Indeed, the term “nomenklatura” has served to obscure important divisions within the Soviet elite and has exaggerated the unitary and monolithic nature of the Soviet state.As we have demonstrated throughout this book, the “nomenklatura” was anything but a monolithic political class. It would be more accurate to consider the Soviet political system as a network of bureaucratic elites, each possessing a relative autonomy and organizational consciousness, giving rise to independent institutional goals and interests. Thus, not all the members of the “nomenklatura” formed the political elite, and there were different elites within the nomenklatura. We turn here to study the character of the political elite under Yeltsin in the formative period of his rule.This study sustains a rigorous examination of 470 members of the Russian political elite (9 persons having a place in more than one elite category that we will define).25 We have defined the “political elite” in terms of persons holding high positions in three different sectors:26 1. The Parliamentary elite of the Federation Assembly: 176 leaders in the Parliament of the Russian Republic, in post between 17 December 1993 and 12 December 1995. These included the chair and deputy chairs of the Federation Council and State Duma, the leaders of factions and political groups, and the chairs and deputy chairs of the standing committees and commissions; 2. The Government elite: 108 executive posts in the Russian Federation Government (those in post as of 1 January 1995).These were defined as ministers, first deputy ministers and deputy ministers; and 3. The regional elite: 195 regional political leaders, as of January 1995, including heads of regional and republican administrations,

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chairs of the parliaments of regions and republics, and presidential representatives (governors in the regions and republics). The thesis of this study is that a circulation of elites has taken place in certain crucial sectors of the political and economic elite structure, and that the old “administrative class” is being replaced by an ascendant “acquisition class.” To determine the circulation and recruitment of the political elites in power after the collapse of the USSR, we first analyzed members of the three current political elites in terms of their previous positions in the Communist Party and the government of the USSR. Such analysis indicates the extent to which the previous ruling stratum has been reproduced in the post-Soviet political elites. Our study refutes the view that the Soviet elite has been reconstituted in a new form.We conclude that, though a significant minority of persons holding middle positions in the former Soviet elite has been promoted to particular segments of the new political elite, the previous Soviet ruling elite has been largely destroyed. Second, we consider the background of the aggregate political elites.As noted in the previous chapter, the contemporary elite brought to power under Yeltsin reveals significant differences from the traditional Soviet one. We argue that an “ascendant elite” with professional “intelligentsia” and executive occupational background has come to power in crucial sectors of the political system. This has given rise to a fragmented ruling elite structure.Third, on the basis of this empirical work, we theorise about the class nature of the transition in Russia. Here we develop the notion of an ascendant “acquisition class.”

Origins in Party Executive Posts To determine the participation of the current political elites in the CPSU, we examined their previous positions as the holders of Party executive posts (i.e., full-time posts in the Party apparat).We then counted the total years of service in these positions.The “time in post,” therefore, should be considered an index of the involvement in the Party apparat.This we define as “Party saturation.” In addition, another index of Soviet Party elite identification was membership in the Politburo or Central Committee of the CPSU. We searched the records of the membership of the Central Committee to establish prior membership of the Party elite. A word of caution is necessary in interpreting Party saturation (and other data) analyzed here. Current biographies of the Russian elite are not totally reliable as many officials have omitted records of their past

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association with the CPSU. Biographies also often omit details of all posts held, particularly when there has been a long career.We have thus turned to other primary Party sources published in the Soviet period, and to earlier biographical handbooks, which provide fuller biographical data.27 However, we are confident that our sources show the major posts and the career paths of the political elites. Table 8.1 illustrates the Party saturation of the three post-Communist political elite constituencies specified in terms of the total years of Party executive service as high (more than 15 years), medium (5–15), low (under 5), and no saturation. Here we consider all those in Party positions up until 1 January 1992, when the Party could be considered to have been disbanded.28 Our findings are that the majority of the new elites had little overlap with the previous Party elites. In total, just over one-third, 167 (34 percent) of the elite had previous experience of working in CPSU executive posts, while 312 had no such background at all. Just 25 (5 percent) of the 470 members had held Central Committee membership (12 of whom were first appointed to the much-weakened Central Committee in 1990), and there were only 2 previous members of the Politburo. Table 8.1 also shows that Party saturation varied considerably by elite sector.The Russian parliament had the least overlap with the old Party administration. Only 39 (22 percent) of 176 members of the parliament elite had a record of holding any Party position: in terms of our “saturation” index, just 6 of these had a high level (V.I. Zorkal’tsev, A.V. Fedulova, G.A. Ziuganov, R.G. Abdulatipov, A.D. Mikhailov, and V.N. Liubimov), 20 were classified as medium, and 13 low. Only 11 had been members of the CPSU Central Committee, and only 1 (A.I. Lukianov) had been a candidate member of the Politburo. (See appended biographies of Zorkal’tsev [Party saturation, 26 years] and Ziuganov [20 years].) We may also note the quite strikingly low levels of Party saturation of the government elite. Only 26 of the 108 members of the government elite had previously worked for the CPSU, and of these, just 3 had a background of 15 years or more (V.I. Bragin, 18 years; M.N. Lazutova, 19 years; and B.N. Pastukhov, 24 years).Very few (4) had held a membership in the Central Committee. (See appendix 1 for biographies of Pastukhov, [24 years] and Lazutova [19 years].) The regional political elite, on the other hand, had a much higher Party saturation. Just over half (102) of the 195 members of the regional elite had had some executive Party position. Here 33 (17 percent) had high levels of Party saturation. But only 10 had been members of the Central Committee. There was also one member of the Politburo (E.S. Stroev).These men (the vast majority were male29) were prominent in the provinces and continued

Table 8.1

Party Saturation

Present Elite Constituency Parliament Elite RF (176) Government Elite RF (108) Regional Elite RF (195) Total (479) *

Average of persons with participation.

High (15+ Years)

Medium (5–15 Years)

Low (0–5 Years)

No Participation

Average (Years)*

Central Committee Member

6 3 33 42

20 9 43 72

13 14 26 53

137 82 93 312

8.69 6.95 11.25

11 4 10

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to be important there. (See appendix 1 for biographies of S.V. Aleksandrov [Party saturation, 26 years] and Stroev [28 years].) We may confidently conclude that the reproduction of the Communist Party elite certainly did not occur in the central political institutions of the Russian Federation. It is in the Regional elites that Party networks may still have some salience. But even here just under a half of the elite had no previous Communist Party position.

Origins in the Soviet Government Apparatus The second dominant institution of power under Soviet Communism was the government executive, which controlled not only the ideological, welfare, and security organs, but also all economic and commercial activity. By virtue of their skill, experience, and expert knowledge, the administrators controlling these institutions were not only a prominent but also a dominant sector of the political elite. In chapter 4, we demonstrated the considerable powers of the state bureaucracy in policy-making and policy implementation.30 In order to gauge more precisely the degree of elite continuity between the earlier Soviet government nomenklatura and the new incumbent Russian Federation elites, we limited our study of posts in the Soviet government administration to those begun before 1 July 1990. In this way, we have been able to confine the government bureaucracy to those individuals in state posts in the pre-Yeltsin period of Soviet power—before Yeltsin took control of the Russian political structures and before the new Russian government, headed by Silaev, was formed in the period between July and October 1990. By this method, we avoid conflating the “Soviet nomenklatura” with later Yeltsin appointees to the Russian government (which we consider later). To what extent, then, did the new elite members originate from within the Soviet government bureaucracy? The most striking conclusion illustrated in table 8.2 is the fact that by far the majority of the political elite (300 out of a total of 479) had no former participation in the Soviet government apparatus at any level.We note again the different proportions between the three elite sectors. As one might expect, executives in the current government elite had the strongest links, 60 percent of this elite having had some government post before July 1990, but just 19 percent having had more than 15 years experience. Next came the regional elite, with 41 percent. In contrast, only 44 members (or 25 percent) of the parliamentary elite had some form of government experience, 16 of these (or 9 percent) having had less than 6 years.

Table 8.2

Posts Held in Soviet Government

Present Elite Constituency Parliament Elite RF (176) Government Elite RF (108) Regional Elite RF (195) Total (479) *Average

of persons with participation.

High (15+ Years)

Medium (5–15 Years)

Low (0–5 Years)

No Participation

Average (Years)*

5 20 10 35

13 23 32 68

16 22 38 76

142 43 115 300

8.5 11.26 7.82

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Links with the Legislative Bodies:The Soviets While the Soviet parliaments were ineffective as institutions of political power, and had integrating and legitimating functions, they provided social networks and may have been instrumental as agencies of political recruitment and mobility.We considered the links of the current elites with a post in the Soviets of People’s Deputies before the elections of 1989. By a “post” we mean a position as chair or secretary of a committee or commission at the national level, and chairs of Soviets at the regional level—in this way, we excluded persons who had a purely honorific position. Only 18 members (4 percent) had worked in leadership posts in the Soviets before 1 January 1989. From the parliamentary elite, we found only three (A.I. Lukianov, L.P. Kurakov, and A.I. Sliva), and from the government elite, just one (V.G. Artiukov). In the regional leadership, only 14 (7 percent) had held posts in the Soviets.We conclude that there is very little evidence of continuity from the Soviet period of persons’ having had leadership position in the legislature.

Aggregate Elite Membership and Recirculation Useful as this analysis is, it does not give a picture of the total elite antecedents: “no saturation” on one scale (say the Soviet government apparat) may be “high saturation” on another (the Party apparat). We have, therefore, constructed a single table of all 470 people in the political elite. (As noted earlier, the total came to 479 in the tables, as 9 people appeared in more than one elite.) The aggregated participation in the institutions of Soviet power (membership in the Party and government executive) is shown on graph 8.1. Here, for each person is shown the years of service in these institutions of Soviet power. Strikingly, by far the largest group (215, or 46 percent) had no participation at all, 103 (or 22 percent) had 1–10 years, and only 60 (13 percent) had a lifetime of service (over 20 years) in any post in the previous government or Party apparat. These figures change somewhat if we consider posts held in the postSoviet system: of the 215 with no saturation, 127 took up positions for the first time in the new government elites (i.e., members of the government apparatus; advisers to the president; heads and deputy heads of regional governments; and presidential representatives, and chairs, and deputy chairs of regional Soviets and Dumas). These results confirm our earlier analysis and further cast doubt on the conclusion that people running the old Soviet system of power have been “reproduced” in the post-Communist elites. However, more analysis is

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Graph 8.1 Russian Political Elites By Service in Soviet Government and CPSU

necessary to determine more precisely their background. First, we delineate positions defined as membership of the (previous) Soviet elite. The analysis we have provided includes all posts in the apparatuses, many of which were relatively unimportant positions.We need to determine, therefore, how many may have been in the previous political elites and in other positions. Second, we analyze the origins and paths by which people attained their current elite position.

The Reproduction of the Soviet Apparat? First, we consider the careers of all those members of the contemporary Russian government elite with any service in the previous apparatus (255 people). These data should be considered as an indication of the level of saturation rather than as a definitive number of posts. As noted earlier, not all the posts (particularly lower ones) held by persons are noted in biographies. However, we are confident that the evidence does establish a relative ranking and a quantitative index of the degree of “Party saturation” of the political elite under Yeltsin’s political leadership. We considered the total number of posts held by members of the Russian political elites in leading positions in the CPSU. Only 26 people (5 percent) had been members of the Central Committee of the CPSU or Republican

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parties. There were only two CPSU Central Committee secretaries (A.I. Lukianov and E.S. Stroev) and one secretary of the Central Committee of the RSFSR (G.A. Ziuganov). By far, the most frequent status (53) was that of Obkom secretary, followed by Gorkom secretary (38), and departmental heads at the obkom level (25). (Note by “statuses” we mean the number of positions held, not the number of persons who held them. But the Central Committee membership cited here refers to the number of people). Overall, these figures would hardly substantiate the claim that the previous Party elite has been reconstituted as a new ruling elite.The most one could conclude is that in some localities, in the provinces, elites in which the Party secretary was an important part of previous political networks have continued into the Yeltsin period. These cases are important but are by no means typical. As to positions in the government apparatus of Soviet power, we analysed the positions held in the Soviet government before 1 July 1990. Relatively few of this elite held top positions: only 33 statuses were at the level of Presidium or the Council of Ministers of the USSR, ministers or deputy ministers, or chair or their first deputies of state committees. By far the greatest number (80) held administrative posts in the USSR ministries or state committees; a second very large group (75) were people who had had posts in the oblasts or ASSRs (or in Sovnakhoz). Fourteen had held senior posts in the republics—as ministers, deputy ministers or members of a Republican Council of Ministers. Again, our data would not substantiate the view that a very large-scale reproduction of the previous government elite has taken place.The members of the government apparatus who did reappear were persons from relatively middling positions.We would conclude that such advancement constitutes a circulation rather than a reproduction. Finally, we considered whether there had been any reproduction of persons who had been in positions of authority in the Soviet legislatures. We considered those who were in leading posts before the elections of 1989. Of the total of 18, only 4 had held elite posts in the USSR Supreme Soviet (including A.I. Lukianov, who was first deputy chair).The remaining 14 all had held posts as chairs of autonomous republics and regional soviets. Our conclusion here is unequivocal.The Soviet political elites were not reconstituted as a political elite under the Yeltsin regime.

Origins Outside the Dominant Institutions of Soviet Power We have discussed and analyzed the extent of Party, government, and Soviet saturation, indicating the levels of the circulation of the previous members of

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the political elite.We have shown that a considerable number were recruited from outside these elite structures.Who, then, were these new elite members? Here, we analyze those persons (215) who had no history in either the Party or Soviet government institutions. Their occupational backgrounds, defined in terms of posts begun before 1 January 1990, are as follows. After students, who constituted the largest single group, by far the majority (253) of these belonged to the intelligentsia—including 136 professionals31 and 117 researchers32. Industrial and agricultural managers (112 and 35, repectively) were also prominent, and there was a fair number of industrial workers (77) but very few agricultural workers (4). There were 26 non-manual worker posts (teachers, book-keepers), 33 military personnel, 9 trade union officers and 10 private entrepreneurial positions.“Party professionals’ (those working on Party journals or engaged in the Party’s academies) were relatively few (just 5).We may note here that a significant cohort of younger people, with relatively little (if any) political experience, were drafted into the political leadership. This group was dominated by people with a background in research and higher education; others had an industrial managerial record, and a few were from the military.Those with a trade union, manual, or peasant background were few. Typical examples from the intelligentsia include: • S.N. Baburin (head of State Duma faction, Russia’s Path), who from 1981 to 1990 was a lecturer in the law department and dean of Omsk University; • A.B. Chubais (first deputy chair of the Russian government), who was a candidate of economics, and between 1977 and 1990, lecturer and then professor of economics at Leningrad Engineering-Economics Institute; • E.T. Gaidar (former prime minister and head of the State Duma faction, Russia’s Choice), who was a doctor of economics and from 1981 to 1990 research scientist at the Institute of Systems Research and the Institute of Economics and Forecasting, and from autumn 1990 to 1991, director of the Institute of Economic Policy of the USSR Academy of National Economy; • and S.Iu. Glaz’ev (chair of the State Duma Committee For Economic Policy), who holds a doctorate in economics from Moscow’s Central Institute of Economics-Mathematics, where he worked as a research economist from 1983 to 1991. (See also biographies of Balakshin, Gaidar, Glaz’ev, and Polevanov in appendix 1). These figures suggest that there were important differences in the background of people in different political institutions of the contemporary

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political elites, not only in terms of the proportions that had links with the “Soviet bureaucracy,” but also in terms of social background. Our thesis is that a social revolution has been obscured by many writers’ erroneous emphasis on the “replication of the nomenklatura.” We further illustrate this point by analyzing the educational and occupational backgrounds of the political elites.

Elite Origins by Education and Occupation Table 8.3 shows the place of education of the political elites analyzed by elite sector (parliament, government, and regional). (As people went to more than one institution, the total exceeds the total number in the elite.) Clearly, there is a major division between the regional elite, with a predominantly provincial educational background, and the other two. The differences are replicated in graph 8.2, which shows the type of subject studied. The columns show the percentage of people with education in a particular subject (in addition, attendance at a Party institution is shown separately—PAR).The regional elite is much closer in social type to the traditional Soviet elite; there is a greater saturation of men with Party education and backgrounds in engineering and agriculture (the two most common types of education); the government elite still has a large number of people with engineering backgrounds (ENGIN) but has, like the parliamentary one, a large proportion of people from economics (ECON) and natural sciences (APS); lawyers (LAW) predominate among the parliamentary elite. The ascendant political elites are persons with professional backgrounds, who were educated primarily in Moscow and Leningrad. Their professions are in law, medicine, economics, humanities, and sciences.The elites in decline are those educated in the provinces, in the Party’s own educational institutions and in the subjects of engineering and agriculture. To show this difference and to illustrate the presence of elite circulation, we analyzed the occupational backgrounds of the elites with high nomenklatura saturation and no saturation at all. We compared the early life histories (positions held before the age of 30 years) of those with 15 or more years of Party or government service and those with no such service. Graph 8.3 shows quite conclusively the distinctive backgrounds of these groups: the former were men with Party and government experience, followed by industrial executive and agricultural management positions.The latter had worked in full-time education, the professionals, industrial management, research, and the armed forces.

Table 8.3

Place of Education of Political Elites

Place Moscow/Leningrad Provinces Abroad Unknown Total

Parliamentary Elite

Parliamentary Elite Percentage

Government Elite

Government Elite Percentage

Regional Elite

Regional Elite Percentage

167 145 0 0 312

53 46 0 0 100

124 76 0 1 201

62 38 0 0 100

36 213 2 5 256

14 83 1 2 100

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Graph 8.2 Elite Education Background: Parliamentary, Government, Regional

Abbreviations AGR Agriculture APS Applied Science ECON Economics ENGIN Engineering HE Higher Education HUMSO Humanities

LAW MED MIL PAR PSC TEA

Law Medicine Military Party Pure Science Teaching

Elite Circulation: from Administrative Class to Acquisition Class The political elite that came to power under Yeltsin in the Russian Republic was largely a new one. Some of its members held nomenklatura posts.There were relatively few people from the Soviet political elite. Those from the Soviet bureaucratic stratum were mainly in middle-ranking positions and originated in the government rather than the Party executive. The overwhelming majority came from the intelligentsia; many were researchers, educators, journalists, and a smaller group were managers in industry and agriculture with relatively little, if any, activity in politics and who could not be said to have been part of the previous ruling elite.These conclusions refute the work of those who argue that the Soviet “nomenklatura” has been replicated in the current Russian political elite.

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Graph 8.3 Political Elite Origins: Occupation Begun before Age 30

Abbreviations AE Agricultural Executive AW Agricultural Worker EN Presidents/Directors of New Economic Associations G Government Executive Post GP Russian Presidential Executive Post IE Industrial Executive IW Industrial Worker KE Komsomol Executive Post L Local/Regional Government Post M Military (career) MS Military Service (conscript) NM Non-Manual Worker NP Chairs/Heads of New Political Parties

OT P PE PF PP PR PT PW

R+RE S ST TU V

Other Professional Party Executive Full Member of CPSU Central Committee Party Professional Full Member of Republic Central Committee Member of CPSU Party Writer (Journalist in CPSU Newspapers/Journals) Research and Higher Education Post Legislative Post Student Trade Union Voluntary Association

A major problem with many of these studies is the failure of their authors to provide a clear definition of “nomenklatura”—the term is often used loosely to include almost anyone who held not only Party, economic, government, or legislative posts but also persons of responsibility in any

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sphere of activity in the Soviet period. Also, the crucial element of time is often ignored:“a nomenklatura post” is often attributed to positions begun when the Soviet system was disintegrating or after it had disintegrated (we refer to the time beginning in 1989, when “outsiders” were elected to the soviets, and to government positions after July 1990 that were being filled by candidates nominated by Boris Yeltsin). In such studies, the account often refers to the “last post” that an official held at the end of the Soviet period. Little or no consideration is given to the varied career paths of individuals before their entry to the Soviet elite. The concept of nomenklatura has often been used by those who claim the existence of a unified Party-state and the dominance of the CPSU in the Soviet political system.This view of a monolithic or unitary Party-state has obscured important divisions not only within the Soviet political elite, but also between the political, economic, and cultural elites. Perestroika and the subsequent collapse of Soviet power would not have happened had the political elites been undivided. Whereas many commentators have pointed to the fusion of economic and political power as a distinguishing characteristic of state socialism, our study of Soviet elites questions this proposition. Our research suggests that, rather than being a monolithic elite, the Party and state bureaucracies were characterized by different functional constituencies that developed their own identities, political positions, and powers of self recruitment and renewal. Of great importance in our study have been the significant social and occupational differences between the sectors of the new political elites. The regional leaders have greater affinity with the old regime, and are more likely to have had a Party and state career.They are people who have worked and have been educated in the provinces. But there is, we would suggest, a major division within the political elites not only between those who have had positions in the old political institutions and the new elite members from the intelligentsia, but also between people who have been brought up or educated around Moscow and Leningrad and those from the provinces.The latter are likely to be less cosmopolitan, less Western, and less market-economy oriented than the former. The importance of “regional politics” has been noted by many current observers33 but “regions,” in a purely geographical sense, do not create political attitudes. Our conclusion is that regional identification with political position may be linked, in some instances to the persistence of people with greater attachment to the previous political system. The new political elites originate overwhelmingly from the new intelligentsia formed in the Soviet period, and their orientation is Western and pro-market. Unlike “transitions” in capitalist countries, the new Russian political elites include few people with business backgrounds, and few who

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could be said to represent the productive bourgeoisie (see chapter 9). Of some importance are those men who have had bureaucratic experience in the Soviet government administrative system. However, their background and outlook is essentially bureaucratic rather than risk-taking and entrepreneurial. Also, and perhaps not so remarkable, is the absence of people with trade-union or working-class backgrounds. The social ballast of the move from state socialism in Russia was the intelligentsia. Our conclusions have important implications for the study of the evolution of the new ruling classes in the post-communist societies. The “nomenklatura as a ruling class” approach emphasizes the continuity of that class dominant under the Communist system; and the market, such writers further contend, is another, and possibly more powerful form of legitimation to keep this previous ruling class in power. We argue, on the contrary, that a significant change has taken place and that an ascendant class sought power under the movement for radical political and economic reform. We would suggest that this new ruling stratum has stemmed from one of the two forms of class stratification under the old regime; administrative class, defined by political position, and an acquisition class (Erwerbsklasse) given by market position. And here the term “class” is used in a Weberian sense of a market relationship that determines a person’s life chances. Under state socialism, we would contend, there were concurrently two contrasting organizing principles: the administrative and the market. The major criteria for class stratification were control (administrative class) and marketability (acquisition class). In state socialist bureaucratic systems, political position and economic position were administratively defined; the incumbents of elite position were effectively the dominant class. The nomenklatura is associated with the administrative class in the sense that it is considered to have been the institution that reproduced the relations to the means of production; in terms of Soviet Marxism, it “safeguarded socialism.” In reality, however, it contained people with different positions and aspirations. The dynamics of change have to be analyzed within the nomenklatura. Those strata with marketable skills were the ascendant class. A systemic form of class stratification was also linked to the market.This is similar to the process of Western capitalism, though there are important differences. Employees had to sell their labor to a state enterprise or institution: the state had a monopoly of hiring, and strongly influenced wage rates and conditions. Labor productivity was encouraged through the incentive of monetary reward.This gave rise to a market for labor and for goods. People competed for jobs that were distinguished by a hierarchy of conditions and an uneven distribution of income. The exchange of labor power for

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money remained a feature of state socialism, and income derived from employment was important in the determination of life chances. As Roemer has noted, the possession of “skill assets” leads to structural inequality.34 We link this to a Weberian class status, defined by levels of education.The intelligentsia (all employees with higher educational qualifications, or “professionals’) have better “market” chances than “bureaucrats” (those solely dependent on the nomenklatura for position), who endorse administrative redistribution. The structure of state socialism (the control exercised by the administrative class), moreover, prevented the intelligentsia from exploiting this position. The functioning of the labor market and the exchange of commodities were severely limited by the administrative class, and there was no market for property. To allow a market to operate would have seriously weakened the administrative class and strengthened the ascendant one.The former class was not composed simply of people “extracting surplus” but rather of persons with a commitment to a system of state ownership and control under a state socialist regime. Politically, they would seek “to better” the administrative command system, rather than to replace it.The positive attitudes of this class to the maintenance of the state socialist system was shown in chapter 6. Many members of the administrative stratum, however, would potentially be able to benefit from a market system, if it were available. Numerous positions in the nomenklatura were symbolic and nominal, and many position-holders were also members of the professional classes (for example, representatives of academia, the media, and the military who held positions in the Central Committee of the Party). This particularly applied to people in the cultural and research sectors, and illustrates the fallacy of the notion of the “monolithic” nomenklatura.We consider that many members of the “nomenklatura” were in ambiguous (or contradictory) class locations.35 During the terminal period of the USSR, the administrative class was undermined by the reforming leadership of Gorbachev, and the acquisition class was strengthened. As noted in chapter 4, at the core of the administrative class were the key sectors of the government bureaucracy of the USSR—the military-industrial complex, the ministries with control over the means of production. Their relative autonomy defied penetration by the Gorbachev Party leadership, and they opposed market reforms. It is important to emphasize too that the “intelligentsia” or professional administrative strata was not a unitary class, but contained strata with varying degrees of identity and commitment to the administrative class. Depending on the likelihood of political success, members would endorse one or the other system of power. Gorbachev severely reduced not only the solidarity of the administrative class but also the costs of opposition (lessened opportunities for

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advancement and recognition) by a potential acquisition class. Under Gorbachev’s leadership, the Party’s own professional cadres were among the first to shift their allegiance away from the administrative class to the acquisition one. There were, then, two systems with contrary classes in operation under state socialism—a planning and administrative system controlled by an administrative class, and a quasi-market system with an incipient class linked to the possession of intellectual assets and skills. We may define class boundaries operating on the basis of two criteria of stratification: control of physical assets and marketability of skills. Behind the reform process were the interests of these two competing classes: the state bureaucracy (which mainly opposed the move to the market) and the middle-class occupational groups, whose life chances were linked to the marketability of their skills. The ambiguous class position of the managerial and executive strata had been a major factor inhibiting a move to the market: as long as the mainstays of the administrative class were united and determined to keep the administrative system, they had potentially more to lose than to gain by pledging support to its demise. Support for a market and “democratic” system was not a rational choice.A great weakness of the ascendant acquisition class was its lack of political power and its weak organizational resources since the administrative class had secured economic and political power. The leadership of Gorbachev was decisive in changing this relationship. Gorbachev, being poorly advised on the political science of revolution and radical reform, did not comprehend the potentially disruptive force of the acquisition class, whose interests were bound up with the market based on the valorization of its own skill assets. It is from this group that sprang what we have identified as an ascendant political elite. A residual part of the previous dominant class continues particularly in the regional apparat. Our conclusion, however, is that, in Pareto’s terms, there has been “a circulation of elites.”The state socialist political elite has been replaced by the elite of an acquisition class.


Chapter 9

The Economic Elite, 1991–1996: Reproduction or Circulation?

The Economic Elite in Post-Communist Russia

Under state socialism, the political and economic elites were contained within the state apparatus, and a major distinction from capitalism was the absence of private capital.Whatever power the industrial and economic institutions had, it was not derived from private ownership. A characteristic of capitalism, moreover, is the relative autonomy of the economy and its elites. In post-communist societies, the process of transition has witnessed the formation of a new, propertied ownership class and the mushrooming of private market-orientated companies. In this chapter, we turn to consider the form of recruitment of the economic elite. Has there been a “reproduction” of the previous holders of political power? Have they turned their political capital into economic capital? We also appraise the recruitment of the new economic classes from the former technocratic and administrative strata that controlled the planned system of production. The essence of a capitalist business class lies in the ownership of private property and in the sale of goods and services through the market for profit. It is beyond the scope of this book to consider in detail the process of marketization and privatization in the transitionary period. The economic elites, however, may be traced to developments that arose during the period of transformation. First, during the late Soviet period, private trade occurred in services and commerce: in medicine, private education, the sale of agricultural produce, and building and housing repairs. Second, during Gorbachev’s term,“cooperatives” employing family labor were extended to a wide range of commodities and services.Third, also during the latter Gorbachev period, government and Party property was utilized by people in these institutions for trade and the provision of services. Fourth,

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during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of 15 sovereign states, the USSR ministries were dissolved and their assets (production and units of exchange) were effectively controlled by the management that ran them. Fifth, in the process of mass privatization that took place from 1991, assets were sold or transferred to the public, and in this move managerial staff became privileged recipients. Finally, the state (in the institutional form of the central, regional, or local governments) maintained ownership rights over certain assets, especially in key industries, and placed its own representatives on the boards of companies that were formally privatized. In this chapter, we are not concerned with the formation of the new economic and capitalist class, but with its elite which we have defined as people holding top positions in the private (or semi-private) economy. The most popular interpretation of the origin of the new economic elite is that a reproduction has taken place. Explanations take two forms: the first is the argument that we have discussed in chapter 8—the nomenklatura has converted political capital into private economic assets (private capital).The second is that economic power derived from control has been transformed into the ownership of productive assets.The analysis here is that managerial and economic executives have turned economic power into property rights. Both these approaches involve a shift of legitimating principles from administrative political authority to ownership and market ones. Current interpretations of transition in Russia stress the reproduction of the nomenklatura. Krystanovskaia, for example, in a study carried out in the mid-1990s, concluded that 61 percent of the Russian business elite came from the “Soviet nomenklatura.” Of these, the largest share (38 percent) originated from the Komsomol, 13 percent from Party executives, 3 percent from the Soviets, and 38 percent from the economic sector.1 The problem here is that, as we have argued earlier, nomenklatura is a very general category subsuming many different occupational categories, and those with political capital (in the Komsomol and Party apparatus) are conflated with persons with economic capital (in the economic administration and management). A similar position is taken by a group of researchers in VTSIOM (the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research). In a work published in 19962, they reported that, of a sample of people forming the economic elite, one-third were in nomenklatura positions in 1988. The VTSIOM study also addresses the reproduction of the economic apparatus, and it is concluded that 70 percent of the economic elite in place in 1993 held comparable places in the “economic nomenklatura” in 1988. While these authors come to similar conclusions, they are based on considerably different and confusing data. Part of the confusion, we believe, is that the definitions of “nomenklatura” and “economic elite” are imprecise. On the basis of our own research, we differentiate between dif-

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ferent sectors of the economic elite and show that reproduction and circulation varied between elite sectors. Many of the studies of the “economic elite” adopt an eclectic approach to its definition. Availability of interviewees is a major consideration in its definition: often small business entrepreneurs are overrepresented, and presidents and directors of large companies have to be left out—they have too little time and no inclination to be interviewed.To establish the background and origin of the top people in the post-Communist capitalist class in Russia, we searched biographical encyclopedias for persons with prominent positions in the Russian economy. Our database included 1) the heads of the 50 largest industrial enterprises in Russia in 1996;3 2) 100 of the “most influential” entrepreneurs and bankers (chosen by a panel of Russian finance experts in 1996);4 and 3) leading entrepreneurs who were listed in biographical handbooks published in Moscow in 1996 and 1997, and directors of the leading Russian oil companies held on the Panorama database.5 After excluding biographies with insufficient information, we collected data on 303 persons whom we have classified into five major sectors: banking and finance (118); oil and gas (55); industry and building (53); “other entrepreneurs” (retail, services, communications) (50); and political/economic executives—chairs and presidents of associations of industrialists, members of the stock exchange, and representatives of government on boards of companies-(27). (Biographies of the business elite are reproduced in appendix 1.)

Demographic Background While it is sometimes contended that young people have been able to rise rapidly under conditions of transition, our results severely modify this view. Of the total (303) elite in our sample, on 1 January 1997, 168 were aged over 47 years (55.4 percent), and 245 (81 percent) were aged over 40; only 13 percent were under 37 years of age. Our first conclusion is that the power and benefits of economic leadership accrue to relatively middleaged men; very few in the top business elite were women—only 11 (4 percent) of the 303 in our sample. When we consider the five sectors of the business elite (table 9.1), we notice that the executive elite (59 percent over 50) and those in industry and building (51 percent over 50) are much older than the banking/finance executives (34 percent) and other entrepreneurs (34 percent). The data suggest a generational break between those in large-scale industries and those in banking/finance, commerce, and retail.

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Table 9.1

Age Distribution of Russian Capitalist Elite, 1 January 1997: By Occupational Sector

Sector

Total

Over 50

Over 40

Over 50 (%)

Over 40 (%)

Executives Ind/Building Oil Other entrepreneurs Bank/finance Total

27 53 55 50 118 303

16 31 27 17 40 131

24 46 49 40 86 245

59 58 49 34 34 43

89 87 89 80 73 81

The place of origin and education also differentiate the elite sectors. Of the total sample, we were able to locate the place of birth for 249. While the majority of the business elite (73 percent) were born in the RSFSR, more than a quarter (27 percent) came from the other republics of the USSR.This shows a considerable inward migration to Russia and supports the generally held view that a disproportionate share of the top economic elite are non-Russians—often with megative connotations. A high proportion of bankers and entrepreneurs in commercial services (37 and 43 percent, respectively) were born in the Moscow/Leningrad area, whereas none of the Russian oil elite were. Clearly, these men were born in areas close to the oil industry. Graph 9.1 shows the place of higher education of the business elite differentiated by elite sector, and is based on attendance at 397 educational institutions. Some patterns emerge. The industrial and building entrepreneurs have had much less presence in Moscow and Leningrad than the other groups, and have spent a significant proportion of their education in the provinces. On the other hand, the finance and banking executives and the “other entrepreneurs” were predominantly educated in the Moscow/Leningrad areas. Differences between the sectors are again discerned when we examine the kinds of higher education pursued by the economic elite. Table 9.2 shows the proportional attendance of the various sectors by type of educational institution. Compared to the political elites, a major difference is in the very small number of people with a background in Party schools, medicine, law, teacher training and military.6 Industry/Building and oil have the more traditional background, being dominated by engineers and people from applied sciences. One notes a remarkable divergence between this group and the new economic elite in banking/finance and “other entrepreneurs.” In the former,


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Graph 9.1 Place of Education of Elite by Sector

Table 9.2 Type of Education* APS ENGIN ECON HE HUMSO PSC MIL TEA LAW MED PAR *

Type of Education of Business Elites, by Sector (in percent) Oil

Industry/ Building

Bank/ Finance

Other Entrepreneurs

37 35 21 2 1 2

20 14 53 2 4 2

38 12 10 1 19 5 4 5 4 1 2

49 30 11 4 2 1 1 1

3 3

Executives 28 12 50 3 2

5

Abreviations, see key to graph 8.2.

economics and applied sciences are foremost, whereas in the latter the backgrounds are much more diversified: applied science and humanities being most prominent. These figures would suggest that, compared to the political elite, the elite in the industrial/building and oil complexes have seen greater continuity,

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while those in banking/finance, retail, leisure, and media have been more mobile. These findings would indicate that the new economic elites were capitalizing on previous economic knowledge and position. To consider more precisely the extent of elite circulation, we now turn to the elite’s previous (Communist) Party and occupational history.

Political Antecedents Membership of the former CPSU is one form of identification with the old regime. Data from biographies, however, may be misleading for two reasons. First, former membership may be denied or minimized by respondents; and second, membership in itself may have been a formality with little, if any, political significance. Bearing these caveats in mind, we found that approximately a third of our sample had been Party members (123 out of a total of 303), and of these, 10 had been full members and 2 candidate members of the Central Committee CPSU. (See table 9.3.) All biographies were checked against the membership lists of the CPSU Central Committee and were found to be correct. Examined by occupational sector, the highest proportions were among the “other entrepreneurs” and executives. However, when we considered those who had some position in the apparat of Party or Komsomol, those in banking/finance and executive positions had greatest weights (37 percent and 25 percent, respectively) when calculated as a proportion of the sector groups, which suggests that for both these groups Party networks were more important. These data refer only to whether people had a Party/Komsomol status or not. If we consider the time in post, we have a more accurate indicator of Party/Komsomol relevance.Also, one may distinguish between the type of position, and we have therefore, weighted the positions, giving a weight of 10 to secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and 1 to the lowest position—unpaid secretaries of a factory branch. The calculation for Party saturation (time in post multiplied by weight) gives the PrtSat index. (We ignore years of Party membership.) The average saturation per sector is shown in the final column of table 9.4. Here we notice distinct differences between the five sectors: other entrepreneurs had very weak links compared to the executives, who bore the hallmark of career Party people.Those in banking and finance, though having a fairly high proportion of people with Party/Komsomol backgrounds, had relatively low positions. Similarly, the industrialists (building/industry and oil) had people with Party executive experience that was of relatively low salience. To establish the extent of elite circulation, we had to consider the positions held in the previous Soviet government apparatus (i.e., posts held

The Economic Elite, 1991–1996 Table 9.3

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Party Membership and Participation, by Sector Type of Economic Elite

Sector Bank/Finance Executives Industry/Building Oil Other Entrepreneurs Total

Total N 118 27 53 55 50 303

PrtMembs N PrtSat % 42 14 22 18 27 123

35 51 41 32 54

PE N 30 10 9 11 6 66

PaKoEc AvPerCap % PrtSatInd 25 37 16 20 12

8 20 2 4 1

Key: [PrtSat%] refers to the proportion of Party members in each sector. Percentages sum horizontally (as percentage of col. 1) [PE] is the number of people in each sector who had had a position in the Party or executive apparat. [PaKoEc%] is the percentage of members of the sector who had a Party/Komsomol position. [AvPerCapPrtSatInd] is an index of the average saturation (years in post multiplied by a weighted ranking of position) of each Party member in the various sectors.

before 1 July 1990).We therefore plotted all occupations held in the government administration, distinguishing those with positions in the economic administration (members of Gosplan, the state bank). The total number of people with positions in these apparatuses came to 107 (5 having positions in both, for a total of 112).The divisions between the different sectors is shown in table 9.4. The final column brings out the clear differentiation between the sectors: very high levels of previous participation amongst the banking and finance personnel and economic executives from the pre-1990 administrations, relatively low participation amongst economic elites in industry building and other entrepreneurs. These figures would suggest that one might distinguish between two career types among the new Russian economic elite. First, there are those with a career in the previous government, Party and administrative elites of the Soviet system. This group is particularly well represented in banking and finance and in the associations of the new business class. In this chapter we shall refer to this group as the “Soviet elite.” One example of the Soviet elite is Stanislav Vasil’evich Anisimov, chairman of the Board of Directors of “EvraAzia” Bank. Anisimov was born in 1940 in Nikolaev Region. In 1962, he entered the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, where he graduated in 1967 specializing in pressure metal processing. He also holds a diploma from the CPSU Central Committee

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Table 9.4

Participation of Economic Elites, by Previous Service in Soviet State Bureaucracy

Economic Sector Bank/Finance Executives Industry/Building Oil Other Entrepreneurs Total

Total in Sector N

GovEcAd N

GovEcAd %

118 27 53 55 50 303

66 15 7 16 8 112

56 56 13 29 16 37

Key: [GovEcAd] is the total number of people from each sector in the government ministry or economic administration. [GovEcAd%] is the proportion in each economic sector.

Academy of Social Sciences (1983). From 1970 to 1983 and from 1988 to 1991, Anisimov worked in the State Committee for Supplies (Gossnab) in the Ukraine and Moscow. In 1983, he moved over to full-time Party work as an instructor in the economics department of the CPSU Central Committee. In 1988, he was appointed deputy, and then in 1990, first deputy chair of USSR Gossnab. In March 1991,Anisimov was named USSR minister of material resources, and in November 1991, he became Russian Federation minister of trade and material resources. In October 1992, Anisimov was appointed president of the Federal Contract Corporation, “Roskontrakt” (created by the Ministry of Trade and Material Resources), a post he held until 1994, when he left government service for the private sector and a post as chair of “EvraAzia” (Europe-Asia) Central Bank. In 1996, he also held the post of deputy chair of the Board of Directors of “InterTEKbank.” (Another example would be Vladimir Ivanovich Shcherbakov—See appendix I). A second constituency, which had little, if any, experience in the old Soviet administrative system, might be called “newcomers.”An example here is Grigorii Nosonovich Fidelman, general director of the Joint Stock Insurance Company, “ASKO.” Fidelman was born in 1952 in the city of Cheliabinsk. In 1970, he entered the physics department of Novosibirsk State University, graduating in 1975. From 1975 to 1977, he was a researcher in the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics of the Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1977, he moved to Moscow, where he worked as a junior researcher at Moscow Institute of Fine (Tonkii) Chemical Technologies. From 1978 until 1989, he was a researcher at the Institute of High Temperatures of the USSR Academy of


175

Sciences. In 1980, he began postgraduate studies at the same institute, and in 1985, he defended his candidate dissertation on plasma behavior in a Tokamak thermonuclear reactor. In 1988, Fidelman left the institute for private business, establishing the first insurance cooperative in the USSR. In 1989, he became deputy chairman of the cooperative ASKO. In September 1991, the Joint Stock Holding Insurance Company, “ASKO,” was established, and Fidelman was appointed general director.The corporation unites 100 regional insurance companies in the territory of the CIS and over 500 affiliates. (See also the biography of Boris Grigor’evich Khait in appendix I).

Occupational History We shall return to discuss the significance of these two groupings below. Before doing so, to put in perspective service in the Soviet government and Party apparat, we need to consider the occupational background held by the members of the economic elite. We have calculated the proportion of time all members of the economic elite spent in different statuses in the years prior to the collapse of the USSR, using the period August 1981 to December 1988. It was from Graph 9.2 All Economic Elite Occupations, August 1981–December 1988

Key to abbreviations—see Table 9.5, p. 177.

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these positions that the elite moved in the post-Communist period. Graph 9.2 reveals that by far the most common activity of the economic elite was that of industrial executive (a post in a production enterprise), followed by those in the professions, higher education, economic administration, research, and activity as entrepreneurs. Party and other government executive positions were relatively low on the scale. However, there were important differences amongst the five elite sectors (see table 9.5.) We might focus on three occupational sectors: industry and building, banking and finance, and other entrepreneurs. Whereas the industrial and building economic elites had come from industrial executive and new entrepreneurial positions, those in banking arrived from positions in the Soviet economic hierarchy, in the professions, higher education, research, and a fair number from Party and Komsomol executive positions. The “other entrepreneurs” included those in professions and industry, entrepreneurs, research, higher education, and Party and Komsomol “professionals” (i.e., lecturers at Party schools or in the Party media). We may illustrate these generalizations by some examples of different elite biographies. A good example is Nikolai Ivanovich Bekh, general director of the KamAZ Automobile Production Association. Bekh was born in 1946 in the town of Korosten in Ukraine. In 1964, he entered Kiev Polytechnic, where he graduated as a mechanic in 1969. In 1980, he was awarded the Candidate of Technical Science degree. Bekh has worked since 1969 in the automobile industry, working his way up from engineer (1969), to director (1987) of one of the largest automobile factories in Russia, the KamAZ Production Association. He was rated as the eleventh most influential entrepreneur in 1996, and KamAZ the thirtieth largest factory in Russia, with an economic turnover of 3107.3 billion rubles in 1995.7 In 1991, the factory was transformed into a joint stock company, and Bekh became president and general director of the new “JSC KamAZ.” From 1992 until 1997, he was also vice president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and from October 1992 until August 1994, Deputy Chair of the Council for Industrial Policy of the Russian Federation government. Another example is Viktor Ivanovich Bukato, president of the Joint Stock Company (JSC) Mosbiznesbank (Moscow Business Bank). Bukato was born in 1939 in the Belorussian city of Pinsk. In 1961, he entered a correspondence course in the credit department of Leningrad Finance-Economic Institute, where he graduated in 1966. After graduating, Bukato worked in the banking business for over 30 years. From 1966, he worked in regional branches of USSR Stroibank (Construction Bank) in the Belorussian cities of Mogilev and Minsk. In 1979, Bukato moved to Moscow, where from 1979 to 1984, he was deputy chair and from 1984 to 1987, first deputy chair of


Economic Elite, by Sector: Positions Held, August 1981– December 1988

Occupation Total Elite IE P ST EO R+RE EN G PE+KE NM PP+KP IW PF+PC MS+M AE TU+V *Expressed

Key: [IE] [P] [ST] [EO] [R+RE] [EN] [G] [PE+KE] [NM] [PP+KP] [IW] [PF+PC] [MS+M] [AE] [TU+V]

177

27 12 10 10 10 8 8 6 1 1 1 0* 0* 0* 0*

Industry/ Building

Oil

Executives

46 4 5

54 9 7 4

19 10 9 11 22 1 11 9

12 17 5 2 0 0 2

7 8 6 0 0 0 0

0 1 0

Banking/ Other Finance Entrepreneurs 11 14 14 21 9 5 10 8 0

1 1 0

0 1 0

17 18 11 2 12 13 2 2 7 8 2 1

0

as 0 due to rounding. (Columns sum to 100.) Industrial executive (chief engineer; director of factory) Professional (i.e., doctor, lawyer, lecturer) Student Official in Soviet Economic Organization (i.e., Gosbank) Researcher Entrepreneur (in post-Communist period) Government post Post in party apparat and Komsomol apparat Non-manual worker Party and Komsomol professional (i.e., editor of party/Komsomol newspaper or lecturer in party/Komsomol institution) Industrial worker Full member and candidate member of CPSU Central Committee Military service and military profession Agricultural executive (director of Kolkhoz) Trade union and voluntary organizations

USSR Stroibank. In 1987, he was appointed chair of the Board of Zhilsotsbank (Housing and Social Development Bank). In October 1990, Mosbiznesbank was registered as an open JSC, and Bukato was elected president.The bank’s assets have exceeded 200 billion rubles. In 1993, its profits totalled 176 billion rubles. Mosbiznesbank has 40 affiliates situated in key regions of the

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Russian Federation. The bank is among a handful of Russia’s commercial banks granted a general license to operate hard currencies. Finally, there is Boris Abramovich Berezovskii, general director of JSC LOGOVAZ as well as other companies. Berezovskii was born in 1946 in Moscow. He graduated in 1967 from the electronics and computer department of the Moscow Institute of Timber Industry. He also holds a doctorate in Technical Science. After graduation, he worked in the Research Institute of the USSR Ministry of Instrument-Making. From 1969, Berezovskii has worked as a researcher, senior researcher, and laboratory head in the Institute for Problems of Management (USSR Academy of Sciences). In 1989, he left the Institute and founded a car dealership company, LOGOVAZ, and he was subsequently named general director of the Joint Stock Company LOGOVAZ. In 1993, he headed a new project—the Joint Stock Company AVVA-Motor-Car Alliance—which was registered in October 1993 with an authorized capital of 10 billion rubles. Berezovskii was rated the second most influential entrepreneur in the Interfaks-AIF poll 1996.8 The analysis so far helps explain the ambiguity in many of the conclusions reached in the transformation/circulation debate.We come to different opinions if we consider the economic elite in aggregate, or we focus on different sectors. Comparison of the three elites mentioned would initially suggest that the industrial and building capitalist elite had mainly come from the middle-lower industrial executives, that the banking group came from state economic (and Party) apparatuses, and that the “other entrepreneurs” had a mixed background with many from professional, nonmanual, research, and industrial executive posts. We now return to the earlier point concerning a major break in the composition of the new capitalist class between those people originating in executive positions in Soviet government and Party executive positions, on the one hand, and others.We analyzed the occupational history and social background of the two composite groups which are defined as “Soviet elite” and “newcomers.” In the “Soviet elite,” we combined people who were members of the Communist/Komsomol executive and those with positions in the previous government and economic executive apparatus. In the Party/Komsomol apparat, there were 62 people, and in the latter 107; as some people were in both, the total number of leaders we have defined as “Soviet elite” came to 142. However, as some of these had only a few years service in the Party/state elite and may have been “transiting” rather than permanent, we have excluded those with less than five years service.This gave a total of 104. The number of “newcomers” was 161.Table 9.6 shows the uneven distribution between the different sectors. Banking/finance and the executive


179

Distribution of “Soviet” and New Business Elite between Sectors

Sector

Total Sector

Soviet

NewComers

Soviet %

NewComers %

Bank/Finance Executives Industry/Building Oil Other Entrepreneurs Total

118 27 53 55 50 303

60 15 9 16 4 104

45 10 38 31 37 161

51 56 17 29 8 34

38 37 72 56 74 53

group had the most positions in the Soviet apparat;“other entrepreneurs,” those in industry and building, and to a lesser extent the oil entrepreneurs included a large number of “newcomers.” On the basis of these data, we may consider whether there was any major difference in the backgrounds of the two groups, and we may therefore establish the extent of transformation or circulation. Graph 9.3 contrasts the total occupational history of the two groups. Clearly, the “Soviet” apparatchiks had a disproportionate saturation of the economic administration, and government and Party Komsomol apparatuses.

Graph 9.3 “Soviet” and New Business Elite: Occupational History

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They had considerably fewer people with backgrounds in the professions and research. The formative process of careers was also studied to indicate the social status of the different groups. Graph 9.4 shows the amount of time people spent in different occupations before the age of 30 for the two groups. It is clear that the newcomers spent more time in education and had careers as industrial executives, professionals, non-manual workers, and researchers, whereas the apparatchiks had begun their career in economic administration, on the shop floor as well as in the Party/Komsomol and government apparatus. (See the contrasting biographies of Fidelman, Khait, Kadannikov, Egorov, and Shafranik in appendix 1). If we divide the newcomers by economic sector, we again perceive different types of early careers. Graph 9.5, which excludes time spent in higher education, indicates that the oil elite had careers as industrial executives, and the “other entrepreneurs” and those in banking and finance were concentrated in professional and non-manual jobs, though the latter group also had significant participation in the professions, industrial management, and research.

The Economic Elite: Reproduction and Circulation Our study of the new economic elite suggests that there are three forms of transformation. First, people may turn their “economic organization”their positions of authority and expertise in the Soviet economy—into economic assets in the new capitalist economy. Second, people may convert “political capital”—their posts and networks in the Soviet political system—into economic assets. Third, they may use their “intellectual capital”—positions in the state educational and research apparatuses, particularly in the scientific institutions concerned with control of the economy—into economic assets. There is both a “reproduction” and a “circulation” of elites. We would emphasize that different sectors of the economic elite have distinct occupational and social histories: there is important differentiation of the economic elite.Those who fulfil the role of economic politician— government nominees on the boards of companies, those holding positions in economic associations—are more likely to have had experience in the former political institutions of Soviet power, such as the Party and Komsomol apparatuses.These are the persons constituting a reproduction of the former Soviet political elite in the market-economic sector. The banking and financial sectors are distinguished by leaders who not only had some links with the previous political apparatuses, but also were part of the Soviet economic hierarchy and had positions in the economic apparat of the

Graph 9.4 “Soviet” and New Business Elite: Occupation Begun before Age 30

Graph 9.5 “Newmen” Business Elite: Occupation Begun before Age 30

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state, particularly its economic institutions. This group is distinguished by a substitution type of circulation. In the retail, commercial, and entertainment sectors of the economy are to be found entrepreneurs coming disproportionately from the professional, industrial executive, and research and educational sectors of the Soviet system, as well as some from the Party and Komsomol. The evidence suggests that the origin in the political sphere was at the middle or lower levels. Only exceptionally has there been a “reproduction” of people from the previous political elites.This group, we would suggest, forms a substitution or structural type of circulation. The leaders of industry and building include very few people with a political background or from positions in the control of the economy. Most of the new economic elite here held economic executive roles, as managers and others employed at the place of production. Such people could well be said to represent a reproduction of the Soviet managerial elite. Our work confirms the conclusions of Gil Eyal, Ivan Szelenyi, and Eleanor Townsley who, in their study of East European elites, consider that “The new power elite of post-communism is not composed of owners, but rather of the technocratic-managerial elite together with the new politocracy which constitutes its dominant faction, and elite humanistic and social science intellectuals which form its dominated faction.”9 However, we would point to important differences between economic sectors. We conclude that contemporary large-scale industry (production in the military-industrial complex, oil production, and large-scale building) contains people with values and outlook more similar to the traditional Soviet managerial elite, whereas banking, financial services, and commerce include more people with a non-Soviet administrative background and possibly a more “market” orientation; here one would find people in the economic elite representing a structural circulation.10 Compared to the new political elite, the economic one—particularly in some important industrial sectors—has a greater affinity with the previous Soviet system. In the terms of elite recruitment, there are more people we could define as having a circulation of a “substitution” type.

Chapter 10

Transition under Yeltsin: Elite Values

In chapter 8, we argued that the “nomenklatura origin” of a current member of the political elite does not per se constitute a “reproduction” because the nomenklatura contained the full spectrum of political interests: i.e., those who remained loyal to some, if not all, of the traditional values and also those who sought radical reform and a move to a market system. What writers often define as a “reproduction” of elites is misleading because it ignores the values and interests that the ascendant strata of the old nomenklatura brought with them when they moved into the new elites. Elite “reproduction” and “circulation” are concepts that are used ambiguously by different authors, and that are not necessarily negative or positive indicators of political transformation. Pareto himself referred, on the one hand, to circulation in the sense of a change of individuals and, on the other, to a change of elites. This is what has been defined in chapter 8 as substitution and structural circulation. A “circulation” of elites does not necessarily entail changes in the political, social, or economic structure of society. For system analysts, a change of elite may be necessary to ensure an equilibrium, and for Marxists, it might reflect a change in the balance of forces within the ruling class. Similarly, an increase in the circulation of individuals, the purging of Pareto’s “decadent elements” (“ridding the country of a baneful animal pest”1) will not necessary lead to systemic change or transformation. On the contrary, it may strengthen the existing system through the innovatory activity of new people. The intention of Gorbachev, at least during his early administration, was in this direction. Hence, unless one can couple elite mobility to actual (or supposed) political values or interests, one cannot make any deductions about the consequences of an elite circulation with regard to social structure. Sections of the “old” elite may undergo a political “conversion” to different policies from the traditional.Yeltsin is a prime example here: he

184


moved from the traditional “administrative class” (Party Secretary of CPSU, member of Politburo) to the leadership of the reform movement. By the same token, a “circulation” of people from different occupational and educational backgrounds sharing a similar political culture may bring the same political orientations as the people they are displacing. Political leaders may change their policies: they may learn from past mistakes, from other countries; they may recognize deficiencies in existing structures and procedures—incumbent political elites possess the potential for political entrepreneurship, for political agency. Elite studies, therefore, have to take into account the environment in which an elite circulation (or reproduction) is embedded. As we noted in chapter 6, to discuss the elite structure one needs a wider frame of reference than the “reproduction” and “circulation” approach. From the viewpoint of elite theory, Higley and Pakulski emphasize the interrelation of elite unity and elite differentiation; to these components we add political culture and ideological affinity.2 We need to consider the extent to which the new elites differ in values from the previous ones and the ways in which the political culture shapes elite behavior. The argument advanced by Higley is that an elite settlement or compromise is a necessary condition for a transition to a pluralistic type of polyarchy.The empirical research we describe, however, shows that conditions in post-Communist Russia for a stable polyarchy are lacking.3 It is generally agreed that, in contrast to other transitions from “authoritarianism,” transition from “state socialism,” has been complicated by the demands for the simultaneous reform of the economy and polity. Offe and others have argued that the countries of East Central Europe face a “triple transition,” encompassing problems about the nature of identity and citizenship; forging new constitutions and institutions; and demanding decisions about “who gets what, when and how—in terms of both political power and economic resources.”4 The impact of the “triple transition” on the structure and behavior of elites has been given little scholarly attention. In order to achieve an elite pact, elites must be clearly defined and structured and they must have firm roots in the socio-economic base of society. In Russia, new economic and political elites have arisen simultaneously and are confronted by those “reproduced” from the previous regime: this structure fundamentally undermines the process of achieving elite settlement or pacts.5 Post-Communist Russia inherited a fragmented and conflictual elite structure with major divisions between elites at the federal and regional levels, and between various groups within the political and economic elites.These divisions have not been alleviated in the post-Communist period. Elite disunity and conflict have continued unabated under Yeltsin, thwarting the consolidation of democracy.

Transition under Yeltsin

185

Under Yeltsin, three main sectors of the Russian Federation’s political elite on a national level have been identified: the executive (or government) elite,6 the rule-making elite,7 and the leaders of parties and factions in Parliament.8 Membership of the political elite was limited to those in post between January 1992 and December 19939. These members of the political elite (100) were interviewed in Moscow in the spring and summer of 1994.

The Yeltsin Elite: Criteria for Recruitment In order to explore the criteria for the recruitment of elites, we asked,“In your experience of people being promoted to positions of authority, how would you evaluate the importance of the following criteria for promotion?” The results (see table 10.1) show that there was a movement away from the criteria of meritocracy that we found for the Gorbachev elite in chapter 6. The largest group of respondents cited personal contacts.This view was shared by all the three constituencies of the political elite: of the executive, 71 percent believed promotion was based on it, the figures being 81.4 percent for the deputies and a massive 89.4 percent for the Party leaders (this detail not shown in table 10.1). Social origin and social position, however, was not considered to be of very much importance.The recruitment system would appear to be one of individual social networks rather than class or ascription. The importance of nomenklatura was also noted by all the sectors of the elite though it is quite obvious that, as all the Party’s offices had been closed, the traditional nomenklatura system could not be in operation. A new meaning is attributed to this term: nomenklatura denotes previous office-holders of the former Soviet state, is often conflated to include persons from existing positions within the Russian state (i.e., Yeltsin’s apparatuses), and is a term now sometimes used to describe any source of institutional power.The political elite was disaggregated into the three different constituencies (executives, law-makers, and Party elite). Study of the responses of the different groups shows that only on the role of qualification was there any significant difference between the three groups of respondents: 68.4 percent of the Yeltsin executive held that qualifications were of “great importance” and “some importance,” whereas the comparative figure fell to only 15.8 percent for the political Party leaders. Clearly, the latter denied the legitimacy of the former on the basis of merit.These opinions would indicate elite recruitment in terms of personal networks, some of which originated in the previous Soviet system.

186


Table 10.1 Determinants of Promotion under Yeltsin: Views of Political Elite

Personal contact Nomenklatura Qualification Education Town/village Work performance Chance Sex Social position Social origin 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

N

Average

1

2

3

4

5

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

1.96 2.37 2.39 2.42 2.76 2.79 2.84 2.9 2.95 3.3

31 9 11 9 5 6 4 4 4 0

48 54 46 46 29 26 22 28 20 10

17 29 37 40 44 48 55 39 46 47

2 7 5 4 19 18 14 27 27 41

2 1 1 1 3 2 5 2 3 2

Of great importance Of some importance A little important No importance at all Don’t know; no answer

In chapter 6 (in our study of the Gorbachev elite), we also explored another dimension of the ascription\achievement pattern variable through the networks of advice and support of the political leaders.We concluded that the respondents of the Gorbachev elite were influenced by friendship patterns that were based on specific, performance, and particular characteristics. Colleagues were in first place, followed by family and friends.10 The results of our survey show that of the Yeltsin elite, of those people consulted “often,” colleagues were in first place, followed by friends who shared similar political views, and family members at the bottom.The results would suggest that a professional, work-related network existed and that the role of family had declined considerably. “Friends,” however, had become rather more important under Yeltsin than colleagues. On the basis of these responses, the political leadership of Gorbachev and Yeltsin would appear to have the characteristic of modern, goal-oriented actors. Within the executive elite, though cooptation and patronage played a part, achievement rather than prescription appears more important. With such a background, fractions of the political elite had the potential for “conversion” and political entrepreneurship. Under Yeltsin, however, there had been a shift away from meritocratic criteria; personal contacts are much more important. We do not interpret this as the “reproduction of the nomenklatura”; rather, in periods of high political uncertainty (as during transition), there is a low level of trust in for-


187

mal qualification. Reliability and loyalty become more important political assets. A consequence here is that when leaders change, so will their subordinates.

Political Values Democratic politics entails the creation of a political culture that involves participation of public representatives and interest groups in the affairs of state. “Stable democracies,” it is widely recognised, involve a compromise between the major political elites—agreement about the parameters of the political system, the forms of property, and their distribution, as well as a consensus about the process of politics—in other words, the “rules of the game.” To what extent, then, had the political elites in the early period of Yeltsin’s rule moved to a value system in support of capitalism and democracy? We consider first the attitude of the government executives to politicians (members of the legislative body), then turn to their attitude to the public.The respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a number of statements, and the responses are shown on table 10.2. To the statement, “Politicians interfere too often in the affairs of the government,” 63 percent of the Yeltsin political elite (total of A+B) thought that politicians interfered too often. Of the government executive elite (row 1), 71 percent thought this to be the case, whereas of the leaders of parties and groups (row 3), the figure fell to 33 percent. Like the Soviet elite before it12 (see chapter 6), the Russian administrative elite was closer to the “classical” style of bureaucracy than the “political.”The table also includes comparable data on European executives. The point here is to show how the Russian elites’ attitudes differed from those in Western polyarchies. It is clear that the elite under Yeltsin was at variance to Western European civil servants on the role of public participation: the total who agreed strongly or with reservations totalled 63 percent, whereas in Britain the sum was only 9 percent, though there was an affinity with the least-stable West European country at that time, Italy (83 percent). Hence, the political culture of the executive elite has remained fairly constant though the leaders of political parties are more inclined towards participatory politics. As indicated in table 10.3, just under half of the Yeltsin political elite showed respect for “compromise”: of the total elite, 46 percent; of the executive, 48 percent. One factor that must be borne in mind is the context in which the questions were asked: Russia had experienced the bitter conflict between administration and parliament which culminated in the

Table 10.2 Yeltsin Elite: Politicians too Often Interfere with the Affairs of Government A

Executive Elite (38) Parliamentary Elite (43) Party Elite (19) Total (100)* Britain Germany Italy *Rows

B

C

D

E

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

%*

6

15

22

56

4

10

4

10

0

0

100

9 2 17

20 11

20 4 46

46 22

3 4 11

6 22

8 6 18

18 33

0 0 0

0 0 0

100 100 100

1 16 62

8 27 21

28 32 12

63 25 5

do not always sum to 100 because residual (don’t know, no answer) is omitted. Data for Britain, Germany, and Italy from Robert Putnam, “Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe: A Prelimninary Report,” British Journal of Political Science 3, (1973): 270.11 (Percentages only are shown on the table). The question here also referred to business of “Civil Servants” rather than “government” as in this question. A. Strongly agree B. Agree with reservations C. Disagree with reservations D. Strongly disagree E. Difficult to say Non-response not shown.

Table 10.3 Yeltsin Elite: At PResent, Compromise is More Important than Efficiency in Government A

Executive Elite (38) Parliamentary Elite (43) Party Elite (19) Total (100)

B

C

D

E

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

6 6 0 12

15 13 0

13 11 1 34

33 25 5

7 11 7 25

17 25 38

10 13 7 30

25 30 38

1 1 0 2

2 2 0

Japan agree: 66 percent US agree: 41 percent Data for Japan and United States; J.D. Aberbach et al., “Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites,” British Journal of Political Science 20 (1990): 473. Key—see Table 10.2.

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storming of the White House. It seems likely that in the aftermath of these events, the responses may have overestimated the extent to which the government elite agreed to compromise: even so, 25 percent of these respondents strongly disagreed with this position, as did 30 percent of the parliamentary elite and 38 percent of the Party leaders (column D). The leaders of the parliamentary and Party elites were less prone to compromise than the executive elite. Division here characterizes the political elite. A rather more optimistic scene is revealed with respect to support for political liberty, which was comparable to the views of Western European civil servants.The statement was “Government control of the mass media is essential.” Relatively few of the executive and parliamentary leaders agreed with this proposition—only 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively. (See table 10.4.) This would be evidence of a considerable change of elite orientation— a move from a “closed” system to an open one—though it is important to note that nearly half of the Party elite supported a government-controlled press. In a study of the Gorbachev political elite, using a similar question13, we found that 68 percent of the political elite agreed with this statement, and 41 percent of the government constituency was “strongly in agreement.” (the government elite again being similar in character to Italy and being quite asymmetric to the two Western European countries). As to the role of the government in creating equality of income and wealth, there was a fairly widespread and divided set of views, with the Party elite being rather more in support than the government executive. Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the following question: “Creating conditions of more or less equality of standard of living for all is a major task of government.” Sixty percent of the Party elite gave a favorable response, whereas for the executive elite the figure fell to 47 percent. For the United States, Aberbach et al. found that only 30 percent of the administrative elite supported this proposition.14 In answer to another question on the importance of the private sector, there were important divisions in the elite. Sixty eight percent of the government executives thought it to be very important, whereas only 31 percent of the Party elite thought so. (Significant at .001 level).This indicates an elite split on a left-right division.

Political Integration and Consensus If the old “unitary” nomenklatura had reproduced itself or if a circulation of elites had taken place, one would expect a high level of agreement and consensus.A number of questions were asked to probe the extent to which

Table 10.4 Yeltsin Elite: Government Control of the Mass Media Is Essential A

Executive Elite (38) Parliamentary Elite (43) Party Elite (19) Total (100)* Britain Germany Italy

B

C

D

E

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

2 2 4 8

5 4 22

12 13 5 30

30 30 27

12 12 6 30

30 27 33

12 15 3 30

30 34 16

0 0 0 0

0 0 0

3 8 36

19 25 21

40 37 12

38 30 31

Data for Britain, Germany, and Italy from Robert Putnam, “Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe: A Prelimninary Report,” British Journal of Political Science 3, (1973): 276. Key—see Table 10.2.

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the Yeltsin political elite constituted a moral community. As Giddens has put it, “solidary elites” share “common ideas and a common moral ethos” and are “conscious of an overall solidarity.”15 We stated: “Many politicians in leadership think about their own interest not of that of the country.” The responses are shown on table 10.5. Of the total political elite, there was a general conception of the political leadership working in its own interests though there were important differences between the three sectors of the elite. The executive elite was more altruistic in its orientation than the other two groups, who saw the leadership acting in its own interests. Clearly, there are important divisions here and a lack of solidarity between the elites. Secondly, we replicated the question put to the Gorbachev elite (see chapter 6), which explored attitudes on the desirability of change and the vision of an alternative society (see table 6.6).The respondents were asked about the need for reform and the type of reform required.This question enables one to distinguish between piecemeal reformers among the political leadership and radical advocates of structural change. The question gave four alternatives, ranging from the system being “fundamentally sound” to “basically flawed.” On table 10.6, four sets of data are compared: A) the Yeltsin elite, B) the Gorbachev elite—C) and D) are studies of Western European politicians and executives.The range of responses shown in table 10.6 enables one to distinguish between piecemeal reformers and more radical advocates of change. As might be expected, no member of the Yeltsin elite thought that there was little need for change, and 19 percent believed the system needed to be “completely replaced” (column A).The large proportion (12 percent) of non-responses probably indicates negative views that the respondents, out of loyalty to the government, did not want to declare. Column B is a comparative study of the political elite under Gorbachev (referring to the perestroika period, when an identical question was asked). Study of the table shows the asymmetrical attitude to the existing political order by the political elites under Yeltsin and Gorbachev (40 percent believing it to be “fundamentally sound” and another 40 percent thinking it “basically flawed”). The extent of disaffection was similar in scale under both leaders. Which constituencies of the political elite were the most critical of the system formed under the reform leadership? Again, there were significant differences amongst the three sectors of the elite. As might be expected, Yeltsin’s government executive expressed confidence in the system— though some 20 percent of its members believed it to be significantly faulted (also note the high number of 18.4 percent in the non-response column). (See table 10.7).

Table 10.5 Many Politicians in Leadership Think about Their Own Interests not those of the Country A

Executive Elite (38) Parliamentary Elite (43) Party Elite (19) Total (100) [Pearson significant at .09097] Key—see Table 10.2.

B

C

D

E

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

10 16 12 38

25 37 66

20 13 5 38

51 30 27

4 4 0 8

10 9 0

4 9 0 13

10 20 0

0 1 0 1

0 2 0

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Table 10.6 Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Political System in Russia, USSR, and Western Europe A 1. Fundamentally sound, with little need for change 2. Fundamentally sound, but some reforms are necessary 3. Basically unsound and should be completely replaced 4. Basically flawed, though significant reforms could be achieved 5. No answer; don’t know Total N=

B

C

D

0

1

36

60

51

40

54

37

19

19

2

0

18 12 100 100

40 — 100 116

8 — 100 456

3 — 100 420

A. Yeltsin elite. Question asked: “Turning to the economic and political institutions that have been put in place between January 1992 and the present day, do you think that the political system is now. . .” B. Gorbachev elite. Question asked: “Looking back at the political and economic situation inherited by Gorbachev when he took over as General Secretary of the CPSU, do you think the political system at that time was. . .” C. European politicians’ elite (Aberbach et al.) D. European bureaucratic elite (Aberbach et al.)

The politicians, on the other hand, were much more critical, with nearly half of the leaders of political groups calling for its complete replacement. Clearly, the different sectors of the political elite were agreed that change was necessary but were fundamentally divided about the scale of further reform and the legitimacy of the institutions and processes already in place. The extent of elite alienation from the institutions of the Russian Republic (as well as the USSR under Gorbachev) is brought out in the comparison with Western European politicians and civil servants. Columns C and D (table 10.6) show comparative data from a study of politicians and executives in Europe.16 Unlike the European politicians and civil servants, 10 percent and 3 percent of whom, respectively, thought the political system to be “basically unsound,” a very high proportion (37 percent) of the Yeltsin elite took this position. There appear to be qualitative differences between the elite attitudes in Western Europe and the USSR/Russia, with serious implications for regime stability in the latter. Stable democracies are characterized by a structure of political elites that accepts the basic parameters of the political and economic system: its structures, laws and forms


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Table 10.7 Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Russian Political System in 1993, by Sectors of the Political Elite Political Elite Sector* Response Sound, needs change

Faulted, needs replacement

Faulted, needs reform

No answer, don’t know

Column total

GOVEL

PARL

PRYL

Row Total

N Row % Col %

23 45.1 60.5

23 45.1 53.5

5 9.8 26.3

51 51.0

N Row % Col % N Row % Col %

3 15.8 7.9 5 27.8 13.2

7 36.8 16.3 9 50.0 20.9

9 47.4 47.4 4 22.2 21.1

19 19.0

N Row % Col %

7 58.3 18.4 38.0

4 33.3 9.3 43.0

1 8.3 5.2 19.0

12 12.0

18 18.0

100.0

Chi-Square Value Significance Pearson 19.77084 .03150 *Key: GOVEL = Government executive PARL = Law makers (Parliamentary elite and Constitutional Court members) PRLY = Leaders of parties and factions

of property, and the legitimacy of its political outputs.The implication here is that Russia is likely to experience authoritarian rule of one type or another, with formal “democratic” interludes. The elites are fundamentally divided about the legitimacy of the system—a characteristic shared also by the political elite, which crashed under Gorbachev. Thirdly, the emergence of Party systems has been one of the hallmarks of democratic and non-democratic systems. The Communist Party, following Lenin’s dictum, was a “Party of a new type” and superseded the competitiveness of liberal democracy.To what extent, then, had the Yeltsin political elite rejected the traditional one-Party system and envisioned a move to a multi-Party system? We asked our respondents their preferences between a one-Party system and a competitive, two, three, or multi-Party system.17 For the Yeltsin political elite, there was an almost unanimous agreement on a multi-Party system: only one respondent espoused “one Party” and another one “no parties,” 57 plumped for two to three, and 36

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for three or more.The implication here is that the Yeltsin political elite had conceded that a return to the traditional Party system was out of the question and a competitive Party system was inevitable. As we noted earlier, however, political values were not appropriate for a multi-Party market system of political choice. Fourthly, did members of the political elite have any model of another society that they believed should be copied? The respondents were asked whether there was any foreign country which could be a model for the development of Russia.18 It is clear from the responses that the members of the political elite had no consensus about the state that could be used as a model.The most frequently cited country was Germany (13), followed by Scandinavia (9), and the United States (8)19. By far, the majority of the elite respondents (36) believed that Russia had to find its own way, and spontaneously declared that no other country could be used as a model. These responses showed considerable divergence between members of the Yeltsin political elite.There was clearly no generally held vision of a movement to capitalism on the model of any specific type of Western country or group of countries.20 A movement to a Chinese model had fallen from 15 mentions in the Gorbachev elite to only 2 under Yeltsin. A “movement back” to state socialism was regarded as remote.21 Finding a “Russian” path is a sure formula for muddling thought. It is somewhat surprising that capitalist corporatist societies like South Korea and Taiwan had no recognition as possible ways forward.These views may not only reflect a parochialism and perhaps realism of the difficulties of transition in Russia, but also indicate an absence of a clear policy for directed social change. We may summarize the discussion and, as indicated earlier, define the political elite structure in terms of political values, political culture, ideological affinity, and elite differentiation. Following our conclusions in chapter 6 (see figure 6.1), the political elite under Gorbachev and Yeltsin had neither strong ideological nor strong interest affinities: it was either “fragmented” or “divided.” Common to the political elites of Gorbachev and Yeltsin is a narrow differentiation (a limited set of institutional actors), divergence in terms of ideological integration, political policies, and a similar authoritarian political culture. It was (and is) an unstable regime.

Elite Disunity and Transition In the analysis of transition, we have contended that the nomenklatura is an ambiguous political category of little use, that current analysis of the “nomenklatura as political elite” is inconclusive and methodologically unsound, and that neither a “circulation” nor a “reproduction” of political


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elites can be determined from the reproduction of the “old nomenklatura.” The nomenklatura was not unitary, not monolithic, and not a political elite; it could be considered a political class with different political constituencies. The traditional functions of nomenklatura broke down as the society moved from the axes of mechanical to organic solidarity; social differentiation broke the traditional control function of Party rule. In terms of recruitment to the nomenklatura, the Gorbachev political leadership had to work within the boundaries of the qualifications, education, experience, and institutional background of the recruits. With the collapse of formal networks linked to the Soviet system of administration (particularly the Party/state network), it is likely that personal contacts have become more important.The period of transition has led to a less meritocratic system of recruitment that should not, however, be inflated into a “reproduction of the nomenklatura.”The transformation of post-Communist Russia is characterized by a lack of trust and greater reliance on loyalty, which can be ensured through personal contacts. There are important political implications stemming from the circulation/reproduction paradigm. If a reproduction has taken place, then, it is argued, a further clearing out of those parties (individuals and associations) originating from the past is necessary to overcome the reversion to the political power of the former state socialism. A vigorous circulation, it is argued, would promote the rise of a new class, a movement to capitalism and democracy, and would entail a major break with the old system and the formation of a new regime and social order.The attitudinal study pursued here, however, would caution against such a simplistic view. A reproduction may take place in the context of a fraction of the elite having a political conversion or exercising political entrepreneurship. It has been shown that political values and attitudes lack a fundamental consensus; that the political elite is divided and unstable: divisions concern democracy and control, the role of executive and legislature, the role of government, the balance between private and state property, and the extent of inequality. Its members lack a common ideology and many have a low commitment to the political and social system; there are important left/right divisions that have been lost in Western European politics; there is a lack of confidence in the altruism of the executive elite, particularly by the leaders of parties and the elite in parliament. There is no support among the political elite for a move back to a single-party system, though there is still a large minority that supports state control of information. The Gorbachev and Yeltsin executive elite share a common political culture, and there is distrust of participatory politics.The common bureaucratic style is one of a classical administrative, rather than a participatory, type with a disposition against compromise. One important change may, however, be

198


noted: under the Soviet system, even under Gorbachev, there was a fairly stable relationship between the executive and the Supreme Soviet (parliament); this has now changed and the political leaders in Parliament have participatory inclinations that have not been fulfilled. Both the Gorbachev and the Yeltsin elites are divided about the viability of the political system. There are fundamental disagreements between the elite actors themselves about the legitimacy of the emerging Russian political and economic system and the objectives of reform. Like those under Gorbachev, many among the executive elite regard the emerging institutions as “fundamentally sound,” whereas leading groups among the legislative counter-elite do not recognize the effectiveness and legitimacy of the regime. Rather than putting bourgeois democracy in place, the popular assembly (the Parliament) contains significant political forces that seek to maintain elements of the traditional system—particularly over the rights of ownership of property, including land.They also seek to limit presidential power and thereby weaken current policies of privatization and marketization. The political space between the components of the political elite is too wide for a “negotiated settlement” (associated with transition to democracy), and, consequently, the transformation from state socialism has been one of systemic collapse (internal wars, hyperinflation) and slippage to authoritarian rule. The context of the transition differs considerably from those countries where “negotiated transitions” have taken place. In the Soviet Union under Gorbachev and in Russia under Yeltsin, the economy was in decline and, to accommodate a market economy, the state’s authority was intentionally weakened by the reformers. Negotiated pacts are also dependent on ideological compromise, and here the legacy of a planned economy and a welfare state (including non-market property rents and prices of necessities) was much more difficult to reconcile with the introduction of a market economy—which was already in place in the capitalist transitions of the 1980s.The reformist leadership has not succeeded in articulating an alternative ideology able to bind the different segments of the elites. Yeltsin took administrative measures to destroy the previous ruling elite in the Communist Party, and many of his former supporters became a counterelite in the Russian parliament.The implication for the transition process is that the political preferences and alliances of incumbent political elites are salient issues in understanding regime change. Moreover, demands on such leaders have to take into account the policy of dominant actors in the international arena who have their own political agenda.22

Chapter 11

Conclusions

To account for the fall of state socialism and for the developments in postcommunist societies, a multi-faceted approach is required, covering not only factors within societies but also demands from outside, from the world economy and foreign states. In this book, we have examined but one set of factors: the structure of the elites from the rise of Gorbachev to the ascendancy to power of Yeltsin. Crucial to the understanding of breakdown and transition are changes within the internal relations of national elites. State socialism has been analyzed in terms of two paradigms. By far the more dominant and influential has been that of totalitarianism and monoorganizational society; the other is organizational pluralism and polyarchy. Our study adopts the latter approach. Essentially, we believe that modern societies are differentiated, and that the scale and complexity of organizations entail specialized knowledge and division of authority. Bureaucratic organization gives rise to elite formation, which in turn establishes polyarchic rule.The relative autonomy of organizations is a potent factor in the dynamics of political change.They define political interests and choices. Such interest articulation is circumscribed by the social and ideological environment.The class structure, in the sense of economic roles determining life chances, gives rise to expectations and includes the formation of social groups. These groups “push” on the political elites. Ideology legitimates rulers; it establishes the rules of the game. However, ideology, to have any binding effect on leaders or masses, must realistically reconcile expectations, political processes, and economic and political outputs. The configuration of political elites under state socialism was one of elite differentiation. Marxist-Leninist ideology was a sham: if it once provided a cement to hold together state socialism, by the time of Brezhnev it had crumbled.The belief in a strong elite unity derived from an “ideological elite” is false.We consider the stable elite structure under Brezhnev

200


to be derived from the positive sum political outcomes of a corporatist form of political organization. The “partocracy” determined by the “nomenklatura,” we have argued, was at best a formal statement of the of the ruling elite. In reality, the political elite was not a unitary body, but was fragmented, containing not always compatible interests. Structural differentiation gives rise to a plurality of forms of identification between (and even within) different institutions. Our research has revealed the very different career paths of members of the Party and state elites, and important variations in the social composition of different sectors of the elites.The vast majority of Soviet officials had a lifetime of service in either the Party or the state, and there was very little lateral transfer of personnel from one bureaucracy to the other. We have generalized that under Brezhnev the elite was of a polyarchic type: it was a segmented power elite; it had a closed form of recruitment; the institutional framework contained relatively autonomous organizations; and ideology was monopolistic. In conditions of post-Communist Russia, this has led to an unstable, polyarchic elite structure: open recruitment, pluralistic institutions, and lack of ideological consensus.The political culture is also an important variable shaping elite behavior. We have shown that all the segments of the political elite share authoritarian attitudes that do not support public participation in politics.The style of administration is classically bureaucratic rather than participatory. The nomenklatura as a control mechanism splintered with the development of an advanced industrial society. Rather than providing a base of social solidarity, the nomenklatura as an instrument of control became a convention. It was an important convention, however, as it defined the contours of what Mosca has described as the political class. This is composed of people who exercise (or seek to exercise) political power and influence. From this group evolved the political leadership and the ruling elite.The view of the “nomenklatura as a ruling elite” is false because it assumes that the political elite is unitary. If we consider the nomenklatura to enclose different political interests and groups with multiple outlooks and strategies, then the nomenklatura may be considered, in Mosca’s terms, as a political class. Important variations have been uncovered in the structure, social composition, and rate of turnover of Party, government, and legislative elites. These structural and social divisions, we contend, gave rise to attitudinal divisions and, ultimately, to elite disunity and conflict.The pace of turnover of the USSR Supreme Soviet elite far outstripped that of Party and government elites. Such changes altered the balance of forces within the parliament and radically impacted on its policy agenda. But the government and Party elites were not only out of step with the changes in the parlia-

Conclusions

201

ment, they were also out of step with each other. The government bureaucracy was the slowest to change; even a “substitution” circulation had little importance—its aging elite tried to thwart Gorbachev’s economic strategy. Gorbachev was able radically to restructure the Politburo but he was less successful in his bid to inject new blood into the government bureaucracy—he was able to do so in foreign affairs and the more ideological apparatuses but failed with respect to the control of the means of production.There were also major divisions in the social composition and rates of turnover of elites within different sectors of the Party and government bureaucracies. On this basis, we show the differential occupational and social composition of the elite strata.We conclude that members of the Party and government elites in ideology/culture and foreign affairs/security had different life experiences and background to those in economic and industrial production. One of the greatest areas of conflict was between economic elites and the political Party leadership. While most of the Gorbachev political elite sought reform, there were important differences over what was to be reformed: the leaders of the state bureaucracy looked to reform of the existing structures, whereas a considerable number of Party leaders favored their destruction and a more radical move to markets and private property.The Party leadership, over a long period of time, had encountered resistance to its hegemony by the government bureaucracy— supported by some factions of the Party’s own apparat. Gorbachev was unable to build a unified Party coalition behind his reforms. His belated attempt to move power away from the Politburo and Central Committee to his new Presidential Council failed and exacerbated elite conflict. Institutional conflict and elite disunity were clearly visible in the “war of laws,” when Party, legislative, and government bodies all fought each other, and national elites were challenged by newly elected republican elites. Political elites do not exist in a vacuum. While “elites effect,” “classes push.”We have argued that a major dynamic in the process of transformation was the rise of an “acquisition class” which fueled the rise of an elite circulation.An incipient conflict, we believe, had already taken place under state socialism between the traditional political administrative class, legitimated in terms of control (by virtue of office) of the administrative system, and an ascendant “acquisition” class, defined as people with economic, executive, and intellectual capital who recognized the opportunity of their life chances being fulfilled through a market system. A crucial dynamic of class stratification under state socialism was between groups whose life chances were based on political control (administrative class) and actual or prospective marketability of skills and ownership

202


of capital (Erwerbsklasse or acquisition class). Under state socialism, this “capital” was individual intellectual, political, and economic knowledge and organizational skills.The objective of the acquisition class was to turn such assets into private capital that could be valorized through the market. Gorbachev, who initially sought within-system reforms of state socialism (an elite “substitution”), was blocked and frustrated by the administrative class, located particularly within the industrial ministries of the government apparatus and sectors of the Party’s own administration.While the political leadership was able to place reformers in the ideological, foreign affairs, and media sectors of society, they failed in the industrial sphere, which was staffed by administrators who were well set in traditional ways and whose world view was limited to the control of administrative assets.To promote change, the political leadership weakened the administrative class’s control and opened a window of opportunity through the market.This was a signal to the incipient acquisition class: a push became a shove.The radical reformers, now led by Yeltsin, were effectively the political instrument of this group. We show empirically that a significant change took place in the recruitment of the new political elites.They came from lower levels of the Party and government bureaucracy, the professional middle classes, the ideological apparatus of the state (Party professionals) and particularly academia (research and higher-level teaching). A number of those from within the state apparatus shifted from the administrative to the acquisition class: they were able to transform their intellectual and positional powers into marketable assets. We have noted the ambiguity in the notions of reproduction and circulation: circulation may refer to a renewal of a stratum within a given class structure or it may represent the interest of other social and economic forces. Gorbachev was an instrument of the former,Yeltsin of the latter.We have distinguished between a “substitution” type of circulation, in which people from a similar background in the old structure replace those in the new, and a “structural” circulation, in which new incumbents originate in a different stratum or class—and have different goals. We unequivocally have shown that under Yeltsin the political elite was not “reproduced”: purely political assets were not turned into economic capital. Many of the Soviet political elite had either been vanquished (Gorbachev and Ligachev) or demoted to lower-level posts in the Russian polity. Moreover, the evidence would suggest that a circulation in a structural and substitution sense has taken place. In the economy, there is more evidence of a reproduction of the previous executive and administrative elites. Here, however, rather than “political capital”—as suggested by the nomenklatura as a ruling class—we have shown that the possessors of “economic organization” (those who had positions of expertise and au-

Conclusions

203

thority in economic institutions) have been able to turn their intellectual capital into economic power. Of great importance are the significant social and occupational differences between sectors of the political and economic elites. There is a higher degree of “circulation” in the Russian government and legislative elites than in the regional elites.We also differentiate between different sectors of the economy: in banking and finance, there is a greater recruitment of people who were in the Party, but even here a significant proportion of the financial elite came from outside the state socialist administrative elite formation. This group consisted largely of people who fulfilled the criterion of an “acquisition class.” In industry, building, and oil sectors of the economy, the elite now contains substantial numbers of people who were managers within those industrial sectors. Those with a greater affinity to the Soviet administrative system are to be found in these sectors. Circulation here is more of the substitution type. The former Soviet managerial elite has been most successful in securing rights over economic assets of the state and maintaining control over the economy. We have also found evidence of a “substitution” circulation, which enabled a few former members of the political apparat (at middle and lower statuses) to exchange “political capital” for “economic capital.” We therefore contest the generally held view that there has been a reproduction of the previous ruling elites, defined as a restitution of the nomenklatura. Not only is the term nomenklatura exceedingly vague, but it includes diverse strata with different interests and outlooks.We conclude that when different political and economic sectors are studied there has been a transformation of political, economic, and intellectual—cultural— capital into economic and financial assets.There has been a structural circulation of the Soviet administrative class: those holding middle-ranking executive and administrative positions in the Soviet era have advanced to the ranks of the economic elite. There has also been an important structural circulation of new people from industrial executive, professional, academic, and research backgrounds.The change in elite recruitment needs to be analyzed by sectors of the economy and institutions of government.The dominant force, we would assert, is the acquisition class, which has succeeded in creating a market system based on private property. In this context, it is true that there has been a relatively small “reproduction” of people who previously held political statuses. This group is likely to hold ambiguous political attitudes towards markets and competitive electoral politics. Finally, a major component in the transition from communism is the form that the new political order will take.The revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were fundamentally “revolutions from above,”

204


brought about by a faction of the Communist political elite. The incumbent political elite under Gorbachev decided to relinquish power.“Democratic” transitions are dependent on a negotiated pact or tacit agreement between competing elites.They define rules of the game to which all sides agree: they agree to differ. Where irreconcilable differences exist between elites (say over the respective claims of state or private property, over market or planned forms of distribution), dominant elites have to yield to ascendant ones. Our research demonstrates that the terminal period of the USSR was characterized by severe elite disunity. The elites were confrontational—epitomized later by the use of artillery against the legislature by the incumbent President. Breakdown was a consequence of significant differences in elite values and beliefs.The political space between the components of the political elite was too wide for a “negotiated settlement”: administrative redistribution derived from state ownership is not compatible with market distribution based on private ownership. Consequently, the transition from state socialism was one of systemic breakdown. However, we do not contend that intra-elite confrontation caused the Soviet political and economic crises.The relationship between elite conflict and political crisis is an interactive process. During the process of transition, there was severe elite disunity, which was both a cause and a consequence of economic and political turmoil. In order to achieve an elite pact, elites must be structured to have commitments to the socioeconomic base of society. In Russia, new economic and political elites (with different interests and outlooks) have arisen simultaneously and are confronted by those “reproduced” from the previous regime: this structure fundamentally undermines the process of achieving elite settlement or pacts. Elite dissention was a characteristic of the later Gorbachev period and has been carried forward into the post-Communist political order in which a “weak state” confronts a “weak society.”The state lacks legitimacy in terms of its processes and its outputs.The old elites lack legitimacy and the new ones confidence.The economic and political failure of the postCommunist regime to fulfil popular aspirations—the high levels of unemployment, the falling rates of gross domestic product, the impoverishment of a significant proportion of the population, the collapse of the system of social security, the inability of the federal government to contain ethnic conflict and regional autarky, the weakening of the country’s defense capacity—has led to a revival of support in the traditional forms of state socialism, which is expressed by sectors of the political class—particularly in the legislature. Transition from state socialism is concurrently a move to polyarchy and competitive elections, to privatization and a market system, and to a pluralist type of civil society. Elite dissention is, to a considerable

Conclusions

205

extent, a consequence of a large number of incompatible interests—on the one hand, embedded in the structure of the old system, and, on the other, those able to benefit from different aspects of the new. It is often argued that, faced with the massive dislocations and hardships brought about by the economic reforms associated with radical and rapid economic change geared to a move to the market, the majority of citizens will ultimately reject democracy (in the sense of competitive parties and elections) and turn to authoritarianism of the left or right. Society, however, is “weak” in the sense that interest groupings at the level of secondary institutions (parties, unions, associations, interest groups) are ineffectual. The structure and behavior of elites, therefore, gains prime importance. In order to achieve an elite pact, elites must be structured in such a way that they have a commitment to the new socio-economic base of society. In Russia, this they lack. The elite paradigm, however important in directing our attention to the center of political stability and instability, has to be structured within a societal context.We have shown that political beliefs about the forms of legitimate integration—in terms of authoritarian, “classical” bureaucracy—are shared by many who have different political values (of market or plan).The political culture variable needs to be built into our understanding of elites. During the turbulent period of the transition phase, post-Communist Russia inherited a fragmented and conflictual elite structure with major divisions between elites at the federal and regional levels and between various strata of the political and economic elites—thwarting the consolidation of markets and competitive polyarchy.The ideological and economic confidence of the radical reformers has waned. A movement back to the old structures of state socialism is inconceivable: the global system precludes the revival of an autarchic, centrally planned economy in one state. The implant of capitalism has gone too far.A market society, in some form, will inevitably continue into the foreseeable future. The political shell, however, is another matter. It seems that a pluralistic, competitive, popular democracy is unlikely, and that instead some form of limited polyarchy will be instituted.A corporatist type of polyarchy, a pact—between the new acquisition class, the traditional captains of industry, and the political elites— seems the most probable scenario. The political-cultural variable would lead us to conclude that the political shell will be autocratic rather than participatory. An authoritarian polyarchy, of one type or another, is likely to prevail.

Appendix 1

Biographies of Soviet and Russian Political and Economic Leaders

The following are biographies of people mentioned in the text.Where information is available, the first reference is to the position mentioned followed by date of birth, education, and career. 1. Members of the Political Elite Ivan Petrovich Aleksandrov Chair of Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Kareliia. Born 1941. Graduated 1970 from Petrozavod State University, and 1978 from the CPSU Central Committee Academy of Social Sciences. Member of the CPSU, 1964–91. Aleksandrov started out in 1959 as a metal worker and then in 1964, after completing his military service in the Soviet army, he began working full time for the Komsomol. He rose from the post of secretary of a Komsomol factory committee to become first secretary of Kareliia Okrug Komsomol in 1970. In 1978, he moved over to full-time Party work, beginning his career as first secretary of a Raikom in Kareliia ASSR. From 1987–88, he was chair of Kareliia ASSR State Committee for Labor and Social Questions. In 1988,Aleksandrov was appointed head of the Department of Organizational-Party Work and cadres of the Kareliia Okrug Party Committee. From 1990–94, he was first deputy chair of the Kareliia ASSR Supreme Soviet. In May 1994, he was elected Chair of the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Kareliia. Stanislav Vasilievich Anisimov See text in chapter 9. Oleg Dmitrievich Baklanov Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Born 1932. Member CPSU, 1953–91. Member CPSU Central Committee, 1986–91. Graduated 1958 from


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the All-Union Energy Institute (correspondence). He started work as a fitter in 1950 and worked his way up to the post of general director of a production association in the Defense Industry in 1975. In 1976, he was appointed USSR deputy minister of machine building; in 1981, first deputy minister; and in 1983, minister. In 1988, Baklanov was promoted to the post of Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in charge of the defense industry, a post he held until April 1991, when he was moved back over to the state sector as first deputy chair of the USSR Defense Council. In August 1991, Baklanov was arrested as one of the leaders of the abortive Coup. Baklanov had spent 38 years as an industrial executive and state bureaucrat when, at age 56, he was appointed secretary, and this was his first and only Party post.

Pavel Nikolaevich Balakshin Head of the administration of Arkhangel’sk Region. Born 1936. He graduated in 1964 from a technical college in Vologda Oblast. Member of CPSU, 1964–91. Balakshin started out as a metal worker in 1954. From 1955–58, he completed his military service in the Soviet Army. He then began work in the pulp and paper industry in the Kotlas Paper and Pulp Factory, where he rose from the posts of metal worker (1959), senior foreman (1964), and chief engineer (1975), to that of general director (1987). He was a member of Arkhangel’sk obkom from 1987. In October 1991, he was appointed head of the Administration of the Arkhangel’sk Region.

Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin Chairman of Russian Federation government. Born 1938. Graduated in 1966 from Kuibyshev Polytechnic Institute, and in 1972 from the All-Union Polytechnic Institute Moscow (correspondence). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Member CPSU, 1961–91; Full Member Central Committee, 1986–90. Deputy USSR Supreme Soviet, 1989–91, and RSFSR Supreme Soviet, 1991–92. In 1957–67, he was a fitter, machine operator, and head of technical section at Orsk oil refinery. In 1967–73, he was instructor, deputy head, and then head of the department of industry and transport at Orsk City Party Committee. In 1973–78, he was director of the Orenburg Gas Refinery; and in 1978–82 sector head of the CPSU Central Committee Department of Oil and Gas. In 1982, he was USSR deputy minister, and in 1985, minister of the gas industry. From 1989 until June 1992, he was chair of the Board of “Gazprom,” a new trust that was set up on the basis of the old USSR Gas Ministry. In June 1992, he was made Russian minister of fuel and energy and deputy chairman of the Russian government, and from December 1992 until spring 1998, Russian prime minister.

Petr Nilovich Demichev See text in chapter 4.

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Anatolii Fedorovich Dobrynin Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Born 1919. He joined the Party in 1945. Candidate member Central Committee, 1966; full member, 1971. Dobrynin started his career as an engineer in a large aviation factory in Leningrad in 1942. However, he soon left the factory floor for diplomatic work, after graduating in 1946 from the Higher Diplomatic School of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1947, he was awarded a candidate degree in history. He worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1946–52 and was then posted to the United States, where he progressed to the job of ambassador in 1961. In 1986, after 25 years as ambassador and a career wholly devoted to diplomacy, Dobrynin was coopted into the Party apparat as secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and head of the International Department. He was age 66. He held these Party posts until September 1988, when he became an adviser to Gorbachev. Egor Timurovich Gaidar Chairman of Russian Federation government. Born 1956. He graduated from Moscow University in 1979; earned a Candidate Degree in Economics in 1981 and Doctor of Economics in 1988. In 1981 he was a researcher, Economics Faculty Moscow University and 1981–85 senior researcher, All-Union Scientific Research Institute. In 1987, he became chief research analyst, Institute for Economics and Forecasting and in 1990, editor and head of the political economy department at Pravda. In autumn 1990, he became director of the Institute of Economic Policy of the USSR Academy of National Economy and in November 1991, deputy chairman of the Russian government and minister of economics and finance. From June 1992-December 1992 he was chair of the Russian government; January-September 1993, economic adviser to the president; and September 1993-January 1994, first deputy chairman of the Russian government. In the December 1993, elections, Gaidar won a seat in the Russian Duma as head of “Russia’s Choice” but he failed in his bid for re-election in December 1995. Sergei Iur’evich Glaz’ev Chair of State Duma Committee For Economic Policy. Born 1961. Graduated from Moscow State University in 1983 with a degree in economics. He then began postgraduate work in Moscow at the Central Economic-Mathematics Institute (of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and was awarded a Candidate degree in 1986 and a Doctorate in 1990. From 1983, he was a research economist at the Institute, rising to head a laboratory by 1991. In 1991, he entered the Russian government as a first deputy minister, and from 1992–93, he was minister of foreign economic relations. In September 1993, he returned to the Central Economics-Mathematics Institute, where he once again headed a laboratory. He was elected a deputy to the Duma in December 1993, and chair of the State Duma Committee for Economic Policy in 1994.


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Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev General secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and President of the USSR. Born 1931. 1955 graduate, Moscow State University. He was awarded a candidate degree in 1967 from Stavropol’Agricultural Institute. Member of CPSU, 1952–91. Member of CPSU Central Committee, 1971–91. After graduating (in law), he began working full time for the Komsomol in Stavropol’ Krai. In 1962, he began his Party career in the Stavropol’ Kraikom Production Administration for State and Collective Farms, and then in December 1962, he was appointed Head of the Department of Cadres of Stavropol’ Kraikom. In 1966, he was promoted to the post of first secretary of Stavropol’ Gorkom, and from 1970–78, he was first secretary of Stavropol’ obkom. In 1978, he was appointed CPSU Central Committee secretary in charge of agriculture. Only one year later, in 1979, he was promoted to the post of candidate Member of the Politburo, becoming a full member of the Politburo in 1980. From 1985–91, he was CPSU general secretary. He was a deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet (8–11 convocations) and to the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, 1989–90. Simultaneously, from 1988–89, he was chair of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, chair of the USSR Supreme Soviet (1989–90), and from 1990, USSR President. Since the collapse of the USSR, he has founded and headed the Gorbachev Foundation. Andrei Andreevich Gromyko USSR minister of foreign affairs. Born 1909. Member of CPSU, 1931–89. Candidate member, CPSU Central Committee, 1952; full member, 1956. In 1932, he completed his studies at the Economics Institute in Moscow, and in 1936, he was a postgraduate at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute for Agricultural Economics. He obtained a Doctorate in Economics in 1956. After working as a scientific collaborator and professor in the Economics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1936 to 1939), Gromyko switched over to diplomatic work. He was to devote the next 60 years until his death in 1989 to such work. From 1939 to 1943, he was head of the American Department of the USSR Embassy in Washington, then from 1943–44, he was USSR ambassador to the United States; from 1944–46, envoy to Cuba; and from 1946–48, permanent representative of the USSR in the United Nations Security Council. From 1947, he was a deputy and from 1949, USSR first deputy minister of Foreign Affairs. For a brief spell (1952–1953) he was USSR ambassador to Great Britain, and then once again first deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, from 1953 to 1957. In 1957, Gromyko was appointed USSR minister of Foreign Affairs, a post he was to hold for nearly 30 years until 1985. From 1985 until his retirement in 1988, Gromyko was Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. He was a full member of the Politburo for 15 years, from 1973 until 1988. Vladimir Karlov Head of CPSU Central Committee Department of Agriculture. Born 1914. Member of CPSU from 1940. He became a full member of the Central Committee in

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1976. He started work as a veterinary technician in 1933, moving over to Komsomol work in 1938 and a career in the Party from 1941. Karlov worked full time for the Komsomol and Party for 38 years in Stalingrad, Kalinin, and Uzbekistan, before being appointed head of the CPSU Central Committee Department of Agriculture in 1976. He held this post until 1987. Thus, with the exception of 5 years at the beginning of his career, Karlov had spent all of his working life in the Party apparatus, moving a number of times from the provinces to the center and finally remaining in the center for 21 years, over the period 1966–87. Georgii Stepanovich Khizha Deputy chair of the Russian Federation government. Born 1938. He graduated from Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, and the Academy of the National Economy. He holds a Doctorate in Technical Sciences. For more than 20 years, Khizha worked at the “Svetlana” Scientific and Manufacturing Association in Leningrad— one of the leading enterprises of the military-industrial complex. He became director of this enterprise in 1987. In March 1989, he was made president of the Leningrad Industrial Enterprises Association. In 1990, Khizha was elected a member of Leningrad City Soviet, and from September 1991, he worked as a deputy to the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatolii Sobchak. He chaired a commission of the Mayor’s office on economic development. In May 1992, he was brought into the Russian government as the deputy chair in charge of industry. In June 1993, he left the Cabinet to become chair of the “Expert Group” of the Russian government. Mariia Nikolaevna Lazutova Russian government deputy minister of education. Born 1948. Lazutova trained as a school teacher and then began her political career in the Komsomol in the mid1960s. Over the period 1969–72, she was first secretary of a Raikom, and from 1972–75, secretary of Penza obkom. In 1984, she was appointed head of the Department of Science and Education of Penza obkom. From 1987–90, Lazutova was an instructor in the CPSU Central Committee Department of Science and Education. In 1990, she moved over to the USSR government, where she headed the Education Department in the Cabinet of Ministers. In 1993, she was appointed Russian Federation deputy minister of education. Egor Kuz’mich Ligachev Secretary, CPSU Central Committee. Born 1920. Joined the Party in 1944. Candidate member, CPSU Central Committee, 1966–76; Full Member, 1976–90. Ligachev began his career in the Komsomol in 1944 and then he moved over to Party work in Novosibirsk in 1949.Ten years later, in 1959, he progressed to the post of secretary for ideology of Novosibirsk obkom. From 1961–65, Ligachev worked in the Central Committee apparatus before being sent out to Tomsk, where he was first secretary of the obkom, a post he was to hold for 18 years before being promoted


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back into the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat as head of the Department of Organizational-Party Work in 1983. He became a CPSU Central Committee secretary in December 1983. In April 1985, he entered the Politburo as a full member, a post he held until July 1990. Ligachev by this time had spent 46 years in the apparatus of the Komsomol and Party. V.V. Listov See text in chapter 4. Oleg Ivanovich Lobov First deputy chair of the Russian Federation government. Born 1937. In 1960, graduated from the Institute of Railway Engineering. Candidate in Technical Sciences. Member CPSU, 1971–91. In 1960–72 he was engineer, chief engineer, head of Construction Department at the Urals Chemical Institute, and deputy director of the Urals Scientific Research Institute for Industrial Construction Projects. In 1972, he was deputy head (serving under Yeltsin) and in 1975, head of Sverdlovsk obkom, in the Department of Construction. From 1976–82, he was head of the main administration of the USSR Ministry for the Construction of Heavy Industry Enterprises. In 1982, he became secretary, and 1983–87, second secretary of Sverdlovsk obkom (Yeltsin was first secretary). From 1987–89, he was deputy chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers. From 1989-June 1991, he was second secretary of the Central Committee of the Republic of Armenia. From June 1991November 1991, he was first deputy chair of RSFSR government and from November 1991-April 1993, chief of an “Expert Group” in the Russian government. In April 1993, he was appointed first deputy chair of the Russian government (and minister of economics), and in September 1993, secretary of the security Council. Boris Nikolaevich Pastukhov Russian deputy minister of foreign affairs. Born 1933. Member of CPSU, 1957–91. Member of CPSU Central Committee, 1978–86. Pastukhov’s career was primarily in the Komsomol, where he rose from the posts of first secretary of Bauman Raikom (1960) and first secretary of Moscow City Komsomol (1963), to the leading posts of secretary (1964) and first secretary (1977) of the All-Union Komsomol. In 1982, he moved over to the USSR government as chairman of the State Committee for Publishing. In 1986, he entered diplomatic work, serving in Afghanistan from 1989 until his government appointment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 1992. Vladimir Pavlovich Polevanov Deputy chair of the Russian Federation government and chair of the State Committee for Property. Born 1949. Polevanov was a student at Khar’kov University

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(1966–71), and in 1983, he received a Doctorate in Geological Science from Leningrad Mining Institute. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and author of numerous scientific works. From 1971–89, Polevanov worked as a geologist, then chief geologist, in various mining concerns in Magadan Region. From 1989 until 1992, he was chief of a geology production association in Amur Region. In 1992, he moved into local government work when he was appointed chief administrator of Amur Oblast Soviet. He entered the Russian government in November 1994. V.N. Poliakov See text in chapter 4. Boris Nikolaevich Ponomarev Secretary, CPSU Central Committee. Born 1905. Joined the Communist Party in 1919 at age 14 and became a candidate member of the Central Committee in 1952 and a full member in 1956. In 1926, he graduated from Moscow State University; in 1932, he completed a postgraduate course at the Institute of Red Professors, and 30 years later a further course of study at the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1919, he served with the Red Army; in 1920, he began work with the Komsomol; and from 1922 to 1923, he was secretary of a Party committee in an enterprise. After graduating in 1926, he began working for the Party. From 1926 to 1928, he worked in the Propaganda Department of the CPSU Central Committee. After his postgraduate studies, Ponomarev was (from 1932 to 1934) deputy director of the Institute of Red Professors and (from 1934 to 1937) director of the History Institute of the CPSU Central Committee. From 1937 to 1943, he worked in the Executive Committee of the Comintern. From 1943 to 1944, he was deputy director of the Central Committee’s Institute of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. In 1944, he became deputy head of the CPSU Central Committee International Department. From 1947 to 1948, he was deputy chair and then chair of the Cominform (Soviet Information Buro) of the USSR Council of Minsters. From 1948 to 1955, he was first deputy head, and from 1955 to 1986, head of the Central Committee International Department. He was made a CPSU secretary in 1961 and a candidate member of the Politburo in 1972. He held both these posts until his retirement in February 1986. Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. Born in 1929; joined the Party in 1956. He became a full member of the Central Committee in 1981. Ryzhkov started work on the factory floor in 1959, rising to become general director of a production association involved in heavy machine construction in 1971. In 1975, he became USSR First Deputy Minister of Heavy and Transport Machine Building, and in 1979, first deputy chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee.


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After 32 years working in industry and government, was coopted in late 1982 by Andropov into the Central Committee apparat at age 53. He was made a CPSU secretary and head of the Economic Department. In April 1985, he was appointed to full membership in the Politburo, and in September 1985, he left the Party apparat for the post of chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers (prime minister), a post he held until he suffered a heart attack on 25 December 1990. Ryzhkov, like Baklanov, had based his career in industry and the state bureaucracy, and he was coopted into the Party apparatus at age 53. He had no previous experience of working for the Party before his appointment as secretary in November 1982. Vladimir Filippovich Shumeiko First deputy chair of the Russian Federation government; chairman of the Federation Council. Born in 1945, he graduated in 1972 from Krasnodar Polytechnic Institute. Member of CPSU, 1967–91. In 1964, he began work as an assembly fitter at the Krasnodar Electric Measuring Instruments Factory. From 1972–90, he worked in the Krasnodar Electric Measuring Instruments Research Institute, rising to the posts of chief engineer in 1985 and general director in 1990. In 1990, he was elected deputy to the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, and in November 1991, he became deputy chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet. From 1990–91, he was a member of “Communists of Russia” faction; and April-June 1992, member of factions “Radical Democrats” and “Industrial Union.” In May 1992, he became a member of the “Reform” deputies group. He was also president of the Russian Confederation of Entrepreneurs’. He was appointed first deputy chairman of the Russian government in charge of industrial development in June 1992. In 1994, he was elected chair of the Federation Council in the new Russian Parliament. Ivan Stepanovich Silaev Chair, RSFSR Council of Ministers. Born 1930. Graduated 1954. Member CPSU, 1959–91; full member Central Committee, 1981–90. Deputy USSR Supreme Soviet, 1981–89. From 1954–71 he was foreman, chief engineer, then director of an aviation enterprise. From 1974–77 he was USSR deputy minister, and from 1977–85, USSR minister of the aviation industry. In 1985, he became deputy chair of the USSR Council of Ministers and chair of the Buro for Machine Building. From June 1990-September 1991, he was chair of the RSFSR Council of Ministers and September 1991-December 1991, chair of the Committee for the Operational Management of the USSR Economy. Enn-Arno Sillari Member of CPSU Central Committee Politburo. Born in 1944, he did not join the Party until well into the Brezhnev period in 1972, only becoming a full member of the Central Committee in July 1990, the same time as his appointment to the Politburo at the young age of 46. He graduated from Kaunas Polytechnic In-

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stitute in 1967 and began work in a factory, rising from the post of assistant to a department head to deputy chief engineer in 1974. He then moved over to fulltime Party work and rose up the Party ranks, holding posts as head of a department in a Raikom, first secretary of a Raikom in Tallin in 1976, and first secretary of Tallin Gorkom in 1986. From 1981 to 1984, he had a spell in the CPSU Central Committee Department of Organizational Party Work as an instructor. He was made a secretary of the Estonian Central Committee in 1989, and he became first secretary in March 1990. He remained a member of the Politburo until the Party’s collapse in August 1991. Iurii Vladimirovich Skokov Secretary, Russian Federation Security Council. Born 1938. Graduated 1961. From 1961–69, he was a researcher at the Scientific Research Institute, USSR Ministry of Defense. In 1969–86, he rose from sector chief to director of the Krasnodar Scientific Production Association (“Kvant”); in 1986–90, he was general director of the Moscow Scientific Production Institute (“Kvantemp”). In 1989–1991, he was deputy of the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, and in 1990, first deputy chairman of the RSFSR government. In 1991, he became state councillor of the Russian Federation for Economic Questions and in 1991, for Security Issues. From June 1992-May 1993, he was secretary of the Russian Security Council. Efim Pavlovich Slavskii USSR minister of medium machine building. Born 1898. He started work as a pipe caster. He joined the Red Army at the beginning of the Civil War in 1918, and he remained there until 1928. After military service, he was granted a place at Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy, where he studied from 1928 to 1933. Age 35 when he graduated, Slavskii quickly benefitted by the massive upward mobility brought about by Stalin’s industrialization drives and purges in the 1930s. He quickly rose from engineer in 1933, to chief engineer in 1935, and to director of an enterprise in 1937. After only seven years as director, he was promoted to the post of deputy people’s commissar for non-ferrous metallurgy in 1945. From 1946 until his retirement 40 years later, at the age of 88, Slavskii worked in the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, reaching the post of minister for the first time in 1957. From 1963–65, he was chairman of the USSR State Committee for Medium Machine Building. In 1965, with the reinstatement of the ministries under Brezhnev, Slavskii was for a second time appointed minister of medium machine building at the age of 67, a post he was to hold for a further 21 years. Egor Semenovich Stroev Chair of Orel Oblast Legislative Assembly. Born 1937. Graduated in 1960 from Michurinsk Institute for Food Production, and in 1969 from Higher Party School.


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Member of CPSU, 1958–91. Member of CPSU Central Committee, 1986–91. Stroev began his career as a collective farm chairman, a post he held from 1955–63. He then moved into Party work in Orel Oblast, becoming secretary of a Raikom in 1965. From 1973 to 1985, he was secretary, and from 1985 first secretary, of Orel obkom. He became a secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in 1989 and was a member of the CPSU Central Committee Politburo, 1990–91. He was elected a deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet (1984–89) and to the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies (1989–91). In 1994, he was elected chair of the Orel Oblast Legislative Assembly. Mikhail Semenovich Surkov Member of the CPSU Central Committee Politburo. Born 1945. He joined the Party as late as 1968, only becoming a full member of the Central Committee in July 1990. After working in a factory as a metalworker in the city of Omsk in the early 1960s, Surkov entered the army in 1965. From 1965–66, he attended Higher Military School, and from 1975–77, the Military Political Academy in Moscow. From 1965 to his appointment as secretary of the USSR All-Army Party Committee in March 1990, Surkov worked in the political wing of the army. In 1975, he was deputy commander for political affairs of a battalion; from 1977, deputy commander of a regiment; and from 1981 to 1985, head of a political department of the Taman Guards Motor Rifle Division, Moscow Military District. From 1985 to 1988, he was first deputy head of a department; and from 1988, head of the Guards Army in the Transcaucasian Military District. In 1989, he became a major general. From November 1990 to March 1991, Surkov was secretary of the Party Commission of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy. On 30 March 1991, he became secretary of the USSR All-Army Party Committee and was brought into the Politburo in April 1991. Aleksandr Vladimirovich Vlasov See text in chapter 4. Iurii Voronov Head of the CPSU Central Committee Department of Culture. He was born in 1929 and joined the Party in 1947. He was appointed head of the Central Committee Department of Culture in 1986.Vononov had spent his life as a Party professional, working as a journalist and editor of Komsomol and Party newspapers. After graduating in journalism form Leningrad University in 1952, he soon rose to the post of editor in chief of Komsomolskaia Pravda in 1959, and from 1973–82, he was chief of Pravda’s operations in East Germany. From 1982–85, he was secretary of the Board of the USSR Writer’s Union, and from 1985–86, he was chief editor of Znamia. In 1986, he was coopted into the Party as head of the CPSU Central Committee Department of Culture, a post he held until October 1988.Voronov

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may be described as a Party professional as he worked for Komsomol and Party newspapers for almost all of his working life, only becoming a Party executive in 1986 at age 57. Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin President of Russian Federation. Born 1931. Graduated 1955 Urals Polytechnical Institute, Sverdlovsk. In 1961–90, he was a member of CPSU; and in 1981–90, full member of the Central Committtee. In 1986–88, he was a candidate member of the Politburo. In 1955–68, he rose from construction supervisor to chief engineer of the Housing Construction Combine. From 1968 to 1975, he was head of the department of construction of Sverdlovsk obkom where, in 1975, he was appointed secretary, and 1976–85, first secretary. In 1985, he became secretary of the CPSU Central committee in charge of Construction; in 1985–87, first secretary of Moscow Gorkom; in 1987–89, first deputy chair of the USSR State Committee for Construction. From 1989–91, he was a deputy in the USSR Congress; member of the Presidium, and chair of the Committee for Construction and Architecture in the USSR Supreme Soviet. In 1989–90, he was co-chair of the Interregional Group of Deputies in the USSR Supreme Soviet; in 1990–91, chair of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. In June 1991, he became president (and from October 1991-June 1992, prime minister) of the Russian Federation. Gennadii Andreevich Ziuganov Leader, Communist faction in State Duma. Born 1944. Member of CPSU, 1964–91. Ziuganov started his political career in the Komsomol. Over the period 1971–74, he was promoted from secretary of a Raikom to first secretary of Orel obkom Komsomol. In 1974, he moved over to Party work, rising from secretary of a Raikom, to second secretary of Orel Gorkom, to head of a department of the obkom in 1980. From 1983–90, Ziuganov worked in the Ideology Department of the CPSU Central Committee, reaching the post of deputy head of the department. In June 1990, he was appointed Central Committee secretary and Politburo member of the newly formed Communist Party of the RSFSR. He held both these posts until the dissolution of the RSFSR Communist Party in 1991. He was elected head of the Communist faction in the Russian State Duma in 1994, and is currently head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. G.S. Zolotukhin See text in chapter 4. Viktor Il’ich Zorkal’tsev Chair of Duma Committee for Religious and Public Organizations. Born 1936. 1959 graduate of Tomsk Engineering Construction Institute and CPSU Central


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Committee Higher Party School. Member of CPSU, 1962–91. Member of CPSU Central Committee, 1986–90. From 1960–64, he was a foreman in a construction administration in Tomsk. Zorkal’tsev began working for the Komsomol in Tomsk in 1964. In 1969, he moved over to full-time Party work, holding senior posts in Tomsk Oblast. From 1984–86, he was second secretary, and from 1986–91, first secretary, of Tomsk obkom. In 1985, he also held the post of CPSU Central Committee inspector. In December 1993, he was elected a deputy to the Russian State Duma, and in 1994, he was elected chair of the Duma Committee for Religious and Public Organizations. 2. Members of the Russian Business Elite Vagit Iusufovich Alekperov President of Lukoil. Alekperov was born in 1950 in the Azerbaizhan capital, Baku. Alekperov studied at the Baku Institute of Oil and Chemistry, where he graduated in 1974.Alekperov has worked for most of his life in the oil and gas industry. Starting out as an engineer in an oil extracting enterprise, he rose to head two large oil and gas industrial associations, “Surgutneftegaz” and “Bashneft” (1979–82). In 1984, he was appointed general director of Kogalyma Oil and Gas Production Association (“Kogalymneftegaz”), a post he held until 1990, when he was appointed the youngest-ever USSR deputy minister of the oil and gas industry, and then in 1991, a first deputy minister.With the collapse of the USSR government at the end of 1991, Alekperov was appointed president of Lukoil. In December 1995, he was also elected chairman of the Board of Directors of Imperial Bank. Lukoil is one of the largest companies in Russia, uniting western Siberia’s three major oil-extracting associations,“Lukoil-Kogalymneftgaz,”“Lukoil-Langepasneftgaz,” and “LukoilUraineftgaz.” In 1994, Lukoil accounted for approximately one-quarter of the oil extracted in western Siberia, and one-sixth of all oil produced in Russia.Alekperov was voted the fourth most important entrepreneur in Russia in a poll conducted in 1996 by Russian finance experts, and Lukoil was rated as the third largest company in Russia, with a turnover of 29574.0 billion rubles in 1995. Stanislav Vasil’evich Anisimov See text in chapter 9. Petr Olegovich Aven President of Al’fa Bank. Aven was born in 1955 in Moscow. In 1977, he graduated from the Economics Faculty of Moscow State University, and in 1980, he successfully defended his candidate thesis in economics. From 1981 until 1988, he was a research fellow at the All-Union Research Institute of System Research (USSR Academy of Sciences). In 1989–91, he was a counsellor of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the autumn of 1991,Aven was named chair of the Russian State

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Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, and first deputy minister of foreign affairs. In January 1992, he headed the new Russian Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations.At the beginning of 1993,Aven lost his post in the ministry and founded his own financial consultancy,“FinPA.” In 1994,Aven was appointed president and deputy chairman of the Board of Directors of Al’fa Bank. Nikolai Ivanovich Bekh See text in chapter 9. Boris Abramovich Berezovskii See text in chapter 9. Viktor Ivanovich Bukato See text in chapter 9. Iakov Nikolaevich Dubenetskii Chairman of the Board of Russian Federation Promstroibank (Industrial Construction Bank). Dubenetskii was born in Brest Oblast, Belorussia, in 1938. He studied economics at Moscow University, where he graduated in 1959. Dubenetskii began work in the planning department of a construction administration in Krasnoiar. From 1960 to 1977, Dubenetskii was an economist in the USSR Ministry of Gas, reaching the post of deputy head of the Planning-Economics Administration. In 1977, he moved over to work in Stroibank USSR (Construction Bank), where he headed the department dealing with the gas, oil, and chemical industries. In 1985, he was named deputy chair; in 1987, first deputy chair; and in 1991, chairman of the board of “Stroibank” USSR. Since the end of 1991, he has been chairman of the board of Russian Federation “Promstroibank.”The consolidated balance of the holding company in 1994 was 4.5 trillion rubles, and its overall assets reached 183.5 billion rubles. In 1995, Dubenetskii was also named co-chair of the “Roundtable of Russian Businesses,” and from May 1996, a deputy chair of the Association of Russian Banks. Sergei Efimovich Egorov President of the Association of Russian Banks. Egorov was born in 1928 in Novosibirk Region.After graduating in 1951 from the Saratov Economic Institute, he embarked upon a banking career, and from 1956 until 1991, he held top posts in the USSR and RSFSR State Banks. Egorov also worked for ten years (1963–73) in the CPSU Central Committee Department of Finance. In 1973, he was appointed chairman of RSFSR “Gosbank” (State Bank), a post he was to hold until 1990. In 1990, he was elected chairman of Moscow Bankers’ Union, and in 1991,


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he became the first president of the Association of Russian Banks.The Association of Russian Banks is a public organization including over 850 commercial banks. Egorov is also a vice president of the Russian Union of Businessmen. Grigorii Nosonovich Fidelman See text in chapter 9. Vsevolod Aleksandrovich Generalov Chairman of Board of Directors of “Noril’sk Nikel.” Generalov was born in 1944 in Semipalatinsk Oblast, Kazakhstan. In 1962, he entered Kazakhstan Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated in 1967 as an engineer-metallurgist. In 1978, he was awarded a Candidate Degree in technical sciences. From 1967–73, he was a smelter, foreman, and head of a shop in Ust’-Kamenogorsk Lead and Zink Factory, and then from 1973–83, chief engineer in the design office. From 1983 until 1987, he was director of the Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals in Moscow, and then from 1988–91, deputy director and chief engineer of the Moscow Scientific Research Institute, “Protsvetmet” (Non-Ferrous Metals). In 1992, he was appointed deputy chair of the Russian State Committee for Metallurgy. In April 1996, Generalov was named president and chairman of the Board of Directors of one of the largest companies in Russia, the JSC “Noril’sk Nikel’.” Vladimir Vasil’evich Kadannikov Chairman of Board of Directors of JSC AvtoVAZ. Kadannikov was born in 1941 in the city of Gorkii (Nizhnii Novgorod). In 1965, he graduated from Gorkii Polytechnic Institute with a diploma in mechanical engineering, and he was assigned to work at the Gorkii Motor Works. In a period of over 30 years, Kadannikov rose from the post of shop floor worker to become the president of one of Russia’s largest enterprises. From 1965–67, he worked as a metalworker’s apprentice, a metalworker, a foreman, a senior foreman, and a section head. In 1967, Kadannikov began working at the Volzhkii Motor Works, where, in the course of less than a year, he was appointed director of production in the pressing division. He was a member of the CPSU from 1969 to its dissolution in 1991. At the end of 1967, Kadannikov moved to work in the Automobile Production Association (“AvtoVAZ”), one of the largest factories in the USSR. In 1986, he was appointed first deputy director, and in 1988, director. In 1993, he was appointed president of the JSC “AvtoVAZ.” On its foundation in 1993, the company’s authorized capital was 21,416,643 rubles (in prices as of 1 July 1992). In 1994, 250,000 legal entities and individuals were among its shareholders. In January 1996, Kadannikov was appointed first deputy chair of the Russian government but it was a short-lived appointment, and he was not included in Yeltsin’s new Cabinet in August 1996. In November 1996, Kadannikov was reelected chairman of the Board of Directors of JSC “AvtoVAZ.” In 1995, Avto-

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Vaz was rated as the eighth largest company in Russia with a turnover of 19222.3 billion rubles. Boris Grigor’evich Khait Chairman of Board of Directors of “MOST-Bank” and executive director of “MOST-Group.” Khait was born on in 1951 in the Belorussian city of Grodno. In 1974, he graduated from Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. His first job was as a power engineer at the Moscow Central Hospital of the Railway’s Ministry. In 1977, Khait gained employment at Moscow’s Scientific Research Institute of Radiology, where he worked for ten years, rising from a department head to deputy director. In 1988, Khait left the Institute and founded the legal, financial, and property cooperative,“INFEKS.” In 1989, INFEKS became a founder of the joint venture “MOST” in collaboration with the U.S. company Arnold and Porter. On 4 October 1991 the commercial bank “Most-Bank” was transformed into a joint stock company, and Khait was appointed chairman of the Board of Directors. In 1992, the “MOST-Group” holding company was founded, and Khait became its executive director.The group engages in the manufacture of construction materials, and the construction and modernization of offices and flats. MOST-Bank also has investments in the mass media, in “NTV Television” and in the newspaper Sevodnya. MOST-Bank is one of the select group of banks permitted to operate short-term government bonds. Vladimir Olegovich Potanin Russian government representative on the Board of Directors of “Norilsk Nikel” and “Sidanko.” Potanin was born in 1961 in Moscow. Potanin studied in the Economics Faculty of Moscow State Institute of International Relations. On graduating in 1978, he worked as an economist in the USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade (1983–90). In 1991, Potanin was appointed president of the JSC “Interros,” which dealt in foreign economic transactions. In 1992, he was appointed president of the JSC Bank, “International Financial Company,” and then from 1993 until August 1996, he was president of “ONEKSIM” Bank. In August 1996, Potanin was appointed first deputy chair of the Russian government, where he has served as a government representative on the Board of Directors of “Norilsk Nikel” and the oil company, “Sidanko.” Iurii Konstantinovich Shafranik Chairman of Board of Directors of Tiumen Oil Company. Shafranik was born in 1952 in Tiumen Region. In 1974, he graduated as a mechanic from Tiumen Industrial Institute. From 1973–80, he worked in Nizhnevartovsk Oil and Gas Production Association, rising from foreman to chief engineer. From 1986–87, he was second secretary of Langespas City Party Committee, and then from 1987–90, general director of Langespas Oil and Gas Production Association. In 1990,


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Shafranik left the oil industry to take up an appointment as head of Tiumen Regional Soviet. In 1993, he moved to Moscow, where he was appointed Russian Federation minister of fuel and energy. In August 1996, Shafranik returned to the oil industry, when he was elected chairman of the Board of Directors of Tiumen Oil Company, the tenth largest company in Russia, with a turnover of 13629.5 billion rubles in 1995. Vladimir Ivanovich Shcherbakov President of the JSC Foreign Investment Company, “Interprivatizatsiia.” Shcherbakov was born in 1936 in Orenburg Region. He was a student at Tol’iatti Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated in 1969. He was a member of the CPSU from 1970 until 1991, and a member of the CPSU Central Committee, 1990–91. Scherbakov began work as a dispatcher in Volzhsky Car Factory (AvtoVAZ) but he soon moved over to full-time Komsomol work. From 1971–72, he headed a Komsomol department, and from 1972–74, he was second secretary of Tol’iatti City Komsomol. In 1974, he was a postgraduate student at the All-Union Higher Komsomol School. In 1977, he returned to work in “AvtoVAZ” as deputy head of the Planning-Economic Department and finally in 1982, deputy director of AvtoVAZ. In 1985, Shcherbakov moved to Moscow where he was employed in the USSR State Committee for Labor, becoming chairman in 1990. In March 1991, Shcherbakov was promoted to the post of deputy chair, and in May 1991, first deputy chair of the USSR Cabinet of Ministers. In November 1991, after the collapse of the CPSU and the USSR government, Scherbakov became president of the foreign investment JSC, “Interprivatizatsiia.” In 1994, Shcherbakov was also elected a vice president of the Round Table of Russian Businesses. Stanislav Vladimirovich Sorokin General director of “GUM.” Sorokin was born in 1939, in Chita Oblast, Ukraine. Sorokin was a student at Moscow’s Institute of National Economy where he graduated in 1964 as a specialist in foreign trade. In 1983, he was awarded a candidate degree in economics. After a short spell as an economist, Sorokin worked as a full time trades union official from 1966–73. From 1973–86, he worked in the USSR Ministry of Trade reaching the post of first deputy head of a department. In 1986, Sorokin was appointed director of Moscow’s most prestigious department store, GUM (State Universal Magazine), and in December 1991, he was elected general director of the newly privatized JSC GUM. In 1994, GUM with its 14 Moscow affiliates employed over eight thousand people. Rem Ivanovich Viakhirev Chairman of board of directors of the Joint Stock Company “Gazprom.”Viakhirev was born in 1934 in Kuibyshev Oblast.Viakhirev was a student at Kuibyshev Oil and Gas Institute, where he completed his degree in 1957. He also holds a candi-

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date degree in technical science.Viakhirev worked for twenty three years in the oil and gas industry in Orenburg, rising from the post of engineer (1961) to general director (1976–78) of the Orenburg Oil and Gas Extraction Association (“Orenburggazdobycha”). From 1978–82, he was chief engineer of the Orenburg Oil and Gas Industrial Production Association (“Orenburggazprom”). In 1983, he moved to Moscow where he was named USSR deputy minister (1983–5), and then first deputy minister (1985–89), of the gas industry. In 1989, when the Ministry of Gas was reorganized,Viakhirev became deputy head of the board of the new concern, “Gazprom.” In 1993,Viakhirev was appointed chairman of the board of directors of the newly privatized JSC,“Gazprom.” In July 1996, a panel of economic experts rated Viakharev the most influential entrepreneur in Russia, and in 1995, Gazprom was listed as the second largest company in Russia, with a turnover of 166,942.4 billion rubles.

Notes

Chapter 1 1. David Lane, Politics and Society in the USSR (London: Martin Robertson, 1978) (Originally published 1970), 233. 2. Ibid., 235. 3. See, for example, William Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (London: Routledge, 1960.) See especially p. 231, where industrialization and per capita income are shown to be linked to liberal democracy. Also see S.M. Lipset, “Some Social Requisites for Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 53 (1959): 69–105; and his influential, The First New Nation (New York: Basic Books, 1959). Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963); Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1968). 4. Frank Parkin,“System Contradiction and Political Transformation,” European Journal of Sociology 13 (1972): 46–56. 5. For more recent works on “democratization,” see Nancy Bermeo, “Rethinking Regime Change,” Comparative Politics 22, No. 3,(April 1990): 359–377; Axel Hadenius, Democracy and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Doh Chull Shin,“On The Third Wave of Democratization:A Synthesis and Evaluation of Recent Theory and Research,” World Politics 47, (October 1994): 135–170. Gerardo L. Munck,“Democratic Transitions in Comparative Perspective,” Comparative Politics 26, No. 4 (April 1994): 355–376; Karen L. Remmer, “New Theoretical Perspectives on Democratization,” Comparative Politics 28, No.1 (October 1995): 103–122;Adam Przeworski, ed., Sustainable Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1996). 6. F. Feher, A. Heller, and G. Markus, Dictatorship over Needs (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983); Paul Hollander, Soviet and American Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973); Anthony Giddens, The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies (London: Hutchinson, 1973); Stephen Fish, Democracy From Scratch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

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7. T.H. Rigby, Political Elites in the USSR: Central Leaders and Local Cadres from Lenin to Gorbachev (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1990), especially chapter 1. 8. Z. Bauman,“Social Dissent in the East European Political System,” European Journal of Sociology 12 (1992). 9. Alfred G. Meyer, The Soviet Political System:An Interpretation (New York: Random House, 1965): chapter 22. 10. T.H. Rigby, “Traditional, Market and Organizational Societies and the USSR,” World Politics 16 (1964): 545. 11. Most popular interpretations have taken this position; notably,Timothy Garton Ash, We the People: the Revolution of ‘89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (London: Granta Books, 1990). 12. Thomas F. Remington,“Regime Transition in Communist Systems:The Soviet Case,” Soviet Economy 6, No. 2 (1990): 160–190. 13. See Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 14. See Leslie Holmes, Post-Communism: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997), especially 42–58; Michael Mandelbaum, Post-Communism: Four Perspectives (USA: Council on Foreign Relations, 1996); Michael Cox, ed., Soviet Collapse and the Post-Communist World:A Critical Reassessment (London: Pinter, 1996);Vera Tolz, The Demise of the USSR: From Communism to Independence (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1995). 15. See the argument stressing the role of American foreign policy as a catalyst of collapse in Richard Pipes,“Misinterpreting the Cold War:The Hardliners Had it Right.” Foreign Affairs 74, No. 1 (1995): 154–160. 16. H. G. Skilling and F. Griffiths, Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971); J. Hough, “Political Participation in the Soviet Union,” Soviet Studies 28, No. 1 (1976): 3–20; D. Lane, Politics and Society in the USSR, (London:Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970); see especially chapter 8. 17. J. Hough, The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977): 9. 18. See, for instance, John Higley and Michael G. Burton,“The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns,” American Sociological Review 54 (1989): 17–32. 19. Ibid., 17. 20. See, for example, Jacek Wasilewski, “The Patterns of Bureaucratic Elite Recruitment in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s,” Soviet Studies 42, No. 4, (1990): 743–757.Wasilewski defines and outlines the recruitment of elites and their attitudes to the basis of recruitment. Unlike the authors of this study he concludes that in Poland there was a high level of moral integration of the elite (see Wasilewski 753). 21. Higley and Burton, “The Elite Variable” 27. 22. Ibid., 22. (see table 1). 23. In the republics were also bureaucratic organizations; these have to be ignored here.

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24. Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR: 1922–82 (Moscow: Finansy i Statistika, 1982): 399. 25. Trud v SSSR (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1988): 30–31 26. The following refer to ministries or State Committees. 27. A listing and analysis of the Central Committee between 1918 and 1961 is given in T.H. Rigby, “The CPSU Elite: Turnover and Rejuvenation from Lenin to Khrushchev,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 16, No. 1. (1970): 11–23. See his list of membership on 14. See also the listing of the membership given by Ewan Mawdsley, “The Central Committees of the CPSU since 1917,” The Lorton Paper, No 2, (Glasgow: Lorton House, 1991). 28. The internal organization of the CPSU was before perestroika a private affair, and no data on it were published.This list was derived from Radio Liberty Research Bulletin, (RFE/RL, Munich) 9 (1978). For an earlier and more comprehensive account, see Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, The Communist Party Apparat (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1966). 29. T.H. Rigby,“Gorbachev and Mono-organizational Socialism” in The Changing Soviet System (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1990): 155–182. 30. T.H. Rigby, “Traditional, Market . . .” 539. 31. For a definition of an ideologically unified elite see G. Lowell Field, John Higley, and Michael G. Burton,“A New Elite Framework for Political Sociology,” Revue Europeenne des Sciences Sociales 28, No. 88 (1990): 155. 32. J. Higley and J. Pakulski, “Elite Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe,” Australian Journal of Political Science 30 (1995): 6, 7. 33. Following Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971): 8. 34. J.F. Hough and M. Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979): 526. 35. In the Russian Federation alone, by 1991 there were over 100 parties and political groups. See listing, for instance, in Slovar’ oppozitsii, Nos. 4/5 (Moscow: Postfaktum, 1991.) Other lists of new parties and opposition groups in the Republics have been published in Izvestiia TsK. KPSS (Moscow: Izdanie Tsentral’novo Komiteta KPSS, 1990 and 1991). 36. F. Engels, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” in Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1951): 244. 37. The overwhelming majority of the Soviet and post-Communist Russian elite was male.Women comprised only 30 (5.4 percent) of the Soviet political elite and 43 (4.6 percent) of the post-Communist Russian political and economic elites. 38. The main sources used include Merle Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963): 392–402; R.W. Davies et al., Soviet Government Officials, 1922–41: a Handlist (Birmingham: Birmingham University, 1989): David Lane, “Politics and Society” (1970, and 1978 editions) and State and Politics in the USSR (Oxford: Blackwells, 1985); For 1987, H. Kraus and A. Rahr, “The Government of the USSR,” Radio Liberty Research Bulletin (Munich: RFE/RL) No. 514, (1987).

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39. These include chairs of the Union-Republic Councils of Ministers (5 in 1961, and 15 in 1987) and other leading officials. 40. Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–1982 (Moscow: Finansy i Statistika, 1982): 339–340.

Chapter 2 1. T. H. Rigby,“Gorbachev and Mono-organizational Socialism,” The Changing Soviet System (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1990): 233. 2. Anthony Giddens, The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies (London: Hutchinson, 1973): 252. 3. Here we follow approaches variously labelled “institutional pluralism” and “bureaucratic pluralism,” which argue that the Soviet Party and government bureaucracies were divided into different and competing interest groups. For a discussion of “institutional pluralism,” see Jerry F. Hough,“The Soviet System: Petrification or Pluralism?” Problems of Communism 21, No. 2 (MarchApril 1972): 25–45; Susan Gross Solomon, ed., Pluralism in the Soviet Union: Essays in Honour of H. Gordon Skilling (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983). On bureaucratic pluralism, see Darrell P. Hammer, “Inside the Ministry of Culture: Cultural Policy in the Soviet Union,” in Gordon B. Smith ed., Public Policy and Administration in the Soviet Union (New York: Praeger, 1980); Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., “Toward a Reconceptualisation of Political Change in the Soviet Union: The Political Leadership System,” Communist Studies and the Social Sciences (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1971): 222–243. 4. Important general works on the political leadership include Frederic J. Fleron, Communist Studies and the Social Sciences; T.H. Rigby, “The Soviet Political Executive, 1917–1986,” in Archie Brown, ed., Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1989): chapter 2; Jerry F. Hough, Soviet Leadership in Transition (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1980); Seweryn Bialer, Stalin’s Successors: Leadership, Stability and Change in the Soviet Union (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 5. Leonard Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1960): 240. Even in the 1930s under Stalin, the Politburo was the supreme decision-making body (ibid., 394); under Khrushchev, it (then called the Presidium) “represented the high command of Party and state administration” (ibid., 519). The role of secretaries of the CPSU is dominant: “At the apex of the system stood the secretaries of the Central Committee, who . . . could control in the Party Presidium the formulation of all policy at the highest level, and whose leader the First Secretary, after April 1958, had assumed formal leadership of the government machine” (ibid., 580). 6. Ibid., 549. 7. Ibid., 589.

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8. See T. H. Rigby, Political Elites in the USSR: Central Leaders and Local Cadres from Lenin to Gorbachev (Aldershot, Great Britain and Vermont, U.S.: Edward Elgar, 1990). 9. V. Bunce and John M. Echols, III,“Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era:“Pluralism” or ‘Corporatism’,” in Donald R. Kelley, ed. Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era (New York: Praeger, 1980): 11. 10. John Lowenhardt, The Soviet Politburo (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1982): 5. 11. T.H. Rigby, Foreword in Lowenhardt (1982): 3. 12. Jerry F. Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979): 544. 13. Ibid. 14. Note that under Khrushchev the Politburo was called the Presidium of the Central Committee between 1952 and 1966. 15. For detailed breakdown see Stephen White, “The Soviet Leadership: Politburo, Organizations and Secretariat of the CPSU, 1919–1990.” Lorton Papers (Glasgow) No. 3, (1991). 16. Kosygin (Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers), Mazurov (First Deputy Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers), Polianskii (First Deputy Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers),Voronov (Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers), and Shcherbitskii (Chairman, Ukraine Council of Ministers). 17. Andropov (KGB), Gromyko (Foreign Affairs), Kosygin (Chair, USSR Council of Ministers), Mazurov (First Deputy Chair), and Grechko (Defense), Demichev (USSR Minister of Culture), and Solomentsev (Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers). 18. Aliev (First Deputy Chair, USSR Council of Ministers), Chebrikov (KGB), Ryzhkov (Chair, Council of Ministers), Shevardnadze (Foreign Affairs), Demichev (Culture), Sokolov (Defense), Talyzin (Gosplan), and Vorotnikov (Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers). 19. In 1986, they included the Departments of Administrative Organs, the Agriculture and Food Industry, Cadres Abroad, the Chemical Industry, Construction, Culture, the Defense Industry, Economics, General Administration, Heavy Industry and Power Engineering, International, Liaison with Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries, Light Industry and Consumer Goods, Propaganda, Science and Educational Institutions, Trade and Consumer Services,Transport and Communications.To this we may add the Main Directorate of the Army and Navy, which supervised the Armed forces. Source: Authors’ Data Base and Alexander Rahr, “The apparatus of the CPSU,” Radio Liberty Research RFE/RL Munich, No. 15, (April, 1987): 1–8. 20. Robert D. Putnam, “The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Britain, Germany and Italy,” in Matei Dogan, ed. The Mandarins of Western Europe: The Political Role of Top Civil Servants (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1975): 87. 21. Robert V. Daniels, “Political Processes and Generational Change,” in Archie Brown, ed., Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1989): 96–126, especially 104.

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22. John H. Kress, “Representation of Positions on the CPSU Politburo,” Slavic Review 39, No. 2, (June 1980), 218–238, especially 218. 23. Twenty-six members were promoted from candidate to full membership, and 13 entered the Politburo as full voting members. In July 1990, candidate membership was abolished. It is interesting to note that some members held candidate membership for very long periods without promotion to full membership. Thus, for example, Demichev, who was a CPSU secretary and minister of culture and at the end of his career first deputy chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, was a candidate for 24 years. Ponomarev, CPSU secretary for foreign affairs, was a candidate for 16 years. Mzhavadze, first Party secretary of Georgia, and Masherov, first Party secretary of Belorussia, were candidates for 15 and 14 years, respectively. 24. These and the following data have been derived from a wide range of Russian and other sources. These included the biographical directories of members of the USSR Supreme Soviet (Deputaty Verkhovnovo Soveta SSSR (Moscow: Izvestiia, various editions); the newspapers Pravda and Izvestiia; Ezhegodnik Bol’shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopedia and Izvestiia TsK KPSS (Moscow: Tsentral’novo Komiteta KPSS), in particular numbers 7–8 (1990), which contain biographies of all members of the Politburo and Secretariat, and numbers 10–12 (1990), which provide biographies of members of the CPSU Central Committee elected at the 28th Party Congress, 13 July 1990. The study greatly benefited from the authors’ access to the “Red Archives” at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, and from the editions of A Biographical Directory of 100 Leading Soviet Officials, compiled by Alexander Rahr, (RFE/RL: Munich, various editions). Other Western sources were Soviet Biographical Service, J.L. Scherer (Munich, New York, London, Paris); Who’s Who in the Soviet Union:A Biographical Encyclopedia of 5,000 Leading Personalities in the Soviet Union ed., Boris Lewytzkyj (Munchen, New York, London, Paris: K.G. Saur, 1985). Evan Mawdsley, Lorton Paper 1: A Directory of CPSU Central Committee Members, 1917 - 1990 (Glasgow: Lorton House, 1991). 25. These were Grechko (USSR minister of defense), Gromyko (USSR minister of foreign affairs—see biography in Appendix 1), and Tikhonov, (chairman, USSR Council of Ministers)—all of whom had zero saturation—and Kosygin (chairman, USSR Council of Ministers). In the period 1981 to 1986, only 7 new members joined the Politburo. These entrants had relatively more government service than previous entrants and included Talyzin (first deputy chairman, USSR Council of Ministers) and Sokolov (USSR minister of defense), both of whom had had a negligible executive role in the Party.The period 1986–90 saw the addition of three top government officials with no Party work experience: Iazov (USSR minister of defense), Masliukov (first deputy chairman of USSR Council of Ministers and Chairman of Gosplan), and Primakov (chairman,

Notes

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31. 32. 33.

34.

35.

36. 37.

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Council of the Union of the USSR Supreme Soviet). Finally, in the period 1990–91, to the Politburo were added Mutalibov (first secretary of Central Committee of Azerbaidzhan, with little Party administrative experience), Semenova (secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, who had a previous career in journalism as a Party professional but had no experience working for the Party apparat), Ianaev (secretary of the CPSU Central Committee with a background in the international youth movement and trade unions), and Surkov (chairman of the All-Army Party Committee with a lifetime of political work in the army—see biography in Appendix I). Chernenko had a long history of Party work from 1926; he was appointed head of the Central Committee General Department in 1965, and a CPSU Central Committee Secretary in 1976. He became a candidate member of the Politburo in 1977. Dolgikh, who was the first Party secretary of Krasnoiarsk Region in 1969–72, spent ten years as a CPSU Central Committee secretary before his appointment to the Politburo as a candidate in 1982. Ligachev had a lifetime of work in the Party. From 1961 to 1965, he worked in the apparat of the CPSU Central Committee; from 1965 to 1983, he was first Party secretary of Tomsk Region. He was appointed a CPSU Central Committee secretary in 1983, and a full member of the Politburo in 1985. Ponomarev, from 1948 to 1955, was First Deputy Head, and from 1955 head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, and a CPSU Central Committee secretary from 1961. He became a candidate member of the Politburo in 1972. For instance, Suslov (with 31 years in the Politburo), Brezhnev (27 years), and (Shcherbitskii) 26 years, had the much-lower scores of, respectively, 438, 345, and 358 when they first entered the Politburo, but by the end of their tenure of office they would have occupied many more Party posts, as a consequence of their office. As noted, there were only two women members of the Politburo over the period 1966–1991. Biriukova, Luk’ianov, Medvedev, and Vlasov. For a discussion of Gorbachev’s attempts to transfer power from the Party to the government, see Cameron Ross, “Party-State Relations” in Eugene Huskey, ed. Executive Power and Soviet Politics:The Rise and Decline of the Soviet State (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1992): 49–82. As many as 4 million left the Party over the period 1989–1991, reducing Party membership from 19 to 15 million. See Pravda, 30 September, 1991, 1. For the Politburo as a whole, the figures were 12 out of 19 in 1966, 13 out of 21 in 1971, 13 out of 22 in 1976, 15 out of 22 in 1981, 10 out of 19 in 1986, and 7 out of 19 in 1990. Quoted in David Lane, Soviet Society Under Perestroika (London: Routledge, 1991): 55–6. T. H. Rigby, “Political Elites in the USSR,” 190–219.

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Chapter 3 1. In 1988, Gorbachev radically restructured the Party apparatus. We discuss these developments later in this chapter. 2. Two individuals were 60 or over, 15 were 50 and over, and 6 were 40 and over when they first began careers in the Party. 3. Examples of such coopted executives would be: O. D. Baklanov (military-industrial executive, age 56 when appointed), A. P. Biriukova (textile industrial executive and trade union worker, age 57),V. M. Chebrikov (KGB, age 65), A. F. Dobrynin (diplomat, age 66), N.I. Ryzhkov (construction—industrial executive and government employee, age 53), G. I. Semenova (journalist, age 53), and L. M. Zamiatin (diplomat, age 56).All of the above entered the Party apparat at the top with posts as CPSU secretaries (or, in the case of Zamiatin, as a department head).We may also add L.N. Zaikov (military-industrial executive), who was coopted into his first Party post (first secretary of Leningrad Obkom) at the age of 60 and only two years later was appointed CPSU secretary for the military-industrial complex. (See note 6 for a list of Party officials with diplomatic experience). 4. They were Iu.V. Andropov, chairman of the KGB from 1967–82; A.F. Dobrynin, ambassador to the United States, 1961–86,V.M. Chebrikov, deputy chairman of the KGB, 1968–82, and chairman, 1982–88; and finally L.M. Zamiatin, who had spent 32 years (1946–78) working in the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in diplomacy. 5. The following had held posts as USSR ministers or chairmen of USSR state committees; 1) Iu.V. Andropov was chairman of the KGB, 1967–82; 2) O.D. Baklanov, minister of general machine building, 1983–88; 3) V.M. Chebrikov, Chairman of the KGB, 1982–88; 4) K.V. Rusakov, minister of the fish industry, 1950–52; 5) V.I. Shimko, minister of the radio industry, 1987–88; 6) B.I. Stukalin, chairman of the State Committee for Publishing and Printing, 1970–82; 7) A.V.Vlasov, minister of Internal Affairs, 1986–88, and Chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers, 1988–90. In addition, there were 9 who had held posts as deputy or first deputy USSR ministers and chairmen; 1) K.M. Bogoliubov, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Publishing and Printing, 1963–65; 2) N.I. Ryzhkov, first deputy chairman of Gosplan, 1979–82; 3) N.N. Sliun’kov, deputy chairman of Gosplan, 1974–83; 4) N.A. Stashenkov, deputy minister of Trade, 1981–83; 5) A.A. Epishev, deputy chairman of the KGB for a short period in 1943 and deputy minister of medium machine building, 1951–53; 6) I.F. Dmitriev, first deputy chairman of the Military Industrial Committee, 1958–65, 7) N.M. Pegov, deputy minister of foreign affairs 1973–76; 8) M.V. Zimianin, deputy minister of foreign affairs for a short period in 1965; 9) V.P. Nikonov, deputy minister of agriculture 1979–83. 6. 1) Iu.V. Andropov was ambassador to Hungary (1954–57); 2) S.V. Chervonenko to China (1959–65), Czechoslovakia (1965–73), and France (1973–83); 3) A.F. Dobrynin to the United States (1961–86); 4) A.S. Dza-

Notes

7. 8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

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sokhov to Syria (1986–88); 5) A.A. Epishev to Romania (1955–61), and Yugoslavia (1961–62); 6) V.M. Falin to the Federal Republic of Germany (1971–78); 7) A.N. Iakovlev to Canada (1973–83); 8) A.S. Kapto to Cuba (1981–86); 9) N.M. Pegov to Iran (1956–63), Algeria (1964–67), and India (1967–73); 10) K.V. Rusakov to Mongolia (1962–64); 11) L.M. Zamiatin to Great Britain (1986–91); and 12) M.V. Zimianin to North Vietnam (1956–58), and Czechoslovakia (1960–65). Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996): 184. Pravda, 27 February, 1986, 2–3.Translated in Current Digest of the Soviet Press (Hereafter, CDSP), XXXVIII, No. 9 (2 April 1986): 4–5. For an interesting account of the reorganization of the Party apparat see Gordon M. Hahn, “The First Reorganization of the CPSU Central Committee apparat under Perestroika,” Europe-Asia Studies, 49, No. 2 (1997): 281–302. See also Archie Brown’s discussion of the reorganization of the Central Committee, in The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press: 1996): 184–186. Seven departments were abolished outright: Chemical Industry, Construction, Heavy Industry and Power Engineering, Light Industry and Consumer Goods, Machine Building,Trade and Consumer Services, and Transport and Communications. Shimko had a mixed career of Party, industrial executive, research and government work. Thus, he worked in the Central Committee Department of Transport and Communications from 1976 to 1987, and was then transferred to the post of USSR minister of the radio industry. He had held this post for only a year when Gorbachev brought him back to the Central Committee. Shimko, in turn, was supervised by the chairman of the new CPSU Central Committee Commission for Social and Economic Policy, Nikolai N. Sliun’kov, who had over 20 years experience as an industrial executive in Belorussia and had worked as first deputy chairman of USSR Gosplan, 1974–83. After the 28th Party Congress, key state officials, such as the prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, minister of defense, minister of internal affairs, and chairman of the State Committee for Security (KGB), were moved out of the Politburo and transferred to the Presidential Council. See “Politburo i Sekretariat Tsentral’nogo Komiteta KPSS,” Izvestiia TsK KPSS No. 8 (1990): 7; and for a list of members of the Presidential Council in October 1990, see Theodore Karasik,“The Defense Council and Soviet Presidency,” Perspective, 1, No. 2 (1990): 1. Research in the 1960s by John Armstrong pointed to similar conclusions. Criticizing conventional studies that “tended to exaggerate the departures from hierarchical principles in its formal economic administration,” on the basis of interviews with Western businessmen, he concluded that economic agencies in the USSR “were as much under “one-man management” as their own” [i.e.,Western firms]. He goes on to say that the only exception to their

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The Transition from Communism to Capitalism view of the hierarchical structure of Soviet administration was the influence of the Communist Party, but he adds, “they could rarely specify the nature of this influence.” John A. Armstrong, “Sources of Administrative Behavior: Some Soviet and Western European Comparisons,” in Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., Communist Studies 360 (note 3, chapter 2).

Chapter 4 1. On nomenklatura, see Bohdan Harisymiw, “Nomenklatura: The Soviet Communist Party’s Leadership Recruitment System,” Canadian Journal of Political Science No. 3 (1969): 493–512; and B. Harisymiw, Political Recruitment in the Soviet Union (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1984). 2. See C. Ross, Local Government in the Soviet Union: Problems of Implementation and Control (New York: St. Martin’s Press: 1987); William Taubman, Governing Soviet Cities: Bureaucratic Politics and Urban Development in the USSR (New York, Washington, and London: Sage, 1973); Stephen Whitefield, Industrial Power and the Soviet State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). 3. Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, 31 July 1957,“O Razvitii Zhilishchnovo Stroitel’stva v SSSR,” Kommunisticheskaia Partiia Sovetskovo Soiuza v Rezoliutsiiakh i Resheniiakh S”ezdov, Konferentsii i Plenumov TsK (hereafter KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh) VII, 1955–9 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1971): 278–94; Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 12 March 1971, “O Merakh po Dal’neishemu Uluchsheniiu Raboty Raionnykh i Gorodskikh Sovetov Deputatov Trudiashchikhsia,” Pravda, (14 March 1971): 1–2; Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, 28 November 1978, “Ob Osnovnykh Pravakh i Obiazannostiakh Gorodskikh i Raionnykh v Gorodakh Sovetov Narodnykh Deputatov,” Sovety Narodnykh Deputatov: Status Kompetentsiia, Organizatsiia Deiatel’nosti: Sbornik Dokumentov (Moscow: Politizdat, 1980): 312–313; Resolution of the Central Committee, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, and the USSR Council of Ministers, 19 March 1981, “O Dal’neishem Povyshenii Roli Sovetov Narodnykh Deputatov v Khoziastvennom Stroitel’stve,” KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh XIV, 1980–1 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1982): 346–350. 4. Stephen Whitefield, “Industrial Power.” 5. See the following resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU; “O rabote partkoma Ministerstva miiasnoi i molochnoi promyshlennosti SSSR,” 3 February 1970, KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh X, 1969–71 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1972): 191–197; “Ob osushchestvlenii partkomom Ministerstva sviazi SSSR kontrolia za rabotoi apparata po vypolneniu direktiv partii i pravitel’stva,” 9 November 1974, KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh (Moscow: Politizdat, 1978): 463–5; “O sostoianii kontrolia i proverki ispolneniia v Ministerstve neftepererabatyvaiushcheii neftekhimicheskoi promyshlennosti SSSR,” 21 May 1980, KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh XIII, 1978–80, (Moscow: Politizdat,

Notes

6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

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1981): 619–24; “O Komissiiakh pervichnykh partiinykh organizatsii po osushchestvleniiu kontrolia deiatel’nosti administratsii i za rabotoi apparata,” 16 February 1982, Partiinaia Zhizn’ No. 6 (1982): 13–16. See especially chapters 4 and 5 of C. Ross, “Local Government.” Whitefield, 29. “Gorbachev’s Opening Speech to the 19th All-Union Party Conference, 28th June, 1988,” translated in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, Soviet Union No. 127, (1 July 1988), reprinted in Barach A. Hazan, Gorbachev’s Gamble:The 19th All-Union Party Conference (Boulder, San Francisco, and London:Westview Press, 1990): 122. “The State Statistics Committee Reports: Where Are The Managers And How Many Of Them Are There?” Izvestiia, 7 March 1989, 1, translated in Current Digest of the Soviet Press No. 10, (1989): 8. This study focuses on the biographies of 212 (of 230) members of the USSR Council/Cabinet of Ministers who held the status of USSR Minister or membership of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers, appointed from April 1984 to the abolition of the government in September 1991. Not included are the ex-officio members who are chairmen of the 15 Republic Councils of Ministers and members of the administrative apparatus of the Council. For details of biographical sources, see chapter 2, note 24. There have been relatively few studies of the USSR Council of Ministers.The exceptions are: Karl W. Ryavec,“The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite from 1964 to 1979:A Research Note,” Soviet Union 12, No. 3 (1985): 322–45;T.H. Rigby,“The Soviet Government since Khrushchev,” Politics 12, No. 1 (1977): 5–22; Gordon B. Smith, “Gorbachev and the Council of Ministers: Leadership Consolidation and Its Policy Implications,” Soviet Union/Union Sovietique 14, No. 3 (1987): 343–363; Cameron Ross, “The USSR Cabinet of Ministers,” Report On The USSR 3, No. 26 (28 June, 1991); Eugene Huskey, ed., Executive Power and Soviet Politics:The Rise and Decline of the Soviet State (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1992). Two articles that examine personnel change more generally and which give excellent accounts of appointments to the government in the Gorbachev period are, Thane Gustafson and Dawn Mann,“Gorbachev At The Helm,” Problems of Communism (May-June 1986): 1–19; and “Gorbachev’s Next Gamble,” Problems of Communism (July-August 1987): 1–20. For a wider discussion of Soviet political elites, see the following:Archie Brown, ed., Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989); Philip G. Roeder,“Do New Soviet Leaders Really Make a Difference? Rethinking the Succession Connection,” American Political Science Review 79, No. 4 (December 1985): 958–76;Valerie Bunce and Philip G. Roeder,“The Effects of Leadership Succession in the Soviet Union,” American Political Science Review 80, No. 1 (March 1986): 215–24. For a discussion of Party saturation, see the following excellent studies by Frederic J. Fleron:“System Attributes and Career Attributes: the Soviet Political Leadership System, 1952 to 1965” in Carl Beck et al., eds., Comparative

234

12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Communist Political Leadership (New York: David McKay, 1973): 66–77; “Cooptation as a Mechanism of Adaptation to Change,” Polity 11 (1969): 190–4; “Toward a Reconceptualization of Political Change in the Soviet Union: The Political Leadership system,” Comparative Politics No. 1 (1969): 228–44. Fleron’s work was concerned with the composition of the CPSU Central Committee, 1952–65. By examining the career background of individuals before they entered CPSU or Komsomol office, Fleron was able to distinguish two types of office-holders: (1) those who entered the Party elite at very early stages in their careers, thus having little opportunity to form close ties with a professional-vocational group; and (2) those who entered the Party elite later on in their careers, probably establishing close professionalvocational ties outside the political elite.The former Fleron called “recruited officials” and the latter “coopted officials.” Fleron used seven years as “a cutting point.” “An individual was thus classified as “recruited” if he began occupying . . . Party offices more or less regularly before he had spent seven years in a professional or technical vocation. Individuals who spent more than seven years in a professional or technical vocation before holding . . . Party positions were classified as “coopted.” (Fleron, in Beck et al., 51.) In a similar vein but with a focus on the study of Soviet government,T.H. Rigby defines “career specialists” as “those who had worked all or most of their lives in a particular field.” He contrasts these with “Party generalists” whom, he notes, “took Government posts after considerable experience in the Party apparatus.” See T.H. Rigby,“The Government in the Soviet Political System,” in Eugene Huskey, ed., Executive Power and Soviet Politics 1–48, 35. For a more general discussion of Party saturation see Jerry Hough, “Party Saturation in the Soviet Union,” chapter 5 of The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1977). For example, at the CPSU level, secretaries of the Central Committee were given a weight of 50, heads of departments 40, and lower officials (instruktory) 15; at the republican level, first secretaries of large republics and the secretaries of major cities were given weights of 40 and others of this status 30. At lower levels of administration, such as town and raion level, secretaries were given a score of 15; secretaries of Party groups were given a weight of 5. Our method thus differs from that used by Fleron (as detailed in note 10). We should note that of those 230 members of the USSR Council of Ministers appointed in 1984–1991, there were only three women: A. P. Biriukova, L. E. Davletova, and B.F. Rakhimova. Further examples are V.V. Bakhirev and E.P. Slavskii (for details of their careers see appendix 1). Thus, Minister of Culture V.G. Zakharov had worked in Moscow Gorkom as second secretary before being promoted to the Central Committee apparatus, becoming first deputy head of the Department of Propaganda immediately prior to his ministerial appointment.The two chairmen of the State Committee for Cinematography had interesting career paths that took them

Notes

17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23.

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into the Central Committee Department of Culture immediately before their transfer to the government. F.T. Ermash was head of a department of Sverdlovsk Obkom, chief of a section of the Department of Culture, and then deputy head of the Central Committee Department of Culture. A.I. Kamshalov spent his entire career in the Komsomol, reaching the post of secretary of the All-Union Komsomol before moving into the Central Committee Department of Culture, where he headed the section on Cinematography. Minister of Education S.G. Shcherbakov previously worked as deputy and then first deputy head of the CPSU Central Committee Department of Science and Educational Institutions. N.A. Petrovichev, chairman of the State Committee for Vocational and Technical Education, held posts of deputy and then first deputy head of the CPSU Central Committee Department of Organizational-Party Work. Minister of Light Industry V.G. Kliuev was transferred from a long spell as first party secretary of the textile city of Ivanovo. F.T. Morgun became chairman of the State Committee for the Protection of Nature after serving as first secretary of Poltava Obkom. I.P. Kazanets was appointed to the Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy from the post of second secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. G.V. Kolbin became chairman of the People’s Control Committee after working in the post of first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. A.V. Kovalenko was appointed chairman of the State Committee for Material Reserves after working as first secretary of Orenburg Obkom. B.N.Yeltsin, who was out of favor with the Party leadership, was demoted from the post of first secretary of Moscow Gorkom and posted to the State Committee for Construction as a first deputy chairman, with the rank of minister.V.A. Durasov, who was to become the chairman of the State Committee for Vocational and Technical Education, was previously a secretary of Leningrad Obkom. Other typical examples are A.V.Vlasov and P.N. Demichev (for details, see appendix 1.) Here, all those appointed members of the Council of Ministers at the level of minister and member of the Presidium were divided into three time periods: those appointed before 1 April 1985 (a total of 168 appointments); those appointed from 1 April 1985 to 30 June 1989 (107), and those appointed from 1 July to the August coup of 1991 (118). Gorbachev was actually appointed CPSU general secretary on 11 March 1985. We chose the end of June 1989 as this coincided with the elections of the new government of Prime Minister N.I. Ryzhkov and there was a major turnover of personnel in July 1989. We provide further examples of such transfers of Party officials into the state in notes 16 and 17. We have included the following bodies in the military-industrial complex; the Ministries of Atomic Energy,Aviation Industry, Communications Equipment Industry, Defense Industry, Electronics Industry, General Machine

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24.

25.

26.

27. 28. 29.

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Building, Machine Building, Medium Machine Building, Radio Industry, and Shipbuilding Industry, as well as the Military-Industrial Commission of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers and its successor, the Commission for Military-Industrial Matters. Western analysts in the late 1970s and early 1980s estimated that some 40 percent of the Soviet economy was linked in some way to the defense sector. See Z.K. Brzezinski in E.P. Hoffmann and F.J. Fleron, The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy (New York: Aldine, 1980): 322; Karl F. Spielman “Defense Industrialists in the USSR,” Problems of Communism 25, No. 5 (Sept-Oct 1976): 52–69; John McDonnell, “The Soviet Defense Industry as a Pressure Group,” in Michael MccGwire et al., eds., Soviet Naval Policy (New York: Praeger, 1975): 87–122. Here our analysis is congruent with Whitefield’s observation that “Politicians were clearly more powerful in some areas, such as control over culture, the press, and foreign policy, which were not organizationally linked to industry.” see Whitefield Industrial Power, (see note 2): 17. As Bauman has put it, “The major institution that sustains the power of the Party is its supreme and unquestioned authority over all appointments to office in the many administrative bodies included in the official chart of the system; the unchallenged and monopolistic right of the Party to appoint incumbents of offices, to determine and alter the range of their competence, and to dismiss them from office for any failure to meet these requirements which are determined or freely altered by the Party.” Z. Bauman, “Officialdom and Class,” in F. Parkin, The Social Analysis of Class Structure (London: Tavistock, 1974): 141. See also Michael Voslensky, Nomenklatura: Anatomy of the Soviet Ruling Class (London: Bodley Head. 1984.) Whitefield (1993): 16. Ibid. After the 28th Party Congress, key state officials, such as the prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, minister of defense, minister of internal affairs, and chairman of the State Committee for Security (KGB), were moved out of the Politburo and transferred to the Presidential Council. See “Politburo i Sekretariat Tsentral’nogo Komiteta KPSS,” Izvestiia TsK KPSS No. 8 (1990): 7. For a list of members of the Presidential Council in October 1990, see Theodore Karasik,“The Defense Council and Soviet Presidency,” Perspective 1, No. 2 (1990): 1.

Chapter 5 1. See Robert T. Huber and Donald R. Kelley, eds., Perestroika-era Politics: The New Soviet Legislature and Gorbachev’s Political Reforms (Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford:Westview, 1991); Jeffrey W. Hahn,“State Institutions in Transition,” Stephen White, Alex Pravda, and Zvi Gitelman, eds., Developments in Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press, Sec-

Notes

2.

3.

4.

5.

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ond edition, 1992), Michael E. Urban, More Power to the Soviets (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1990); Eugene Huskey, ed., Executive Power and Soviet Politics: The Rise and Decline of the Soviet State (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992); Peter Vanneman, The Supreme Soviet: Politics and the Legislative Process in the Soviet Political System (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1977); Shugo Minagawa, Supreme Soviet Organs (Nagoya: Nagoya University Press, 1985). Elections to the new Congress of People’s Deputies took place on 26 March 1989 and the Congress met for its first session on 26 May 1989.The Congress, in turn, elected the Supreme Soviet on 27 May 1989.The first session of the Supreme Soviet took place in June 1989. In this study, we consider the elites of the old Supreme Soviet (1984-March 1989) and the new legislative elite (May 1989-October 1991). Prior to the changes enacted by Gorbachev in 1989, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was composed of a chairperson, a first deputy chair, 15 deputy chairs (ex-officio who were chairpersons of the republican Presidiums), 21 elected members, and a secretary—a total of 39. In the Chambers’ elite, there was a total of 44 persons: for each Chamber: 1 chairperson and 4 deputy chairs, and 17 chairpersons of standing committees.The Supreme Soviet elected in 1989, being 542 members strong, was a smaller and more effective legislature than its predecessor, and was itself elected from a Congress of People’s Deputies, a much larger body of 2,250 deputies. As in the past, it was divided into two chambers and its higher bodies were not unlike its predecessor. The members of the Presidium included its chair, the first deputy chair, the chairpersons of the two houses of the Supreme Soviet, 15 deputy chairpersons of the USSR Supreme Soviet (who are also the chairpersons of the Union-Republican Soviets), the chair of the People’s Control Commission, and the chairs of the 8 permanent commissions and 14 standing committees of the Supreme Soviet. The Chambers’ elite was constituted of (for each Chamber): a chairperson and 2 deputy chairpersons (a total of 6) and the chairs of commissions and committees, who from 1989 were ex officio members of the Presidium, and already counted earlier. In March 1990, some alterations were made to the Presidium, which was now composed of 1 Chair (Chair of the USSR Supreme Soviet), 2 Chairs of the chambers, 1 Chair of the People’s Control Committee, and 22 Chairs of the Committees and Commissions. New representatives from local level assemblies (including 1 people’s deputy from each of the 15 republics, and 1 representative from the autonomous republics, and 2 from the autonomous oblasts and okrugs).The Presidium was no longer made up of the 15 chairs of the republic Supreme Soviets who were transferred to Gorbachev’s new Federation Council. These new republic and regional members are not included in our definition of the legislative elite because they were representatives of other legislatures. Chernenko, Grishin, Gorbachev, Kunaev, and Shcherbitskii. In addition we find 1 All-Union Central Committee secretary (Luk’ianov), 5 republic secretaries, 7 obkom and 2 gorkom secretaries, and 2 All-Union Komsomol secretaries.

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6. In the earlier period, 2 of these were also members of the Politburo (Demichev, who was minister of culture, and Gromyko, minister of foreign affairs).A third, Kuznetsov, was a first deputy minister of foreign affairs when appointed in 1977 to the post of first deputy chairman of the Presidium. 7. Gorbachev, Ponomarev, Dobrynin, Ligachev, and Ryzhkov. 8. The first secretaries of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Estonia, Kirgizia, Latvia and Moldavia; second secretaries of Kazakhstan and Belorussia; and secretaries of the Ukraine (2) and Kazakhstan. 9. The first deputy chairmen of Council of Ministers of Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia (2); deputy chairmen of Council of Ministers of Russia (2) and Ukraine; one USSR ambassador (who served in Afghanistan). 10. In addition, there was one female worker (Gellert, a tractor operator in a Kolkhoz), who headed the committee for Women’s Affairs; one enterprise director, also a woman, who led this same commission at a different time and was a director of a textile factory in Ivanovo; and finally, one chairman of the Uzbek Trade Union Council. 11. Only P.V. Shet’ko, chair of the Supreme Soviet Committee of Military-Internationalists, was not a member of the CPSU when elected. But he nevertheless worked as a lecturer in Minsk obkom Komsomol.We should note, however, that some top officials, such as Yeltsin, left the CPSU over the period 1990–91. 12. Much of the data in this section is based on research by Otto Cappelli on data provided in Soiuz SSSR Database, INDEM (Moscow: 1992). 13. “Speech by V.S. Lipitskii at 8 October session of CPSU Central Committee,” Pravda, 10 October 1990, 4, translated in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report, Soviet Union, [hereafter FBIS], (11 October 1990): 49. 14. These data were derived from the INDEM, Soiuz (Supreme Soviet USSR), (Moscow 1993) data base. 15. For details of the voting patterns of members of the Supreme Soviet elite on these five crucial issues, see David Lane and Cameron Ross, “The Social Background and Political Allegiance of the Political Elite of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR:The Terminal Stage, 1984 to 1991,” Europe-Asia Studies 46, No. 3 (1994): 437–463. 16. For a profile of members of these two groups, see Ibid. 17. These figures do not include the rector of the Trade Union Institute and the head of a department in the Academy of Social Sciences of the CPSU in Group 1, and a lecturer in the Komsomol in Minsk obkom in Group 2, who we would define as members of the Party-government elite rather than members of the artistic and professional intelligentsia.

Chapter 6 1. See Doh Chull Shin, “On The Third Wave of Democratization: A Synthesis and Evaluation of Recent Theory and Research,” World Politics 47 (October 1994): 135–70.

Notes

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2. See, for instance, John Higley and Michael G. Burton, “The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns,” American Sociological Review 54 (1989): 17–32; G. O’Donnell and P.C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1986). 3. Higley and Burton, 1989, 17. 4. The reference is from Giovanii Sartorii, The Theory of Democracy Revisited (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1987), quoted in Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe, eds. John Higley and Richard Gunther, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992): 9. 5. J. Higley, M.G. Burton, and G.L. Field,“In Defense of Elite Theory: a Reply to Cammack,” American Sociology Review 55 (1990): 424. See also D. Rueschemeyer, E.H. Stephens, and J.D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992): 3. 6. G. O’Donnell and P.C. Schmitter, 1986. 7. Ibid. 8. Thomas F. Remington has a useful account of the different approaches to systemic change under state socialism; see his “Regime Transition in Communist Systems:The Soviet Case.” Soviet Economy 6, No. 2, (1990): 160–70. He distinguishes between “optimists” (those who predict democratization) and “pessimists” (those who anticipate internal destruction) but no attempt is made here to show elite divisions or to detail the pressures on the political elite. Higley and Burton in their earlier work excluded the communist countries from their analysis of elite transformation. (Ibid., 27.) Wasilewski defines and outlines the recruitment of elites and their attitudes to the basis of recruitment. He considers that in Poland there was a high level of moral integration of the elite. (Jacek Wasilewski, “The Patterns of Bureaucratic Elite Recruitment in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s,” Soviet Studies 42, No. 4, (1990): 743–757; see particularly 753.) No previous studies have analyzed, on the basis of attitudes to policy and social change, the extent of elite dissension under state socialism. 9. See Higley and Burton, 1989, 22; John Higley and Jan Pakulski,“Elite Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe,” Australian Journal of Political Science 30 (1995): 5. 10. J. Higley and J. Pakulski, 1995. 11. It is based on interviews, conducted in Moscow in the autumn of 1993, with 116 people who occupied top political positions (see following discussion) and were in office from the time Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Party to the attempted coup in August 1991.The questionnaire was devised by David Lane; the interviews were organized and carried out under the supervision of Elena Bashkirova and Vera Voynova of ROMIR, Rossiyskoe obshchestvennoe mnenie i issledovanie rynka. 12. These terms are not intended to have any normative content here; they refer to the administered polity and economy of state socialism contrasted with the more market-oriented, mixed-economy, multiple-Party and-interest group polity with contested elections of the transition period.

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13. Writers, such as Giddens, have stressed the dominant role of the Party in ensuring “a high degree of both moral and social integration between elite groups” in his definition of a “solidary elite.” See A. Giddens, “Elites in the British Class Structure” in P. Stanworth and A. Giddens, eds., Elites and Power in British Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974): 6. 14. The representatives from Union republics had long departed from Russia: regional deputies had returned to the provinces, and it was impossible to contact them with the resources available. 15. In these investigations, 68 people were interviewed—deputies to the Supreme Soviet, government officials, Party leaders, political advisers, and journalists—to determine whom they thought were influential on certain issues, and later, advice was taken from specialists in public-opinion research at ROMIR. (For details see appendix 6.1.) These responses, of course, included people with positions as defined above in the Party and government elites as well as other influential people, such as journalists, writers, academics, and politicians outside the formal apparatus of power. For discussion, see David Lane, “Political Elites under Gorbachev and Yeltsin in the Early Period of Transition: A Reputational and Analytical Study,” in T. J. Colton and R.C. Tucker, Patterns in Post-Soviet Leadership (Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1995): 29–48. 16. The collapse of the USSR (from August 1991, when the project was being organized) led to numerous problems in the interviewing of the political elite. Following the breakup of the Union, many leaders from the republics and national areas returned there.The Communist Party was disbanded, its political elite scattered and a few even imprisoned. For details see appendix 6.1.) 17. The sample included 8 members of the Politburo, 9 secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU, heads of Central Committee departments and heads of commissions; 11 members of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers, and 53 ministers and chairs of State Committees of the USSR; the third group included 8 people who were “Party professionals” (leading academics in the Party schools, editors of Party journals and papers), 36 people from research and higher educational institutions, 31 from voluntary and trade union positions, and 6 from international associations. (Figures here include overlapping positions.) 18. This study is described in D. Lane, “Political Elites under Gorbachev and Yeltsin” in Colton 1995. 19. Others mentioned were: Primakov, Evgenii Maksimovich (3) (member of Politburo and leading academic in the field of international relations); Arbatov, Georgii Arkadevich (2) (leading academic in the field of American and Canadian studies); Brandt,Willi (2) (chancellor of Western Germany); Cherniaev, Anatolii Segeevich (2) (close confidant of Gorbachev and presidential adviser);

Notes

20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

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Yeltsin, Boris Nikolaevich (2) (member of Politburo, Party secretary, president of Russian Federation); Ryzhkov, Nikolai Ivanovich (2) (member of Presidential Council, member of Politburo, prime minister of USSR Government); Shakhnazarov, Georgii Khosroevich (2) (political scientist in CPSU apparat, vice president of IPSA, and adviser to Gorbachev). The question was “Which of the above leaders or forces do you think was the most important?” Other mentions included the Politburo with 7; foreign institutions, 7 (these included financial circles, 1; Radio Liberty and Voice of America, 1; the Zionist world lobby, 1); and foreign leaders, 8 (Margaret Thatcher again came at the top, with 5 mentions, followed by Bush, Reagan, and Mitterrand, with 1 each). All the 27 tables of these five groups of respondents were statistically analyzed, and in none were the differences found to be significant at the 0.05 level—all showed a remarkably even distribution between the groups. A word of caution may be added here: many of the numbers were very small, even when the columns of the tables were combined, and hence are not amenable to chi-squared tests. Felipe Gonzalez, for instance, certainly influenced Gorbachev with respect to his general policy. See Andrei Grachev, Dal’she bez menia: ukhod Prezidenta (Moscow: Kultura 1994): 100. Our thanks to Archie Brown for drawing attention to this reference. This is in contrast to O’Donnell and Schmitter who, in the democratic transition process, envisage rulers negotiating pacts with counter-elites to ensure power-sharing. Z. Bauman describes this as “Partynomial authority,” see “Officialdom and Class: Bases of Inequality in Socialist Society,” in Frank Parkin, The Social Analysis of Class Structure (London: Tavistock Publications, 1974); especially 136–140. The wording was: “Were there any other factors, not mentioned above, which you think had a great deal of influence?” Other responses were: regional and republican interests (19); the deficiencies of the Party and its apparat (17); social demands and developments, which included “the experience of Russia,”“life demanded change,”“obedience to the leader,”“secret (skrytnoe) influence,” and “the history of Russia in the last one hundred years.” Individual leaders, particularly the heads of republics, such as Nazarbaev and Yeltsin (mentioned under People, names), and also the inadequacies of various leaders (collected under “leaders”) were considered important. Valerie Bunce, Do New Leaders Make a Difference? Executive Succession and Public Policy under Capitalism (New Haven, CT.:Yale University Press, 1981). See John Higley and Michael G. Burton,“The Elite Variable” especially table 1, 22. Joel D.Aberbach, Robert D. Putnam, Bert A. Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981): 195.

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31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38.

39. 40.

41.

42.

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Data refer to surveys in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden in the early 1970s. Giddens 1974, 5. Olga Khryshtanovskaia, “Finansovaia oligarkhiia v Rossii,” Izvestiia (10 January 1996): 5. Ian McAllister and Stephen White also argue that “nomenklatura members were totally committed to the system.” See Ian McAllister and Stephen White, “The Legacy of the Nomenklatura: Economic Privilege in post Communist Russia,” Coexistence 32, No. 32 (1995): 220. O. Kryshtanovskaia and S. White, “From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian Elite,” Europe-Asia Studies 46, No. 5 (1996): 713. L. Kolakowski, “Hope and Hopelessness,” Survey 17, No. 3 (Summer 1971) 40. Exceptionally,Wasilewski attempted to operationalize the problem by asking members of the bureaucratic elite and citizens of Warsaw and Lublin to assess the importance of various achieved and prescribed criteria.The research was done in two periods: 1972, 1972 and 1985,1986.The questions referred to meritocratic criteria (education, occupational skill, and performance), patronage (nomenklatura, personal contacts), and ascription (sex, parental background, place of residence, social origin). In this study, an attempt was made to ask questions comparable to this research. See Jacek Wasilewski 1990. The preliminary to the question asked was: “We would like to ask you now about your experience and opinions concerning the Soviet system in its last years of existence, say from 1987 to 1991.” The respondents were asked to choose between: “of great significance,” “of some significance,” “a little significant,” “of no significance at all.”The factors considered were: education, social origin, sex, role of nomenklatura (Party/government), qualifications, social position/position of parents, living in a town (rather than in the countryside), work performance, personal connections, and chance. This result is similar to Wasilewski’s, though his question refers to “Party membership” rather than the influence of the nomenklatura. Wasilewski’s study of Lublin residents (1985), gave a similar result: the most important influence was personal connections and Party membership (Wasilewski 1990, 752). Ibid., 220. Respondents were asked to rate (regularly, sometimes, never) the following: colleagues at work, family members, friends (if so what kind? from school? ex-work colleagues?) other friends, people with whom you associate politically, I never turned to others for advice, and others (open-ended). The open-ended question here also gave rise to specific answers—leaders of the country (9) and colleagues with specialized knowledge (5) being the most frequent responses. The respondents were asked to rank (most of the time, sometimes, never) the following: a) their own personal interests; b) interests of groups; c) interests of the country at large; d) the collective interest of the Party; e) the interest of the working class and collective farmers; f) regional/national interests; g)

Notes

43.

44.

45.

46.

47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

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the interest of some particular Soviet institution (i.e., KGB, a government ministry that they represented); and h) other (fill in). In the open-ended question in which the respondents could suggests other answers, five viewed the members of the Central Committee as defending “all the socialist system”—four in a positive and one in a negative sense. One critic claimed that some of its members defended the interests of Western countries, two negatively saw its members seeking to hold onto power, and two emphasized its commitment to ideology—one positively and one negatively. Generally, the open-ended questions did not add very much of significance to those of the questionnaire. By “acquisition” class (Erwerbsklasse), we mean people who were able (or thought they would be able) to profit from a market rather than an administrative-redistributive system. These distinctions are discussed in detail in David Lane, The Rise and Fall of State Socialism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996): chapter 8. The questions were prefaced by the following:“We would now like to consider a number of statements that are often made by people about politics. These are quite short questions and we would like you to answer choosing one of four responses: strongly agree (1) agree with some reservations; (2) strongly disagree; (3) disagree with reservations (4).” J. D.Aberbach, E. S. Kraus, Michid Muramatsu and B.A. Rockman,“Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites,” British Journal of Political Science 20 (1990): 461–488. One factor that must be borne in mind is the context in which the questions were asked: Russia was experiencing the bitter conflict between Yeltsin’s presidential administration and Parliament that culminated in the military storming of the White House just before the interviews were conducted. It seems likely that the responses may have been influenced by the need for compromise. Even so, 19 percent of the respondents strongly disagreed with this position—15 percent of the government elite members. “Political groups” as well as parties were mentioned because of the rudimentary formation of parties at that time. Questions related to Germany, Britain, and Italy refer only to “parties” (not groups). By ideological affinity, we mean the coherence and resonance of different elements of belief systems. A “strong” affinity, for example, would be an elite who all shared fundamental capitalist or Marxist ideas; “weak” affinity involves elite members having mixed and even incongruent belief systems— marketeers and planners, advocates of private and collective property. The question asked was: “Since the collapse of the old centrally controlled economy and Party-led state, some people have looked to other countries for a model. What country, if any, would you regard as a model for the future development of Russia?” These results include multiple answers. These results have been corroborated at the level of the public as a whole. A national survey of a representative sample of the Russian population was

244

53.

54. 55. 56. 57.

58.

59. 60.

61.

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism conducted in June 1994. Here it was found that only 22 percent of the respondents believed that Russia “should develop like West European countries,” whereas 78 percent answered positively to: “our country should develop according to our own traditions.” Richard Rose and Christian Haerpfer, “New Russia Barometer III: The Results.” Studies in Public Policy No. 228, (1 June, 1994): 22. “Corporatist” refers to dominant political, social, and economic constituencies (labor, government, employers) who concur over certain political parameters: levels of public/private ownership and enterprise, distribution of income and wealth, forms of political participation and exchange. Post-war Western Germany, for example, had a strong compact between employers, labor, parties, and government. We have in mind here those in southern Europe, where capitalist interests and organized labor had a distinct institutional base. G. O’Donnell and P.Schmitter 1986, 19. Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996): 181. George Konrad and Ivan Szelenyi conflate the intelligentsia into the bureaucratic class. In their view, the state socialist system represented the rule of the intelligentsia. “[T]he transformation of the intelligentsia into a class, principally in the rational-redistributive economies, has indeed meant that in the industrially backward agrarian societies of Eastern Europe the intelligentsia, organized into a government-bureaucratic ruling class, has taken the lead in modernisation, replacing a weak bourgeoisie incapable of breaking with feudalism.” The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power (Brighton: Harvester, 1979): 10.This position, it is argued here, ignores the conflict between the two class groups, whereas Wright’s analysis of the intelligentsia correctly locates this group in a contradictory class position. E. O.Wright,“A General Framework for the Analysis of Class Structure,” Politics and Society 13, (1984): 402, 422 note 46. Undoubtedly, the “intelligentsia” promoted the reform movement. David Lane has shown that the intelligentsia as an influence on reform was ranked the highest of social groups and forces; his study confirms, however, that it was less frequently mentioned than interests in the apparat or nationalist movements. See “Gorbachev’s Political Elite,” The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 10, No. 1, (March 1994): 113. See discussion in Richard Rose,“Comparing Forms of Comparative Analysis,” in Political Studies 39, No. 3. (1991): 462. According to MccGwire, there were three aspects to American policy:“a sustained attempt to achieve military superiority . . . a general militarization of the international arena . . . [and] a massive ‘psychological’ attack against the socialist community . . .” Michael MccGwire, Perestroika and Soviet National Security (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1991): 117–8. Higley and Burton’s seminal 1989 article (see note 2) is concerned with national elites and ignores the international dimension.

Notes

245

62. See R. Pipes,“Misinterpreting the Cold War:The Hardliners Had it Right.” Foreign Affairs 74, No. 1. (1995): 154–160. Pipes is concerned more with economic and military collapse consequent on American foreign policy.

Chapter 7 1. These we define as: I) II) III) IV)

V)

The chair, first deputy chair, and deputy chairs of the Supreme Soviet; The chair and members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Chair of the Supreme Economic Council of the Presidium; The chairs of the Standing Committees and Commissions of the Supreme Soviet; The deputy chairs, secretaries, and a sample of ordinary members of key commissions of the Supreme Soviet. (budget, legislation, defense and security, and the Constitutional Commission); and Most of the chairs (or coordinators) of political factions and groups and of major political parties in the Congress and Supreme Soviet.

2. Data here refer to the last or highest post, and thus each person is counted only once. Of course, the total number of posts in the government exceeds the number of individuals because of mobility between posts. 3. Basin (chair of the Parliament’s Commission for Construction) had been USSR Minister for Transport and Construction between 1986 and 1988. Twenty-three had occupied posts of first deputy minister in the government of the Russian Republic (RSFSR): for instance, A.A. Kamenev (chair of Commission for Social Development of Rural Areas) had been first deputy chair of Gosplan RSFSR. 4. At the local levels, there were relatively few people: four held posts at city level, including Kirpichnikov (member of the Commission on the Work of Soviets), who had been the chair of the Executive Committee of the Sosnovoborsk City Soviet of People’s Deputies. Four held posts at the raion level, and three held middle-ranking positions in the KGB and MVD. Another six had lower administrative positions. 5. Including Osminin (chair, Sub-Committee of Commission for Social Development of Rural Areas) from Kirovsk obkom and Syrovatko from Krasnodar. There were another seven departmental or deputy heads at obkom level, and seven held middle positions, such as “instructor.”At the city level, there were five gorkom secretaries and another nine with positions at lower levels of administration. 6. See A. Sobyanin, “Political Cleavages among the Russian Deputies,” in T.F. Remmington, ed., Parliaments in Transition: The New Legislative Politics in the Former USSR and Eastern Europe (Boulder: Westview, 1994): 181–215; and

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7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Thomas Remmington and Steven S. Smith, “The Early Legislative Process in the Russian Federal Assembly” in David M. Olson and Philip Norton, eds., The New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe (London and Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996). Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, (London and New York: Routledge, First Edition, 1993): 61; see also the Second edition of this book in which he notes, “The key to voting patterns was its social and occupational structure” (1996, 120). Results not shown on table. During this period of turmoil, the ministerial elite was subject to considerable change, and there is no single source that records all the appointments. The data collected here may therefore not include every person, but we are confident that most are defined in our data-base. Certainly, the major positions are included. Silaev was elected chair of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR in June 1990, and he remained in this post until the end of September 1991.We believe it is important, however, to distinguish between the Silaev leadership in the period before the Coup of August 18–21 and the post-Coup Silaev leadership when Yeltsin and the Russian Government were ascendent.Yeltsin was elected RSFSR president in June 1991, and he took on the additional post of Russian prime minister in November 1991. On June 15, under pressure from the parliament,Yeltsin gave up his post as prime minister and appointed Egor Gaidar in his place. Gaidar, in turn, was replaced by Chernomyrdin on 22 December 1992. These people held the following principal posts in the Russian government and presidency;Anisimov (Minister of Trade), Ermakov (chair of Presidential Commission on Economics), Soskovets (first deputy chair of the Russian government), Silaev (Russian prime minister), Gerashchenko (chair of the State Bank),V. Iakovlev (chair, Presidential Commission for Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression),Yeltsin (president and prime minister), and Sterligov (administer of affairs). See the biographical appendix for further information about individuals cited in this chapter. For an analysis, see D. Lane and C. Ross, “Limitations of Party Control:The Government Bureaucracy in the USSR,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 27, No. 1, (1994): 19–38. Three of these, however, had been appointed during the last few months of Gorbachev’s administration: Anisimov (appointed 13 July 1991), Ermakov (11 July 1991), Soskovets (8 March 1991). The remainder, with the exception of Silaev, were all appointed to their first ministerial post under Gorbachev: Gerashchenko (1989), V. Iakovlev (1989), Chernomyrdin (1985), Yeltsin (1987), and Sterligov (1990). Silaev was appointed a USSR minister in 1977, and he was promoted to the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers under Gorbachev in 1985. These held the following principal posts in the Russian Government and Presidency; Skokov (secretary of the Security Council), O. Lobov (first

Notes

247

deputy chair, RSFSR government and secretary of Security Council), Guzhvin (chair, RSFSR Statistics Committee), Kulik (deputy chair of RSFSR Government and minister of agriculture), and Shubin (RSFSR minister of forestry). 15. Only four members of the post-August 1991 RSFSR governments had been appointed in the period 1985–89 (Guzhvin, Kulik, O. Lobov, and Shubin), and none in the period before 1985. Eleven members of the post-August 1991 presidential administration were also appointed in the period 1990–91. 16. There were only 8 women in total out of the 145 members of the political elite. 17. Thus, each government post was classified according to the following ranks, and the weights used in calculations are given in brackets. G1) G2) G3) G4) G5) G6) G7) G8) G9) G10) G11) G12)

18. 19. 20. 21.

Members of USSR Presidium (50) Administrative posts within the USSR Council of Ministers (25) USSR ministers and chairmen of state committees (50) USSR first deputy ministers and first deputy chairmen of USSR state committees (40) USSR deputy ministers and USSR deputy chairmen of state committees (40) Administrative posts within USSR ministries and state committees (i.e., heads of main administrations) (20) Members of Presidiums of Republic Councils of Ministers (30) Ministers, first deputy and deputy ministers, and chairmen; first deputy and deputy chairmen of republic governments (30) Republic-level administrative posts within ministries and state committees (20) Oblast (regional-level) and “Sovnarkhoz” (regional economic council) posts (10) City-level posts (10) Raion (district level) posts (10)

Hence, a person having had ministerial status for one year would have an index of 50 (1 x 50), and a Minister in a republican government for three years would have an index of 90 (3 x 30). Data based on analysis of biographies. Lazarev (RSFSR Minister of Finance),Vorontsov (adviser to Yeltsin on foreign policy), A. Iakovlev (chair of Russian Supreme Arbitration Court). A. Iakovlev, Petrov,Yeltsin, Bychkov,Tkachenko, Chernomyrdin, and Iliushin. Volkogonov (adviser to Yeltsin on defense policy) was a deputy chair of the Council of Nationalities in the Russian Parliament. Others, such as Khizha (deputy chair of Russian government) and Chubais (deputy chair of Russian government in charge of privatization), made their name in local politics in Leningrad. Stankevich (state councillor on political affairs and adviser to

248

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism Yeltsin) gained great popularity in the USSR Congress and later as first deputy mayor of Moscow.

Chapter 8 1. Much of current theory has its reference point in Eastern Europe rather than the Post-USSR. See Bob Deacon, “Social Change, Social Problems and Social Policy” in Stephen White, Judy Batt, and Paul G. Lewis, eds., Developments in East European Politics (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1993): 226; Ivan Szelenyi and Szonja Szelenyi, “Circulation or Reproduction of Elites during the Post-Communist Transformation” Theory and Society 24, No. 5 (1995): 615–638. This whole issue is devoted to elite recruitment in post-communist Eastern Europe. Eric Hanley, Natasha Yershova, and Richard Anderson,“Russia-Old Wine in a New Bottle? The Circulation and Reproduction of Russian Elites, 1983–1993,” Theory and Society 24 (1995): 639–668; Olga Kryshtanovskaia and Stephen White, “From Soviet nomenklatura to Russian Elite,” Europe-Asia Studies 48, No. 4 (July 1996); John Higley and Jan Pakulski, “Elite Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe,” Australian Journal of Political Science 30, (1995); James Hughes,“Sub-national Elites and Post-Communist Transformation in Russia: A Reply to Kryshtanovskaya and White,” Europe-Asia Studies 49, No. 6 (1017–1036); Russian sociologists and political scientists have also turned to elite theory to explain the “transformation”: see particularly G. Ashin, “Smena elit,” Obshchestvennye Nauki i Sovremennosti (ONS) 1 (1995): 40–50; I.V. Kukolev, “Formirovanie Rossiyskoy Biznes-elity,” Sotsiologicheski Zhurnal 3 (1995): 159–169; D.V. Badovski,“Sovetskaia Politicheskaia Elita: ot ‘Organizatsii Professional’nykh Revoliutsionerov’ k Nomenklaturnoi Sisteme,” Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta [Ser. 12, (Politicheskie Nauki),] 1 (1995): 22–36; O. Kryshtanovskaia,“Staraia nomenklatura na Novy lad,” Obshchestvennye Nauki i Sovremennosti (ONS) 1 (1995): 51–65; V.V. Golovachev, L.B. Kosova, and L.A. Khakhulina,“Formirovanie Pravyashchey Elity v Rossii,” Ekonomicheskie i Sotsial’nye Peremeny: Monitoring Obshchestvennogo Mneniya 1 (Jan-Feb 1996): 32–38. This article is based on the comparative research project headed by Ivan Selenyi, mentioned earlier. 2. For a Russian account see also, N. Iu. Lapina, Rukovoditeli Gosudarstvennykh Predpriyatiy Rossii v Prostesse Formirovaniya Rynochnykh Otnosheniy (Moscow: Institut Nauchnoy Informatsii Po Obshchestvennym Naukam, 1995); especially 73–77. 3. For an excellent discussion, see Bohdan Harasymiw, Political Elite Recruitment in the Soviet Union (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1984). 4. O. Kryshtanovskaia 1995, 52. 5. Bohdan Harasymiw 1984, 166; Peter Rutland, The Politics of Economic Stagnation in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993): 35. Paul Willerton refers to the “nomenklatura elite,” composed of up to three

Notes

6. 7.

8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

249

million people in the 1980s—see “Executive Power and Political Leadership,” in Stephen White et al, eds., Developments in Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, second edition, 1992): 49. Olga Kryshtanovskaia and Stephen White 1996, 714. The empirical basis of their research reports are derived (as far as the USSR/Russia is concerned) from a “random sample” of 854 respondents in post in 1988: 212 from the “Party nomenklatura,” and 370, 60, and 212 from the state, economic, and cultural nomenklaturas, respectively.Valuable as this information is, if these data are random samples of the various constituencies (Party, state, economics, and culture), they cannot be representative of the various “elites,” though they may include members of the elite in their number. See table 1 of Hanley,Yershova, and Anderson 1995, 650; and the account by Szelenyi and Szelenyi 1995,620. Szelenyi and Szelenyi 1995, 631. Ian McAllister and Stephen White, “The Legacy of the Nomenklatura: Economic Privilege in Postcommunist Russia,” Coexistence 32 (1995): 220. Eyal and Townsley, “The Social Composition of the Communist nomenklatura.A Comparison of Russia, Poland and Hungary,” Theory and Society 24 (1995): 730. Higley and Pakulski, 6. Olga Khryshtanovskaia,“Finansovaia Oligarkhiia v Rossii,” Izvestiia (10 January, 1996): 5. For a more scholarly version, see the article by the same author in Note 1. Interview with Dmitri Iurev (expert with “RF-Politica”), conducted by Robert Minasov, and reported in, “Nomenklatura Prepares to Take Revenge,” Rossiskaia Gazeta (March 4, 1992): 2; translated in CDPSP XLIV, No. 9 (1992): 22–23. See also N.S. Ershova, “Transformatsiia praviashchei elity Rossii v usloviiakh sotsial’novo pereloma,” in T.I. Zaslavskaia and L.A. Arutiunian, eds., Kuda idet Rossiia? (Moscow: Interpraks, 1994): 151–155. Ershova notes that “over 60 percent of the former nomenklatura still occupied elite positions” (154). Lilia Shevtsova and Scott A. Bruckner, “Where is Russia Headed? Toward Stability or Crisis?” Journal of Democracy 8, No. 1 (January 1997): 12–26, 14. Ian McAllister and Stephen White, 233, 231. Ivan Szelenyi and Szonja Szelenyi 1995, 631 Ibid., 624. Ibid., 626. Ibid., 636. This is a type of solidarity based on a “similarity between individuals,” on repressive sanctions, collective authority, the attachment of values to societies. It is contrasted with “organic” solidarity, which is based on the division of labor, markets, differentiated law, individual authority, and individualism. Cited by T. Bottomore, Elites and Society (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964 edition): 14.

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22. Kryshtanovskaia, for example, points out that the new elites originate from the second and third ranks of the nomenklatura, assuming that this was a unitary group.“Staraia nomenklatura na novy lad,” Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennosti 1, (1955): 65. Konrad and Szelenyi, in an earlier work that has inspired many of the contemporary analyses, assume a fusion of the Party with the intelligentsia and do not distinguish the different sources and ambiguities of power and interest. Konrad and Szelenyi, The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power (Brighton: Harvester, 1979): 191. 23. Whitefield, 126. 24. Thus, Olga Kryshtanovskaia conflates into the Russian elite people with high positions under Brezhnev and Gorbachev, people elected to the Russian parliament in 1993, and members of the Yeltsin business elite. This is more a list of top people than an analytically defined ruling group.A total of 3,610 biographies were analyzed, but very little detail is given on the content and constituent bias of the biographies. 25. Included in our database are all the occupations (and the time held in each post) held by members of the elite since leaving school. 26. One other grouping is the presidential apparatus.This has had to be ignored in the present analysis. These appointments are personal ones of the president; initial research was unable to locate the complete membership, and biographical information was very difficult to procure. A number of the elite members defined in this study had been, were currently, or have since become presidential aides. 27. These and the following data have been derived from a wide range of Russian and other sources. P. Gazukin and V. Pribylovskii, Pravitel’stvo Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Biograficheskii Spravochnik (Moscow: Panorama, 1995); A. Glubotskii, A. Mukhin, and N. Tikhov, Organy Vlasti Sub’ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii: (Obzory, biografii, telefony) (Moscow: Panorama, 1995); A.S. Barsenkov, V.A. Koretskii, and A.I. Ostapenko, Federal’noe Sobranie Rossii (Moscow: Fond Foros, 1995); Sovet Federatsii Pervego Sozyva (Moscow: Izdanie Soveta Federatsii, 1994); Grigorii V. Belonuchkin, Federal’noe Sobranie: Sovet Federatsii, Gosudarstvennaia Duma: Spravochnik (Moscow: Fond Parlamentarizma v Rossii, 1995); Grigorii V. Belonuchkin, Pravitel’stvo Rossii i Federal’nye Organy Ispolnitel’noi Vlasti: Strukturnyi Spravochnik (Moscow: Panorama, July 1995); O.G. Gladkikh, chief ed., Vlast Deputaty Gosudarstvennoi Dumy: Kratkii Biograficheskii Spravochnik:Vol I-IV (Moscow: Institut Sovremennoi Politiki, 1994); Kto Est’ Kto v Rossii i v Blizhnem Zarubezh’e: Spravochnik (Moscow: Novoe Vremia, 1993); Novaia Rossiia 1994: Informatsionno-Statisticheskii Al’manakh (Moscow:Vse Moskva, Mezhdunarodnaia Akademiia Informatizatsii, 1994). See also note 24, chapter 2 of this volume. 28. The CPSU was banned in Russia by Yeltsin on 23 August, 1991, and in the USSR by the Supreme Soviet on 29 August. 29. The vast majority of the 470 members of the elite were male. There were only 24 women (21 in the legislative elite, 2 in the government elite, and 1 in the regional elite).

Notes

251

30. For a detailed study that also supports our position, see Stephen Whitefield, Industrial Power and the Soviet State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). 31. For example, former physicians:V.K. Agapov,V.D. Babenko, B.A. Denisenko, E.A. Nechaev; lawyers; A.M. Fedoseev, V.A. Tikhonov, V.N. Tumanov, B.A. Zolotukhin; and lecturers; S.N. Baburin, A.P. Braginskii, I.M. Bratishchev, V.K. Bulgakov, P.G. Bunich, and A.B. Chubais. 32. For example, V.V. Bushuev, and V.I Danilov-Danil’iants, A.G. Fonotov, E.T. Gaidar, V.M. Mashchits, B.G. Saltykov, M.I. Lemeshev, L.I. Leont’ev, P.P. Mostovoi, A.M. Pozdniakov, and A.P.Vavilov. 33. Stephen Whitefield,“Social Responses to Reform,” in David Lane, ed., Russia in Transition: Politics, Privatization and Inequality (London and New York: Longman, 1995): 91–115. 34. Such exploitation is not illegitimate: it is “socially necessary because it improves welfare.” Differentials of earnings (or levels of consumption) provide incentives and reward for the use of certain skills: the elimination of such inequality would lead to a “retardation” in development. John E. Roemer, A General theory of Exploitation and Class (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982): 148, 240–242. 35. See E. O.Wright,“A General Framework for the Analysis of Class Structure,” Politics and Society Vol. 13, (1984): 402; 422, note 46.

Chapter 9 1. Olga Kryshtanovskaia,“Finansovaia Oligarkhiia v Rossii,” Izvestiia (10 January 1995): 5. 2. B. V. Golovachev, L.B. Kosova, and L.A. Khakhulina, “Formirovanie Praviashchei Elity v Rossii,” in Ekonomicheskie i Sotsialnye Peremeny: Monitoring Obshchestvennogo Mneniia (Moscow:VCIOM, 1996, No. 1): 33–35. 3. The economic turnover of the 50 largest industrial enterprises was published in the journal Ekspert No. 33, 2 September 1996. 4. These were listed in Ekonomika i Zhizn’ No. 33, (August 1996) and InterfaksAIF No. 28, (8–14 July 1996). 5. The following reference works were used in this study: O.L. Klimashevskaia and Iu. N. Korolev, Vozrozhdennaia Elita Rossiiskovo Biznesa (Moscow: Instituta Izucheniia Reforma, 1994); Anvar Amirov, Naibolee Vliiatel’nye Predprinimateli Rossii: Biograficheskii Spravochnik (Moscow: Panorama, October 1996); Anvar Amirov, Kto Est’ Kto v Bankovskoi Sisteme Rossii: Biograficheskii Spravochnik (Moscow: Panorama, September 1996); Anvar Amirov and Vladimir Pribylovskii, Rossiiskie Biznesmeny i Menedzhery: Biograficheskii Spravochnik (Moscow: Panorama, February 1997); “50 Vedushchikh Predprinimatelei Rossii,” Ekonomika i Zhizn’ 47 (November 1996): 48. We also obtained further unpublished biographies of the oil and gas elite from Panorama, Moscow. 6. It should be noted here that there are relatively few members of the agricultural economic elite in the top echelons of the Russian business elite.

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7. See Interfaks-AIF 1996 and Ekspert 1996. 8. See Interfaks-AIF 1996 9. Gil Eyal, Ivan Szelenyi, and Eleanor Townsley, “The Theory of Post-Communist Managerialism,” New Left Review No. 222 (1997): 60–82, 60. In a similar vein, Kazimierz M. Slomczynski and Goldie Shabad argue that “regarding the exchange of political capital into economic capital, we can conclude that as far as mobility patterns [in Eastern Central Europe] during 1988–93 are concerned the most advantaged occupational groups were experts and former middle-level managers.” See “Systemic Transformation and the Salience of Class Structure in East Central Europe,” East European Politics and Societies 11, (No. 1,Winter 1997): 155–189, 175. 10. Eric Hanley also sees the formation of two distinct classes in Eastern Europe, one based on managers who control major industrial assets and a second comprising a class of self-employed entrepreneurs who own small retail and commercial businesses. See “Self-Employment in Post-Communist Central Europe: A Refuge from Poverty or the Emergence of a New Petty Bourgeoisie?,” discussion paper, Department of Sociology, UCLA, 1996, quoted in Eyal, Szelenyi, and Townsely, footnote 45, p. 81.

Chapter 10 1. Pareto, cited by Geraint Parry, Political Elites (London: Allen and Unwin, 1969): 47. 2. John Higley, Jan Pakulski “Elite Transformation and Democratic Regimes in Central and Eastern Europe,” Australian Journal of Political Science 30, (1995). They identify ideology as a characteristic defining the elite structure of a partocratic regime; our hypothesis is that it is a factor influencing the elite structure of any regime. (See figure 6.1). 3. On settlements, see Michael G. Burton and John Higley,“Elite Settlements,” American Sociological Review 52 (June 1987): 295–307. 4. Clause Offe, “Capitalism by democratic design? Democratic theory facing the triple transition in East Central Europe,” Social Research 58, No. 4, (1991): 876–892, quoted in Karen Henderson and Neil Robinson, Post-Communist Politics:An Introduction (Prentice Hall Europe: London, New York, 1997) 164. 5. For a perceptive analysis of pact-making in Russia, see John Lowenhardt, The Reincarnation of Russia: Struggling With The Legacy of Communism, 1990–94 (Harlow Essex: Longman, 1995): especially 160–161. On 28 April 1994, a “Social Accord Agreement” was signed by the Russian president, government, parliament, republic, and regional leaders, and on 5 May more than 100 leading businessmen and bankers. Lowenhardt is doubtful, however, whether this could be classified as a pact—as it had “not been the result of negotiations between conflicting parties and did not provide the framework for further negotiations on new ‘rules of the game’” (61).

Notes

253

6. The executive elite was specified in terms of persons who were ministers, deputy ministers, and chairs of committees of the government of the Russian Federation (also included was one chair of a Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States).The executive also included members of the president’s own apparatus and his political advisers. Of this group, 39 people were interviewed. 7. This part of the political elite was composed of two parts: the law-makers and the legal adjudicators; the former was made up of leading deputies of the Russian Parliament—those who held a position of chair, deputy chair, or secretary to a Parliamentary committee or commission; the second part included 7 members of the Constitutional Court—in all, 43 interviewees. 8. The leaders of parties or groups who also had been elected to the Russian Parliament—a total of 18 respondents. 9. It should be remembered that during the period in question (January 1992 to December 1993) there was movement between the above sectors of the political elite—members of the Parliament moving into and out of Yeltsin’s presidential apparatus.The questionnaire was devised by David Lane, and the interviews were organized and carried out under the supervision of Elena Bashkirova and Vera Voynova of ROMIR, Rossiyskoe obshchestvennoe mnenie i issledovanie rynka. 10. The open-ended question here also gave rise to specific answers, leaders of the country (9) and colleagues with specialized knowledge (5) being the most frequent responses. 11. See also the important work by R.D. Putnam, The Beliefs Of Politicians: Ideology, Conflict and Democracy in Great Britain and Italy (1973) 12. Under Gorbachev, over 80 percent of the political elite regarded politicians as an illegitimate interference. 13. The statement posed was,“The freedom of political propaganda is not an absolute freedom and the government should carefully regulate its use.” 14. J. D. Aberbach et al., “Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites,” British Journal of Political Science 20, (1990): 484.The question for the United States was: “Rectifying differences of income among the people is a proper task of government.” 15. A. Giddens,“Elites in the British class Structure,” in P. Stanworth and A. Giddens, Elites and Power in British Society (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1974): 5–7. 16. Data refer to surveys in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden in the early 1970s. See Aberbach et al., 1981, 195. 17. We asked,“What type of Party system do you think should dominate in the RF in the near future? a) a single Party system, b) two to three main competing parties, c) more than three competing parties, d) no political parties, e) difficult to say.” 18. The question asked was, “Since the collapse of the old centrally controlled economy and Party-led state, some people have looked to other countries

254

19. 20. 21.

22.

The Transition from Communism to Capitalism for a model. What country, if any, would you regard as a model for the future development of Russia?” Other West European countries (9), China (2), Japan (2), and North Korea (2).These results include multiple answers. For the Gorbachev elite, the most frequently cited country was China (15), followed by Scandinavia (13), Germany (12), and the United States (11). These results have been corroborated at the level of the public as a whole in a national survey of a representative sample of the Russian population conducted in June 1994. Here it was found that only 22 percent of the respondents believed that Russia “should develop like West European countries,” whereas 78 percent answered positively to “our country should develop according to our own traditions.” Richard Rose and Christian Haerpfer,“New Russia Barometer III:The Results,” Studies in Public Policy 228 (1 June 1994): 22. The international aspects are dealt with in more detail in David Lane, The Rise and Fall of State Socialism (Cambridge: Polity, 1996); see also Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1994).

Index

Aberbach, J., 104, 112, 190 Andropov, Iu., 35 August Coup (1991), 16, 17, 37, 80, 135 Bauman, Z., 5 Berezovskii, B., 178 biographies, 206–222 Brezhnev, L., 6, 11, 15, 26, 28, 38, 39, 56, 59, 60, 136, 199, 200 stability of cadres 35, 59 Brown, A., 55, 119 Bruckner, S., 145 Bunce,V. and J. Echols, 27 bureaucracy, 6–7 comparison with Western European, 112–115 departmentalism in, 11, 15 and elite formation, 6 Gorbachev’s struggle with, 60–61, 70–71 growth of, 8–9, 21–22 segmented, 7, 15 type of government apparatus, 23 bureaucratic elites, 12 Burton, M., 6, 89, 104 Central Committee, 6, 7, 108, 172 expansion of, 9–10 Central Committee Secretariat, 10, 29, 47–58 career/coopted executives, 49–51 decline of, 56–58, 70–71 departments of, 10, 47–48, abolition of departments, 56

elite constituency, 48 movement of personnel to government, 52 occupational history of elites, 48–54 age, 49–51 change over time, 52–54 government saturation of, 51–52 relations with government, 29, 54, 71 relations with Politburo, 29 structure of, 47 Chernenko, K., 32, 35 Chernomyrdin,V., 135, 137, 207 class acquisition, 19–20, 87, 110, 121, 149, 160, 163–165, 201–202 administrative, 16, 20, 69, 149, 160, 163–165, 184, 201–202 ascendant, 4, 163 entrepreneurial, 19 Marxist approach to, 68 Weberian, 69, 110, 137, 163, 164 CPSU, 7, agency of control, 9, 55–56, 59–60 decline of, 16, 25 differences within, 13, 55, 201 growth of, 9–10 monolithic approach to, 25 Primary Party Organizations, 60 Dahrendorf, R., 89 Daniels, R., 30 democracy, preconditions for, 4–5 consolidated/unconsolidated, 89 Durkheim, E., 146

256


economic capital, 203 economic elite (see Post-Communist economic elites) economic reforms, 167–168 elites attitudes/values of, 4 Gorbachev elite, 89–121 Post-Communist Yeltsin elite, 183–198 business elite, 168, 170, 173 five sectors of, 169–170 circulation of, 3, 20, 137, 141–144, 147–148, 183, 196–198, 202–203 substitution/structural, 148, 182, 202–203 consensual/confrontational, 17–20, 201 counter-elites, 16, 74, 142 definition of, 6, 20, 91, 123–124 positional approach, 6, 91 reputational analysis, 91–92 and democratic transitions, 5, 89–91, 117–121, 184–185, 196–198, 203–205 disunity of/ divisions within, 90, 120, 184, 196, 201, 204 evolution of, 7–10 fragmentation/ pluralism of, 6, 11, 16–17, 90, 111, 184, 200, 205 ideologically unified elite, 6, 12–13, 89–91, 111 monolithic or polyarchic, 4, 5, 14–15, 25–6 moral integration of, 105–108 political integration of, 108–111, 190–196 political orientation of elites, 111–117, 187–190 recruitment of elites, 7, 13, 185–187, 202, 203 regional elites, 17, 36–37, 162 reproduction of elites, 3, 137, 143, 147–8, 183, 196–198, 202–203

settlements or elite pacts, 6, 90, 184, 198, 204 structure of, 3, 13–16, 117 Engels, F., 19 Eyal, G., Szelenyi, I., and E.Townsley, 144, 182 Field, G., 89 Fleron, F., 25, 49, 70 Gaidar, E., 135, 137, 142, 157, 208 Giddens, A., 120, 192 Gorbachev, M., 3, 6, 9, 12, 16–20 26, 28, 34, 36, 38, 41, 42, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 70, 73, 81, 86, 87, 89, 92, 98, 100–105, 108, 110, 111, 112, 115, 116, 136, 164, 165, 186, 192, 195, 196, 201, 209 Griffiths, F., 5 Gunther, R., 89 Hanley, E.,Yershova, N. and R. Anderson, 144 Harasymiw, B., 144 Higley, J., 5, 6, 12–13, 14, 89, 90, 105, 111, 145, 189 Hough, J., 5, 15, 25, 27, 28, 37, 54, 59, 70 institutional pluralism, 5 intellectual capital, 180, 203 intelligentsia, 20, 85, 86, 119, 121, 129, 149, 157, 162–163 Iurev, D., 145 Khrushchev, N., 9, 11, 28, 38, 60, 69, 70 Kolakowski, L., 106 Komsomol, 49, 50, 61, 64, 84, 139, 168, 172, 178, 179, 180 Kress, J., 30 Kryshtanovskaia, O., 109, 144, 145, 168 Lane, D., 5, 70, 92 Lenin,V., 11, 26, 27, 195

Index Ligachev, E., 29, 32, 41, 50, 56, 96, 202, 210 Lipset, S., 4 Lowenhardt, J., 27 Mao Tse Tung, 69 Marxism-Leninism, 13, 15, 16, 19, 25, 111, 199 McAllister, I., 108, 109, 144, 145 Meyer, F., 5 military-industrial complex, 19, 67, 164 Mill, J., 38 Mills, C., 14 ministries, (see also USSR Council of Ministers) ability to thwart party policies, 38, 59–61 classification of by sector, 66 development of, 8, 21 Gorbachev reform of, 60–61 Party penetration of, 65 powers of industrial, 68–70 modernising paradigm, 4 mono-organizational socialism, 5, 11–12, 199 Mosca, G., 16, 146, 200 nomenklatura, 9, 13, 20, 59, 69, 100, 106–108, 111, 117–119, 143–148, 160–164, 168, 196–198, 200, 203 O’Donnell, G., 89 Offe, C., 184 Pakulskii, J., 12–13, 14, 90, 111, 145, 189 Pareto,V., 165, 183 Parkin, F., 4, 120 Parsons,T., 68 partocracy, 5, 90, 100, 117, 200 Party apparatchik, 25–26 perestroika, 16, 19 Pipes, R., 121

257

Politiburo, 6, 7, 26–39 composition, 30–39, 41–43 decline of, 37–39, 70–71 development of, 9–11, 28 elected at 28th Party Congress, 36–7 ethnic makeup, 34–35 and government bureaucracy, 11, 27, 36 government saturation of, 32–33 party saturation of, 31–32 reforming under Gorbachev, 35–37 turnover under Gorbachev, 35–36 under Brezhnev,V., 38 under Khrushchev, N., 38 political capital, 168, 203 polyarchy, 14, 90, 117, 199, 205 Post-Communist economic elites, 167–182 circulation of, 180–182 demographic background, 169–172 age, 169 education, 170–171 place of birth, 170 elite constituency, 169 forms of transformation, 180 occupational history, 175–180 political antecedents, 172–175 reproduction of, 168 sectors of, 180–182, 203 power Hobbesian theory of, 5 Marxist, 68–69 Weberian, 69 Primakov, E., 78, 82, 139, 140 Putnam, R., 29, 104, 112 republics, sovereignty, 17 revolutions, Eastern Europe, 203 Rigby,T., 5, 12, 27 Rockman, B., 104, 112 Roemer, J., 164 Ross, C., 70 Russian Government (1990–1993), 134–142

258


elite circulation, 141–142 elite constituency, 135 government saturation of, 136–137 links with Communist Party elite, 139–141 links with Soviets, 141 occupational background of government elite, 137–139 overlap with Gorbachev elite, 135–136 Russian Supreme Soviet (1990–1993), 127–142 composition of elite, 127–134 members of party apparat in, 128 turnover, 127–8 political alignment of, 129–134 Rutland, P., 144 Ryzhkov, N., 40, 50, 52, 70, 212 Sakwa, R., 129, 134 Schapiro, L., 26, 38 Schmitter, P., 89 Shevtsova, L., 145 Silaev, I., 133, 135, 137, 142, 152, 213 Skilling, G., 70 Solomon, S., 25 Soviet Government (see bureaucracy, and USSR Council of Ministers) soviets, 7, 19 (see also Russian Supreme Soviet, USSR Congress of Deputies, USSR Supreme Soviet) stability/instability, 17–20 Stalin, J., 7, 11, 28, 38, 59 state capitalism, 19 state socialism, reasons for collapse, 5, 70, 100–105, 117–120 Szelenyi, I., 144, 146, 182 Szelenyi, S., 144, 146 Thatcher, M., 95, 96, 99 Ticktin, H., 5 totalitarianism, 5, 27, 199 Trotsky, L., 11

Union Treaty, vote on, 133 USSR Congress of People’s Deputies (see also USSR Supreme Soviet), 56, 70, 73, 79–87, 142 Party membership in, 79 political factions in, 79–87 voting records of elite members, 83–87 USSR Council of Ministers, 7, 8, 11–12, 15, 27, 57, 61 ability to thwart party policy, 57, 59–60, 68–71 career specialists in, 62–63, 69 classification of ministries, 66 development Stalin to Gorbachev, 59–61 elite constituency, 61 Hybrid Careerists in, 64–66 military-industrial complex, 67 by Ministry, 67 Party Careerists in, 63–64, 69 party saturation of, 60–68 change over time, 65–67 Presidium of, 8 USSR Supreme Soviet, 29, 56, 70, 73–79 changes in composition, 74–77 counter elite in, 87 divisions within, 79–83, 85–87 elite constituency, 74 ethnic makeup, 76–77 party membership of, 79, 86 political alignment of elite, 83–85 political background of deputies, 77–79 political groupings in, 79–81 turnover of, 75 voting behaviour of elite, 84 Vladislavlev, A., 81 Vol’skii, A., 81 voluntary organizations, 7 White, S., 108, 109, 144, 145 Whitefield, S., 60, 69, 70, 147

Index Willerton, P., 144 women, in Central Committee elite, 48 in Politburo, 30 in Post-Communist economic elite, 169 in Post-Communist Elite, 250 n.29 in USSR Government elite, 234 n.14 in USSR Supreme Soviet elite, 74–75, voting records 84–85, 87 Yeltsin, B., 3, 17, 36, 41, 52, 55, 86, 119, 121, 127, 128, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140, 142, 148, 152, 160, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 192, 196, 198, 202, 216

Yeltsin political elites (1991–1995), 143–164 circulation of, 160 composition of, 148–160 aggregate, 154–160 government, 148–154 parliamentary, 148–154 regional, 148–154 education and occupation of, 158–160 elite constituency, 148 links with soviets, 154 origins in Soviet government, 152–153 party saturation of, 149–152 Ziuganov, G., 150, 156, 216

259

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The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism

The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism

Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Leaders

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From Socialism to Capitalism: Eight Essays

Ruling Russia: Authoritarianism from the Revolution to Putin

A Documentary history of Communism in Russia: from Lenin to Gorbachev

Conversations on Russia: Reform from Yeltsin to Putin

Introduction to Molecular Magnetism: From Transition Metals to Lanthanides

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The New Commonwealth : From Bureaucratic Corporatism to Socialist Capitalism

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Order, Chaos, Order: The Transition from Classical to Quantum Physics

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Passionate Medicine: Making The Transition From Conventional Medicine To Homeopathy

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The Transition From Communism To Capitalism: Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin

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Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Leaders

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From Socialism to Capitalism: Eight Essays

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