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University of Glasgow

From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian Elite


Author(s): Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 5 (Jul., 1996), pp. 711-733
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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EUROPE-ASIASTUDIES, Vol. 48, No. 5, 1996, 711-733

From Soviet Nomenklaturato Russian


Elite
OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA & STEPHEN WHITE

REVOLUTIONS,for Pareto,were above all a matterof elite change.1And for many there
was a revolutionin this sense in EasternEuropeat the end of the 1980s, with changes
in government and a shift towards pluralist and democratic politics throughoutthe
region. Several years on, the change looks less decisive. Former communist parties
have returned to power in Hungary, in Poland, in Lithuania, and in Bulgaria. In
Romania,there has been a change of leadershipbut less clearly a change of political
regime. Former communists maintained their position in Serbia and in Slovakia,
and-with a change of nomenclature-in most of former Soviet Central Asia. In
Russia itself the Communist Party left office, but it revived in early 1993, polled
strongly in the elections in December of that year, and was by far the largest party
in the Duma elections that took place in December 1995. The Russianpublic, for their
part, remainedcommittedto the concept of a USSR; they rated their political system
less highly than the one they had experiencedin the Soviet years; and in any case they
thought the communists were still in power.2
There were differing views about the extent to which communists or former
communists were, in fact, still in power throughoutthe Central and East European
countries.There was relatively little direct continuityin the Czech republic,where the
communist party quickly became a marginal force,3 and only a limited degree of
continuity of leading personnel in Poland.4In Russia, some argued similarly, there
was 'relatively little overlap between the Gorbachev and El'tsin political elites'.5
Others,by contrast,pointed to the very high degree of continuityat local level in the
early post-Soviet period,6and went on to emphasise the continuitiesin post-communist governmentmore generally.7If an observer had gone to sleep in Russia at the
startof 1990 and then woken up to be shown a list of the currentRussian government,
as a commentatorin Nezavisimaya gazeta put it at the end of 1992, he would be
bound to conclude that the reformist wing of the communist party headed by Boris
El'tsin had finally come to power.8
The more considerablethe changes at leadershiplevel, clearly, the more readily we
can consider the Russian and East Europeantransitiona revolution. But we need to
differentiate at the same time between changes in central government and in the
regions;between changes in differentsections of the centralgovernment;and between
rates of change in different sub-periods. We need to know if the elite has been
changing in terms of age and gender, in terms of its social and geographicalorigin,
in its nationalcomposition, and in its levels of education.Above all, we need to know
0966-8136/96/050711-23 ? 1996 University of Glasgow

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OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA& STEPHENWHITE

the extent to which the Russian elite has recruitedits membershipfrom the Soviet
nomenklaturaof the past, and from which of its constituentgroups. In the discussion
that follows we consider, first, some of the operating principles of the former
nomenklatura,and then examine the ways in which the nomenklaturaattemptedto
protect their position-mostly through privileged access to the market-in the late
1980s. The final section of the article provides a sociological portraitof the Russian
elite of the mid-1990s, and goes on to discuss the extent of its origins in its Soviet
predecessor.9
Defining and measuring the elite
By 'elite' we understandthe ruling group in a society, consisting of the people who
take decisions of national significance. We define the elite, in this article, in largely
positional terms:in other words, on the basis of their occupancy of posts that involve
the taking of decisions of national importance,including the deputies of the Russian
Federal Assembly that was elected in December 1993, the government,the Russian
presidentand his closest associates. We have not separatelydistinguishedthe leaders
of the major political parties or the heads of regional administrations,as these two
categories account for the bulk of the membership of the Russian parliament. A
separate business elite is defined as a constituent part of the ruling elite, whose
influence on public policy is defined by their position in the most importantsectors
of the economy and by the assets that they control.
Our analysis is based upon a series of investigationsconductedbetween 1989 and
1994 by the Sector on Elite Studies of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian
Academy of Sciences.11The main methods of study included informal depth interviews with elite members;formal interviews; surveys of expert opinion; observation;
the study of official biographies;press analysis; and the study of official documents
and statistics. The core of the study was based upon an examination of official
biographical directories,'2 as well as a series of interviews with elite members
themselves conductedby the Sector of Elite Studies in associationwith the University
of Glasgow. Altogether 3610 biographies were analysed, consisting of members of
the Brezhnev elite (57 members of the government, 1500 deputies of the USSR
Supreme Soviet, 282 members of the CPSU Central Committee, 26 Politburo and
Secretariatmembers,and 131 obkomfirst secretaries);the Gorbachevelite, from 1985
to August 1991 (consisting of 251 Russian SupremeSoviet deputies, 371 membersof
the CPSU CentralCommitteethat was elected in 1990, 35 members of the Politburo
and Secretariat,and 132 obkomfirst secretaries);and the El'tsin elite, from September
1991 (consisting of 35 members of the Russian government, 44 members of the
higher ranks of the PresidentialAdministration,68 heads of regional administrations,
35 party leaders, 100 membersof the business elite, and 543 membersof the Federal
Assembly).
Our elite groups consist of six main sections:
1. the government (before 1985, during the Gorbachev years, and in 1993);
2. parliament(for the Brezhnev period, the 11th Supreme Soviet of the USSR that
was elected in 1984; for the Gorbachevperiod, the SupremeSoviet of the RSFSR

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3.

4.

5.

6.

713

that was elected in 1990; and for the El'tsin period, the Federal Assembly of the
Russian Federationthat was elected in December 1993);
the party elite (for the Brezhnev period, the CPSU Central Committee that was
elected at the XXVII Congress in 1986; for the Gorbachev period, the Central
Committee that was elected at the XXVIII Congress in 1990; and for the El'tsin
period, the leaders of the majorRussian parties as they stood in 1993-despite the
change from a single to a multipartysystem, this was the section that manifested
the greatest degree of direct continuity);
the top leadership(for the Brezhnev period, the members and candidatemembers
of the Politburoand the Secretariesof the CentralCommitteein January1985; for
the Gorbachevperiod, the members and candidatemembers of the Politburoand
the Secretaries of the Central Committee in January 1991; and for the El'tsin
period, the President'simmediateassociates, the leading members of his administration,his advisers, and members of the PresidentialCouncil);
the regional elite (for the Brezhnev period, the obkom first secretarieswho were
in office at the startof 1985; for the Gorbachevperiod, the obkomfirst secretaries
who were in office in 1990; and for the El'tsin period, the heads of regional
administrationsin 1993); and finally
the business elite (for the El'tsin period alone, consisting of the heads of the largest
banks, exchanges and industrial-financialgroups).
The Soviet nomenklatura

In order to understandhow the elite changed in the post-Soviet period we have to


understandhow it was formed over many decades of single-partycommunistrule. As
this is a subject that has already been discussed in the scholarly literature13we will
simply identify a number of its most distinctive features.
The elite, in the first instance, had a precise form as a result of its institutionalised
character. Lists of leading positions were maintained in the Central Committee
apparatus. Appointment to these leading positions was impossible without the
agreementof the partyhierarchy.The highest-placedmembersof the nomenklaturathat is, the holders of positions to which appointmentsrequiredthe approval of the
Politburoor Secretariatof the CPSU CentralCommittee-were in effect the national
elite. Equally, in spite of the varied characterof the positions that were included in
the upper nomenklatura,the Soviet elite was monolithic in nature,extending across
all spheres of party, state and social life. Its monolithic characterwas assuredby the
fact that all its members were communists, and by the mannerin which all leading
appointmentshad to be made or at least approvedby higher-level party bodies. Elite
memberswere accordinglyobliged to espouse Marxism-Leninismand to observe the
other conventions of Soviet public life.
The structure of the Soviet elite can be derived from the composition of the
membership of the CPSU Central Committee. The following groups were always
represented: the national leadership (the Politburo and Secretariat of the CPSU
CentralCommittee,which were in effect the political executive); the leading officials
of the CentralCommittee apparatus(in effect the national administration);the most
important regional party first secretaries; the prime minister and other leading

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OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA& STEPHENWHITE

membersof the government;the most importantmembers of the armed and security


services; leading diplomats; and the leaders of youth, trade union and cultural
organisations.Formally, the Central Committee and Supreme Soviet also included
workers, collective farmers, engineers and scholars. This group of 'ordinarySoviet
people' had a purely decorative character:its function was to demonstratethat the
USSR was a state run (as Lenin had put it) by cooks rather than professional
politicians.14

Beyond this, the Soviet nomenklaturaelite was strictly hierarchical.All nomenklatura positions, as early as the Stalin era, were divided into 14 ranks.15 At the
highest level was the GeneralSecretaryof the CPSU CentralCommittee,followed by
members of the Politburo,candidatePolitburomembers and the Central Committee
Secretaries. The next rank in the hierarchy consisted of the nomenklaturaof the
Politburo-that is, the list of positions to which appointmentswere made or approved
at Politburo level. This list included the first and (sometimes) second secretariesof
republicanparty organisations,the first secretariesof regional party committees and
of the largest towns, all-unionministers,the militaryhierarchy,ambassadorsto all the
socialist countries and to the largest capitalist countries, directors of the largest
military-industrialenterprises, the leading officials of the creative unions, and the
editorsof centralnewspapersandjournals.The level below this was the nomenklatura
of the CentralCommitteeSecretariat,including a morejunior list of positions: deputy
ministers, the second secretariesof regional party committees, the heads of regional
soviet executives, and so forth. Then came positions that requiredthe approvalof the
relevant Central Committee department, and after it positions that required the
approval of regional, urban and district party committees, and even (at the lowest
level) of local party branches.'6The hierarchicalprinciple required a steady progression throughthese stages, from level to level: it was similar in many ways to an
army hierarchy,and (as in the armed forces) exceptions were rare.
The nomenklaturasystem had mechanismsthat limited the tendency to self-recruitment or semeistvennost'. According to an informal convention the children of
higher-levelofficials never inheritedpositions with the same level of seniorityas their
fathers. Rather, 'elite children' had a series of special professional niches, often
connectedwith work abroad.This was supportedby a special system of nomenklatura
education at elite institutions, particularlythose that trained economists, diplomats
and journalistsspecialising in internationalaffairs. As a result of the restrictionupon
internal recruitment,the nomenklaturawas replenished to a large extent by new
members from other sections of society, including the intelligentsia, working class
and collective-farmpeasantry.The biographiesof CentralCommitteemembersfor the
whole period of Soviet rule demonstratehow few (for instance) had a Moscow or big
city background, and there were almost no members who had themselves been
broughtup in a nomenklaturahousehold (this principle began to be violated only in
1986 when Brezhnev's son Yurii and son-in-law Churbanovjoined the Central
Committee; both had lost their jobs and been expelled by the following party
congress, in 1990).
The nomenklatura, in addition, required of its members and particularly of
those who were likely to obtain advancement that they serve in different parts
of the country. The traditional nomenklatura career trajectory began with

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study in Moscow and then went on to the soviet, Komsomol, economic or party
apparatusat district level, followed by recall to Moscow for a one- or two-year stint
in the Central Committee headquartersand then a return to the provinces to a
higher-level post (often an obkom first secretaryship). Apart from geographical
mobility, another characteristic was a change in career specialisation. Over the
Brezhnev period a numberof typical nomenklaturacareer patternsdeveloped, all of
them under Central Committee auspices: party-economic,Komsomol-party,sovietparty, and party-diplomatic.The most typical was a career that moved upwards
from Komsomol to party work, or from party to soviet work and back, or from
economic to party work and back. There were also 'pure' career progressions,most
often on the part of economic administrators.In cases of this kind, the people
involved moved upwards at the same factory to the level of director, then into the
relevant ministry and eventually to the rank of minister. The party-diplomaticcareer
type, by contrast,was a feature of the decline of the nomenklatura,with ambassadorial posts in less importantcountries being filled by disgraced politicians as a form
of honoraryretirement.
The nomenklaturawas served by a comprehensive and finely differentiatedsystem of privileges. In Vozlensky's words, it lived in 'Nomenklaturia,... another,
entirely different, and special country' from which ordinarycitizens were 'carefully
isolated'.17 The existence of a system of this kind was related to the chronic
shortages that existed throughoutthe Soviet period. Members of the nomenklatura
were not rich in the conventional sense, but were removed by their position from
the hardshipsof daily life and allowed to enjoy a better quality of life. Their money
incomes were generally high, but their living standardswere sustainedmore directly
by a whole system of indirectpayments or benefits. Prices in official restaurants,for
instance, were significantly below their real cost; places in recreationhomes were
heavily subsidised; and so forth. Nomenklaturamembers were also accorded flats
and dachas in the most fashionable areas, for rentals that were symbolic.18
Apart from this, there was a well-developed distributionsystem that supportedthe
special needs of nomenklaturamembers. At food-processing plants, for instance,
there was always a workshop producing higher quality foodstuffs for the elite.
Special constructioncompanies looked after their housing requirementsat a level far
above those of ordinary citizens. There were special workshops, special shops,
special polyclinics, and even (a labour veteran complained) special graveyards.19
Privileges were strictly accordingto rank, and each rank in the nomenklaturaladder
had its own list of benefits. In addition, there was a system of special nomenklatura
education. It included the Higher Komsomol and Party Schools, the Academy of
Social Sciences attachedto the CPSU Central Committee, and the Academy of the
National Economy. The Higher Schools were generally concerned with the training
of local and regional-level nomenklaturamembers, and sometimes provided a local
official with the educational qualifications that were felt to be appropriate.The
Moscow Party School, the Academy of Social Sciences and Academy of the
National Economy were, by contrast, institutions for raising the qualifications of
nomenklaturamembers. A placement at any of these institutionsmeant, in practice,
that the official concerned was being prepared for advancement to a still higher
position.

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From power to property

As the Soviet system began to change underthe impact of the Gorbachevreforms, so


too did the patternsof elite advantagethat had become established over decades of
Soviet rule. And as political position became a less secure guarantee of those
advantages,the emphasis shifted to privateproperty-as Trotsky,many years earlier,
had predicted.20One of the most importantforms throughwhich this transitiontook
place was the alternativeor 'Komsomol' economy that began to develop in the late
1980s under the supervision of Egor Ligachev.21Its focus was the Coordinating
Council of Centres of Scientific and Technical Creativity of Youth (TsNTTM),
established in 1987 and staffed by Komsomol officials, with a network of centres
attachedto every district party committee in Moscow; these were, in effect, the first
commercial structuresof any kind in the former USSR, and it was through these
centres that many in the first wave of new Russian entrepreneursbecame established:
like KonstantinBorovoi, a computer scientist who moved into Komsomol business
and thereafterestablishedthe country's leading raw materialsexchange and his own
political party; or Igor' Safaryan, who progressed from a Komsomol centre to a
cooperative and then his own firm of brokers; or Konstantin Zatulin, a Moscow
history graduatewho gave up his dissertationto work for the economics secretaryof
the Komsomol CentralCommittee and then became chairmanof 'Entrepreneursfor
a new Russia'; or Mikhail Khodorkovsky,who graduatedfrom a deputy Komsomol
secretaryshipat the Mendeleev chemistry institute to the chairmanshipof Menatep
Bank.22
The 'Komsomol economy' took its origin from a resolution adoptedby the CPSU
Central Committee on 25 July 1986 in which it approved a proposal from the
Komsomol that it establish a networkof scientific and technical centres for the benefit
of its members.The new centres were supposedto operateon commercialprinciples,
basing themselves on agreementswith enterprisesand providing services that were
not otherwise available.23A series of more formal agreementsfollowed in the course
of 1987, including one in March that established a CoordinatingCouncil for the
Scientific-TechnicalCreativity of Youth under the chairmanshipof deputy premier
Boris Tolstykh.24By the end of the year the term 'Komsomol economy' had come
into regularuse among Komsomol officials, and it was repeatedlyemployed by first
secretary, Viktor Mironenko, in his address to a Komsomol plenum in December
1987. He was able to reportthat coordinatingcouncils had been established in most
republics and regions, and that more than 60 centres were alreadyoperatingin towns
throughoutthe country.25
The scope of the new centres was extended considerably during 1988, allowing
them to engage in the manufactureof consumer goods and to establish economic
relationswith foreign firms and organisations;26
they could set their own prices for the
goods they importedfrom abroad,and were relieved of all customs duties.27The Law
on Cooperatives,adoptedin May 1988, was modified as a result of pressurefrom the
Komsomol to cover 'other public organisations', and this allowed the new youth
centres to broaden the basis of their activity.28Complaints soon began to reach
governmentthat youth organisationshad been buying and reselling video recorders,
computersand other forms of technology at inflatedprices, and with 'crudeviolations

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of the law' ;29 Gorbachev, addressing the 21st Komsomol Congress in April 1990,
warned that it was not appropriatefor the party's youth movement to become
involved in 'middleman activity' of this kind.30 But by then the system was
developing under its own momentum;there was already a youth commercial bank,
an import-export centre and a network of fashion shops, and by 1990 more than
17 000 youth cooperatives were in operationemploying about a million staff.31
The Komsomol and its youth centres played a number of importantfunctions in
the establishmentof an early Russian capitalism, including the conversion of paper
assets into liquid cash. Not a single state enterprise,in the late 1980s, had the right
to conduct a relatively simple operation of this kind. Armed with this concession,
the new centres of scientific and technical creativity were able to charge a rate of
up to 30% on the profits that arose from such transactions;of these profits, 5%
were remitted to the CPSU Central Committee.32Formerly the privileges of the
nomenklaturahad been largely in kind, reflected in the granting of state property
for private use, in money and special services; now they began to acquire an
increasingly 'monetary' character,with its members allowed to engage in activities
that were prohibitedfor others and to make profits from such activities. Among the
main privileges of this kind, in the perestroika period, were the following:
(i) The establishment of joint enterprises. The nomenklatura had always been

distinguished by its special relationship with the outside world; and for many
reasons, not necessarily connected with high politics. The difference between the
official and unofficial exchange rates for the ruble, for instance, made any foreign
economic activity profitableand gave opportunitiesfor a speculative gain to anyone
who was able to travel abroad. Contacts with the West were not simply agreeable
and prestigious, they were also lucrative. In the broadest terms, the Soviet government was itself involved in commerce in the Brezhnev years of 'developed socialism'. Staff members of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, for instance, bought and
sold commodities on the American stock exchange; and several grain deals in the
1960s and 1970s are still remembered in ministerial circles as enormously
profitable.33
From the very first stages of economic reform the question of foreign dealings
came under the close attentionof the leadership.An association of joint enterprises
was established in 1988, headed by Lev Vainberg, who joined a consultative
council on entrepreneurshipunder the Gorbachev presidency in 1991 and was
himself the director of a French-Italian-Sovietjoint enterprise and Vice-President
of the Scientific-IndustrialUnion (later the Russian Union of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs).The first joint enterprisesto be registeredby the USSR Ministry of
Justice were directly linked with the CPSU; the very first Soviet-American joint
enterprise, 'Dialog', was established in 1987 under the party's direct patronage.
Through its 'authorised organisations'-the Main Computing Centre of VDNKh,
VO Vneshtekhnikapri GKNT SSSR, PO KamAZ-the party invested 12 million
rubles in the founding capital of the joint venture. After six months 'Dialog' in
turn became the founder of anotherjoint enterprise, 'Perestroika',whose president
was Andrei Stroev, a relative of Egor Stroev who was at that time a Central
Committee Secretary.34

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OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA& STEPHENWHITE

One of the first joint enterprises, 'Vneshkonsul't', founded in 1988, was established with the participationof a similar range of 'authorisedrepresentatives'of the
CPSU: once again, Vneshtekhnikaand the Main ComputingCentre of VDNKh. The
foreign participantwas the Finnish concern Sarka-Sov Consulting (in practice, a
foreign-based Soviet firm). Soon Vneshkonsul't became a partner of one of the
world's most importantfirms of business consultants,Ernst and Young: they jointly
formed the joint enterpriseErnst and Young Vneshkonsul't. The 'authorisedorganisations' that took part in the establishmentof joint concerns of this kind using the
financial resources of the CPSU Central Committee included, in the agricultural
sphere, RSFSR Gosagropromand its affiliates; in the cultural sphere, the Bolshoi
Theatre and the Kremlin Palace of Congresses; in computers, the Main Computing
Centre of VDNKh and Vneshtekhnika; in various business spheres, the Znanie
Society, the All-Union Trade Union Council, the Moscow and regional sections of
Zhilsotsbank,the Komsomol Central Committee and others.
There were other less well known organisations, which also became agencies
throughwhich the party began to adaptto a marketenvironment.In a single day (11
January1989), for instance, a specialised medical cooperativein Donetsk established
three joint enterprises with a total capitalisation of $50 million. These were Rida
(with the Brazilianfirm Brital), Koyana (with the same Brazilianfirm), and Valeo (a
joint venture with the Italian firm Imar). In no case did the foreign share exceed
25% of the total investment,accordingto an analysis of the founding documentsthat
were registered in the USSR Ministry of Justice; their role was ratherto facilitate a
process by which party-controlledassets could be convertedinto the more defensible
form of an enterprisewith foreign as well as Russian ownership and management.
(ii) The conversion of assets into cash. In the perestroika years only TsNTTM had

the privilege of converting its nominal assets into cash. Money, at this time, was of
two kinds: cash (nalichnye) and nominal (beznalichnye). Only cash was money in
the real sense; bank credits were necessary for purely paper transactionsbetween
state organisations. An enterprise deducted what it needed for the pay of its
employees, whose rates of remunerationwere strictly regulatedby the state, and no
other source of income was possible than the one that arose from a regularsalary or
bonus payment. Ready cash, for its part, had to be limited, as otherwise there would
be serious social tensions in circumstancesof general shortage. The creation of the
new centres, as a means of converting paper credits into cash, was not only a
contributionto the emergence of a Soviet market:it was also one of the causes of a
deepening problem of inflation. In Komsomol circles the scientific and technical
centres began to be called the 'locomotive of inflation' for this reason; and the
process by which money was processed in this way was itself a profitable and
privileged one.
(iii) Advantageous credits. In order to obtain credit at low rates of interest (or
sometimes without payment at all) it was necessary to belong to the nomenklaturaor
to have close links with highly placed officials. In the perestroika years it was
particularlyprofitableto obtain a credit in foreign currency. There were three rates
of exchange to the dollar at this time: the state one, the commercial one, and a
special tourist rate of exchange. While the commercial and tourist rates

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gradually moved closer to the level at which the currencies changed hands on the
black market,the state exchange rate for a long time remainedthe same: 65 kopeks
for a US dollar. It was this that made foreign currencycredits so profitable.A firm
might typically obtain a credit of a million dollars for a month, sell the dollars on the
black market for (say) 10 rubles each, and then returnthe credit to the state at the
official rate of exchange, leaving a profit of more than 9 million rubles. The first
commercial banks, operatingwith the supportof the state itself, were able to make
profits in the same way.
(iv) Propertydealings. In the early years of the economic reformonly firms that were
connected with the nomenklaturahad the right to engage in property transactions.
Therewere several reasons for this. In the firstplace, no one else owned any property.
The mass populationlived in state apartments,and enterpriseswere also based upon
state ownership. Consequently,the officials who controlled state propertyhad enormous scope for their activities. While the first commercial firms were being established, some of the best state propertywas sold at advantageousprices to firms that
had been founded with the participationof the nomenklatura.The nomenklatura,in
this way, sold itself its own property:and at nominal prices. The Most Group, for
instance, which is now one of the most powerful financial and industrialassociations
in Russia, bought several buildings in the centre of Moscow for several tens of
thousandsof rubles, which was less than half their market value at the time.
In the Soviet period the CPSU had been the owner of a large numberof buildings,
in which its full-time officials, publishinghouses, educationalinstitutions,rest homes,
living quartersand hotels were accommodated.These party buildings were, of their
kind, the country's 'gold fund': they were the best buildings, in the most convenient
and prestigious locations, and the best maintained.During the perestroika period the
nomenklaturabegan to receive a profit from the rental of these establishments.The
best rest homes, clinics, tourist bases and hotels were typically made available to
foreign firms, and joint enterprises were actively established. A full-scale nomenklatura war developed over the right to make use of the Central Committee hotel
'October 1'; the final victor was the administrationof the Russian presidenthimself.
Similarly,offices in the best buildingsin the centre of Moscow were rentedout at low
rates to firms that had nomenklaturacontacts. Indeed, in the mid-1990s it is still
possible to judge how close a firm was to the partyelite of the Soviet period by where
it is located. The offices of a number of firms directed by KonstantinZatulin, for
instance,are in the complex of buildingson Old Square,where the CentralCommittee
offices had been located: Zatulin, now a well known politician and businessman,was
(as we have noted) a former adviser to the Komsomol with special responsibilityfor
the 'youth economy'.35
(v) Privileges in import-export operations. As in other spheres, the right to engage in

foreign commercial operationsin the perestroika years was a restrictedone. Special


firms were created by the nomenklaturato serve as 9 form of contact between
domestic producersand their foreign clients. For other firms there was no means of
access of this kind to the foreign market;and the profitsthat derived from the export
of raw materialsand other competitive goods went directly into the pockets of these
nomenklaturacompanies. A differentprocedurewas followed in the case of imports.

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A system of state purchaseprices for importedgoods was still in operation, with a


number of bodies that made the necessary arrangements.Commercial bodies were
founded in their place whose function was the retail sale of imported goods; the
difference between state and retail prices was considerable and it remained at the
disposal of the owners of these new commercial importers.
(vi) 'Privatisation of the state by the state'. A process of this kind takes place when

public officials, using their formal powers, privatise those sections of the state for
which they are themselves responsible. Such a process began in 1987 and had
largely concluded by the time a privatisationprogrammefor the population at large
was ready to be launched. This kind of privatisationincluded wholesale changes in
the system of economic management,banking and retail sale, and the sale of the
most profitableenterprises.Ministries, for instance, were turnedinto concerns. The
minister typically retired, or became a consultantto the concern that had succeeded
the ministry. The president of the concern, as a rule, was a former deputy minister.
The concern acquired the status of joint stock company. The shareholderswere
typically the most senior management of the former ministry, together with the
enterprisesfor which it had been responsible. The ministry's property,in this way,
became the private property of its leading officials; and they themselves did not
simply privatise the organisation for which they were responsible, but did so for
their own benefit.
The privatisationof banking took place in a similar way. The reforms that were
undertakenin 1988 and 1989 had led to the collapse of what had been a unitaryand
closely regulated system, which was no longer able to adapt to new requirements.
Promstroibankand Zhilsotsbank, together with their regional affiliates, were dissolved entirely; and each part of this former system became a commercialbank. The
buildings, the staff, the equipment, and often the managementremained the same;
what changed was the name and the means by which profits were distributed.The
former Moscow Zhilsotsbank,for instance, became Mosbiznesbank,under the continued presidency of Viktor Bukato. Promstroibankretainedits former name, simply
adding the word 'commercial';its president, as before, is Yakov Dubenetsky.36
A number of new commercial banks were created with the direct participationof
officials of the Ministry of Finance. One of the main Russian banks, Imperial, was
established under the auspices of the ministry's department for relations with
commercial banks, which was headed at that time by Sergei Rodionov; he duly
became the new head of Imperial.Several other commercial banks were established
on the basis of what was apparently a fresh initiative; but the history of their
establishment, and the biographies of their directors, suggest a rather different
interpretation.One of the first commercial banks, Menatep, for instance, began life
in 1988 as a scientific and technical centre for youth creativity underthe auspices of
the Frunze district committee of the CPSU.37Gosbank officials and highly-placed
staff in the Ministry of Finance did not receive a majorityof shares in the banks of
which they became directors;and their contributionto capital assets was generally
insignificant. But their share was often sufficient to exercise a dominant influence,
and that influence was exercised over what were often very profitablecapital assets
as well as over the circulationof currency.38

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Retail trade was privatised in the same way. The Soviet trading system had two
main forms: Gossnab, which was responsible for the allocation of the 'means of
production',and various bureauxresponsiblefor consumer goods. The USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade and its specialised administrations-Eksportkhleb,Eksportles
and so forth-was a particularlyimportantpartof this elaboratesystem. Gossnabduly
became the basis upon which the first stock exchanges began to emerge. Major
exchanges like the Russian Commodities and Raw Materials Exchange and the
Moscow Commodities Exchange were headed by former Komsomol functionaries,
and former specialists from Gossnab were invited to take over their management
positions. Senior officials of the Ministry of Trade and of Foreign Trade moved
quickly to establish commercial structures within the framework of their own
organisations,which then monopolised the most profitable sections of the activities
for which the former ministries had been responsible.
The most profitableenterpriseswere also privatised,becoming joint stock companies long before a full-scale programmeof privatisationhad been instituted.Among
the first to become commercially established were Butek, directed by Mikhail
Bocharov, Mikrokhirurgiyaglaza, directed by the surgeon and politician Svyatoslav
Fedorov, and the KamAZ and AvtoVAZ vehicle works, directed respectively by
Nikolai Bekh and Vladimir Kadannikov(from 1996, a first deputy prime minister).
The mannerin which such firms had been privatised was unclear, as no legislation
had yet been adopted to provide for such changes. Another form of 'privatisation
before privatisation'was throughthe creation of commercial structuresbased at the
factories themselves, typically the creation of a more specialised agency involved in
marketingand sales. The factory's productionwas first classified into competitive and
non-competitive. Non-competitive output, either because it was of poor quality or
because it was simply too expensive, was sold thereafterat state prices, while output
for which therewas a demandwas sold throughthe factory-basedfirm. The difference
between the state price and the retail price was convertedin this way into profits for
the factory directors,and a factory that had not yet been privatisedbecame a source
of materialbenefit for its management.
The outcome of all these changes was a substantialmove towards the conversion
of the power of the party-statenomenklaturainto privateproperty.The state, in effect,
had privatiseditself. Property,formerly, had been within the disposal of the nomenklatura,but not in its private ownership;now it had moved from public into private
hands, typically those of the factory administration.Ministers,by the same token, had
become the owners of majority shareholdingsin privatised companies, department
heads at the Ministry of Finance had become presidents of commercial banks, and
leading officials at Gossnab had become managers of exchanges. During this early,
'nomenklatura'stage of privatisationthere were certainly some with no previous
involvement in their new sphere of activity. Many of them, indeed, enjoyed a good
deal of success. But taken as a whole, it is clear that the process of economic reform
took place under the control of the nomenklaturaand to its direct material benefit.
The new Russian elite

As a result of all these changes, what had been a unitarySoviet elite divided into two

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OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA& STEPHENWHITE

broad sections: a political and an economic elite. Membership of the first was a
consequence of position, and of one's standingwithin the political establishment;the
second was made up of people whose influence was based upon their control of
capital. The new Russian elite, in other words, became a bifurcatedone.39
With the coming to power of El'tsin the new elite began to consolidate itself.
El'tsin, as a rule, used officials who had been appointedby Gorbachev,or whom he
had known himself in the Sverdlovskpartycommittee. And althoughthe flow of new
people into high-ranking positions continued, it was nonetheless clear that the
revolutionary period of the transformationof the elite had ended. Structures of
executive power had come into being: the administrationof the President, and the
governmentof the Russian Federation;and there was a functioningand freely elected
parliament,the State Duma. The courts alone had not developed into an independent
branch of government. The locus of authority was increasingly in the hands of
executive bodies. The movement of officials from party to state that had begun under
Gorbachev now showed its results. ThroughoutRussia administrationswere being
formed from the same sources-the old nomenklatura.And a new pyramidof power
arose above the former one.
The El'tsin leadershiptook steps to 'close' the elite at this stage. The first stage in
this process was the dissolution of the Congress of People's Deputies and Supreme
Soviet, which had up to this point resisted presidentialcontrol. The next step was the
adoption of a new Constitutionwhich made clear that the parliamentof the future
would consist in partof the heads of regional administrationswhom the Presidenthad
himself appointed (they were representedin the upper house, the Council of the
Federation),and in part of political leaders who also had their origins in the former
nomenklatura and who were represented in the lower house, the State Duma.
Ministers were allowed to combine their positions with seats in the Duma that was
elected in 1993, strengtheningthe influence of the executive within the system of
representativeinstitutions.
While formally retaining the two branches of government, the El'tsin leadership
made great efforts to control the work of legislative bodies by methods that included
increasing the presence within them of state officials, regulatingthe election of new
deputies as closely as possible, and gradually absorbing the whole system of
governmentwithin a nomenklaturaframework.The Soviet traditionof 'selection and
allocation of cadres' was in effect revived, and with it the 'table of ranks'-that is,
the hierarchyof positions and correspondingrates of pay-that had given rise to the
nomenklaturaitself when it was established in the early 1920s.
The new system of appointmentwas as follows: at the apex of the pyramidwere
the supreme leaders, who occasionally lost their places as a result of high-level
political intrigue. In their place a second and then a third stratum of the old
nomenklaturarose to positions of power. Unlike the Soviet period, loss of position at
the apex of the system was no longer equivalent to political death: a former leader,
under these new conventions, soon found a position in a new power structureat a
slightly lower point in the hierarchy.A process of replacementof this kind took place
at different rates in the centre and in the localities: in Moscow the political process
was more intensive and the top leadership was replaced more often, giving greater
opportunitiesfor lower levels of the former nomenklaturato advance their position.
In many of the regions, on the other hand, there were only one or two cycles in the

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process of elite renewal. In Krasnodarkrai, for instance, the former chairmanof the
territorialcouncil, Nikolai Kondratenko,was dismissedfor his supportof the attempted
1991 coup and replacedby the democratD'yakonov. D'yakonov resigned in turn and
was replacedby his deputy,Nikolai Egorov, a representativeof the 'thirdlayer' of the
nomenklaturawho had not been discreditedby his previousactivity and now declared
himself an 'independentpolitician of centrist views'. Unlike the Soviet period, when
resignation meant the end of a political career, all remained active and influential
membersof the regional or nationalelite. Kondratenko,who became the leader of the
local opposition, won a large majorityat the polls in December 1993 and became a
memberof the Council of the Federation;D'yakonov went on to head the territorial
committee of Vybor Rossii;40and Egorov, in 1996, became El'tsin's press secretary.
There was a concentration,not only of political power, but also of economic
resources. The period of economic reform from 1987 to 1992 was associated with a
process of decentralisationand collapse of the formerly powerful 'vertical' links in
the state system of economic management.Formerly,for instance,the bankingsystem
had been represented by Gosbank, Promstroibank,Zhilsotsbank and their local
affiliates, and the whole system had been closely regulated by the Ministry of
Finance. In the perestroikaperiod this monolithic system collapsed and a whole series
of commercialbanks developed in its place, often by simply renamingthemselves. A
similar process took place in other sectors of the economy.
In 1992 a process of recentralisationbegan to assert itself, but based on horizontal
ratherthan vertical links. Commercialbanks were no longer united by their capital,
but by a range of interrelatedactivities of other kinds. A variety of new forms of
enterprisedeveloped on this basis, including holding companies, groups of companies, and industrial-financialconcerns. All of them, typically, were based upon a
parent firm, whose activities ranged from the sale of computers to building and
construction.This parent firm, having accumulatedsufficient resources, would then
establish subsidiaryfirms including its own bank and commodity exchange, its own
insurancecompany, its own chamberof commerce and so forth. A logical development was the establishmentof its own joint enterprises(to improve its contacts with
the West and to allow its capitalto be exported).Similarly,a philanthropicfund might
be established,or an investmentor pension fund; and the firm would also acquire its
own newspapers,its own lobbyists, sometimes its own political parties, and eventually its own security services. Financial groups of this kind had every means
thereafterof exercising influence on public policy and on mass opinion.
The new Russian elite, as it had developed by the mid-1990s, may be conceptualised as a three-layeredpie. At the top level are politicians and their allies, who
compete among themselves for power. The middle layer consists of entrepreneurs,
who financethe politicians' electoralcampaigns,lobbying, newspapersand television;
and at the bottom level are the security services which not only maintain order but
also act as a means of influence and contractenforcement.Private security forces of
this kind have been established very widely by the largest corporationsor by their
agencies, and have also been established on an 'independent' basis. The periodic
reforms of the KGB have had a numberof effects, one of which has been to oblige
many of its staff to leave and find alternativeemployment; and it is former KGB
employees who form the core of the security services of majorbanks and companies.

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The significance of a Moscow bank has come to be reflected not in its financial
position but in whetherits security service is headed by a general or merely a colonel
from the KGB. The new security services also employ athletes with a specialisation
in unarmedcombat; one of the forms of philanthropyin which the major financial
groups engage is precisely the supportof clubs for children and young people, where
karate and other combat sports are taught.
The heads of privatesecurity services of this kind are, as a rule, importantand well
known figures in their own right. The president of the Lev Yashin fund, Otari
Kvantrishvili,was regularlyreceived at the highest levels of the Kremlin;41and the
heads of the national associations of kick-boxing, field athletics and kung fu are, as
a rule, of considerablepolitical influence. In 1993 the first political party was formed
in orderto representtheir interests,SportivnayaRossiya, with branchesin local areas
as well as in Moscow. The USSR was a major sportingpower, and it still provides
a home to a large number of outstandingathletes. These new 'sports parties' enjoy
a considerablepublic following, especially among young people, whose ideal in life
is often to be able to shoot and fight professionally.
The redistributionof power on this basis appearsto have been completed and with
it the 'second Russian revolution' has come to an end. It was a revolution in which
a younger generationof the nomenklaturaousted its older rivals. In effect it was a
bourgeois revolution, in that it led to a change in the sociopolitical system in the
direction of private propertyand political pluralism.And it involved a redistribution
of political power towards a group of younger, more pragmatic nomenklatura
members, some of whom became politicians and some businessmen.In the economy
there was a correspondingshift of power into property,based upon the privatisation
of the key sectors of the infrastructure:finance, retail trade, internationaleconomic
relations,and the most profitablesectors of industry(especially the energy and mining
complexes).
Continuity and change in the Russian elite

In this final section of the article we present an analysis of the characteristicsof three
generations of the Soviet and Russian elite-under Brezhnev, Gorbachev and
El'tsin-in orderto sustain some of the generalisationsoffered in earlier sections and
to give more particularattentionto the extent to which the nomenklaturaof the Soviet
period maintainedits position into the post-communist 1990s.42
One of the clearest conclusions (see Table 1) is that the elite has become
significantlyyounger over the past ten years. Overall, it has become about eight years
morejunior. Under Brezhnevthe oldest groups within the elite were the Politburoand
the Soviet government, that is, the most powerful functionaries of all; while the
youngest was the group of deputies to the USSR SupremeSoviet. There was, in fact,
a direct relationship between age and political influence: the greater the age, the
greaterthe authority.The same tends to be true of professionalgroups in all societies:
but it is less clearly the case elsewhere that youth is an indicatorof lowly status. In
the Brezhnev elite the relationshipwas an almost linear one: the youth of parliamentarians was a direct reflection of their relatively low position in the nomenklatura
hierarchy.Nor, indeed, was it a secret for anyone that the Supreme Soviet of those

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TABLE 1
THE SOVIET AND RUSSIAN ELITE: BY AGE (YEARS)

Top
leadership

Party
dlite

61.8
54.0
53.1

59.1
54.9
n.d.

Brezhnev cohort
Gorbachevcohort
El'tsin cohort

Parliamentary
Regional Business Average
Government elite
elite
elite
by cohort
41.9
44.0
46.5

61.0
56.2
52.0

59.0
52.0
49.0

n.d.
n.d.
42.1

56.6
52.2
48.5

Source: Authors' data.

years played a largely formal role, with its membershipbased upon national quotas
which in turndeterminedthe shares of young people, of women and of non-Russians
that were to be elected.
Under Gorbachevthe ages of the various sections of the elite became more similar:
the traditional party-state elite became more youthful, while the relatively freely
elected parliamentbecame two or three years older. And then underEl'tsin there were
further changes: the government and regional leadership became almost ten years
younger,while the parliamentaged by a furthersix as it lost the youthful workersand
Komsomol memberswho had formerlybeen imposed upon it. As the December 1993
elections made clear, Russian voters, given a choice, generally prefer candidateswho
are in their late forties, marriedand male, with some experience of other spheres of
public activity.43
The gender composition of the elite in the Brezhnev period was also subject to a
quota. About a third of the seats in the USSR Supreme Soviet were reserved for
women, and this was the reason for their relatively substantial representationin
parliamentcompared with other sections of the elite (see Table 2). At levels of the
nomenklaturawhere power was actually and not simply formally exercised, however,
their representationwas much less and sometimes non-existent. Under Gorbachev
there was some increase in the number of women in positions of real authority,but
this was matched by a fall in female representationin parliamentaryinstitutions.
Women almost doubled their share of the CPSU CentralCommitteein 1990, but this
was at the same time as the influence of the CentralCommittee was itself declining.
In terms of social origin, the old nomenklaturahad been predominantlyrural.More
thanhalf of the Moscow-basedpartyand governmentleaders,for instance,had a rural
background (see Table 3). In the regions the proportion was even higher. Under
Gorbachevthere was very little change in this respect in the regions, althoughin the
central institutions of party and state there was a considerable increase in the
TABLE 2
WOMEN IN THE ELITE (%, BY COLUMN)

Brezhnev cohort
Gorbachevcohort
El'tsin cohort

Top
leadership

Party
elite

3.9
5.7
2.3

4.3
8.4
8.6

Parliamentary
Regional Business Average
Government elite
elite
elite
by cohort
32.8
8.4
11.2

0
2.9
2.9

0
0
0

Source: As Table 1.

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n.d.
n.d.
0

8.2
5.6
4.2

726

OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA

& STEPHEN WHITE

TABLE 3
RURAL ORIGINS AMONG ELITE MEMBERS (%, BY COLUMN)

Brezhnev cohort
Gorbachevcohort
El'tsin cohort

Top
leadership

Party
elite

57.7
48.6
12.5

59.2
48.5
22.9

Parliamentary
Regional Business Average
elite
Government elite
elite
by cohort
n.d.
55.7
n.d.

45.6
35.0
22.9

66.7
65.6
33.8

n.d.
n.d.
22.0

57.3
54.6
22.8

Source: As Table 1.

proportionof leaders who were of urbanorigin. But the real change took place in the
years that followed. El'tsin was able to attract a new group of young and welleducatedMoscow economists, lawyers and otherprofessionalsinto his administration,
and those of ruralorigin droppedto a small proportionat all levels, particularlyin the
top leadershipbut also in the regions, where a ruralorigin might have been expected
to survive ratherlonger. Overall, the proportionof elite membersthat had been born
in rural areas fell to less than half of its level in the years before Gorbachev's
accession, and its social origins had been shaped by a very different set of
experiences, although they were still far from representativeof a society that had
become largely urbanised.
It is more difficult to consider changes in the nationalcomposition of the elite over
the same period, given the collapse of the USSR and the formationin its place of 15
independentstates (see Table 4). A directcomparisonof the Brezhnev and Gorbachev
elites with the elite of the El'tsin years would accordinglybe misleading. It was clear,
however, that Gorbachev was making some effort under the pressure of events to
increase the representationof non-Russians:in the top party leadership their share
more than doubled (this reflecteda change in the composition of the Politburo,which
in 1990 became a body made up of the heads of republicanparty organisations);and
in the Central Committee it increased in proportion.Only at the regional level was
there a relative fall in the proportionof non-Russians.Under El'tsin, by contrast,the
clearesttendencyis for the nationalcompositionof each section of the elite to become
more similar: under Gorbachevthere had been a fourfold difference in the share of
non-Russiansin the centralleadershipcomparedwith the regions, while underEl'tsin
the share of non-Russianswithin each section of the elite varied much less aroundan
average of just over 20% which was itself just above their share of the total
population.
The elite was always one of the most educated groups in society. Even in the
TABLE 4
NON-RUSSIAN MEMBERS OF THE ELITE (%, BY COLUMN)

Brezhnev cohort
Gorbachev cohort
El'tsin cohort

Top
leadership

Party
elite

23.1
51.4
27.3

28.4
47.4
25.7

Parliamentary
Regional Business Average
Government elite
elite
elite
by cohort
55.5
33.9
19.3

24.6
15.7
17.1

19.1
12.5
16.2

Source: As Table 1.

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n.d.
n.d.
n.d.

30.1
36.3
21.1

FROM SOVIET NOMENKLATURA TO RUSSIAN ELITE

727

TABLE 5
HIGHER EDUCATION AMONG ELITE MEMBERS (%, BY COLUMN)

Top
leadership
Brezhnev cohort
Gorbachev cohort
El'tsin cohort

100
88.6
100

Party
elite
92.6
74.4
100

Parliamentary
Regional Business Average
elite
Government elite
elite
by cohort
51.3
67.9
94.0

100
100
100

100
100
97.1

n.d.
n.d.
93.0

88.8
84.1
97.4

Source: As Table 1.

Brezhnev years, when the leadership was made up predominantlyof those of lower
socioeconomic status, a higher education of some kind was all but universal. A
significant proportion of the nomenklaturaof those years, admittedly, had a party
or Komsomol higher education, of the quality of which there could be some doubt.
During the 1980s it was in fact the parliamentarianswho stood out, as a result of
the fact that all groups of society-including the less educated-had their allocated
share of seats in representative bodies. Under Gorbachev the parliament became
more educated, the Central Committee less so as it became more representativeof
the party rank and file. There were still more considerable changes in all elite
groups during the El'tsin years, with graduate membership becoming all but
universal (see Table 5).
At the same time as a higher education became virtually universal, on the other
hand, it became less useful as a means of distinguishing among sub-elite groups;
and it becomes importantto consider other characteristicsof educational level. Interms of higher degrees, for instance, there was a clear change from the Brezhnev
and Gorbachev years to the elite of the El'tsin period. About a quarterof the elite
had a candidate or doctor of science degree in the late communist period (23%
under Brezhnev and 29% under Gorbachev, with the increase particularlymarked
within the party leadership); under El'tsin the proportionwas 48.4%, and as high
as 70.5% in the presidential administration.There were corresponding changes in
the natureof the education that was characteristicof the elite: under Brezhnev it had
been predominantlytechnological, with engineering, military or agriculturalspecialisations particularlyprominent.Under Gorbachev the proportionwith a technological education fell, while those with a party higher education increased. Under
El'tsin there was a furtherfall, to 47.2%, comparedwith 71.7% under Brezhnev and
67.3% in the Gorbachev years, while there was a substantialincrease in economists
and lawyers.
What, finally, about recruitmentand renewal? Under Brezhnev it had been all but
impossible to enter the elite without passing throughthe nomenklaturahierarchy,or
missing out any of the normal stages of advancement.There were some non-nomenklaturamemberswithin the CPSU CentralCommitteeand the USSR SupremeSoviet,
but these (as in other cases) were 'planned' exceptions. There were some changes in
the perestroika years, and even the party leadership became accessible to relative
outsiders. The most important means of recruitment to the leadership by other
than the nomenklatura route was however the elections of 1989 and 1990.
During the post-communist years a still greater proportion were recruited

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OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA& STEPHENWHITE


TABLE 6
ELITE MEMBERS FROM OUTSIDE THE NOMENKLATURA(%, BY COLUMN)

Top
leadership

Party
elite

0
8.5
25.0

6.0
28.8
42.8

Brezhnev cohort
Gorbachevcohort
El'tsin cohort

Parliamentary
Regional Business Average
elite
Government elite
elite
by cohort
51.3
40.6
39.8

0
n.d.
25.7

0
0
17.7

n.d.
n.d.
59.0

11.4
19.5
35.0

Source: As Table 1.

to the elite from those who had not previously been members of the nomenklatura
(see Table 6): nearly half of all party leaders, and more than half of all the business
elite, were new people, and so too were a thirdof all deputies. More strikingwas the
degree of continuityat leading levels of government:three-quartersof the presidential
administrationand nearly three-quartersof the Russian government were former
nomenklaturamembers, and among the regional leadership over 80% had similar
origins.
Most of the El-'tsinleadership,equally, had spent a considerable time in leading
positions in the formerregime (see Table 7). Within the El'tsin elite as a whole, more
than a thirdhad begun theirprogressthroughthe nomenklaturain the Brezhnevyears,
and more than a thirdunderGorbachev;only one in ten were new to the elite, in that
they had begun their professionalcareersin the post-Soviet period. More than half of
the currentregional leadershipbegan their nomenklaturacareersunderBrezhnev, and
all had inherited ratherthan acquired their elite status. Among those in the El'tsin
leadershipwho were formernomenklaturamembersthe averagelength of service was
11.5 years, ranging from an average of 10 years among members of the El'tsin
governmentto 14.5 years among his regional administrators.Just as there were typical
career paths in all of these periods, there were typical paths from one period to
another (see Table 8). Regional first secretaries, for instance, became chairmen of
local soviets and then heads of local administrations.The presidentialadministration
and the regional elite tended to emerge from former structuresof government;the
business elite was more likely to have a backgroundin the Komsomol. The Russian
government,for its part, became more professional, with its origins increasingly in
economic management,diplomacy and the former security services.

TABLE 7
AVERAGE LENGTH OF ELITE MEMBERSHIP, EL'TSIN COHORT (%, BY COLUMN)

% who entered the elite:


Under Brezhnev
Under Gorbachev
Under El'tsin

Government
31.3
42.9
20.0

Top leadership Regional elite


22.7
36.4
11.4

57.4
39.7
0

Source: As Table 1.

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Average
37.1
39.7
10.5

FROM SOVIETNOMENKLATURA
TO RUSSIAN ELITE

729

TABLE 8
RECRUITMENTOF THE EL'TSIN COHORT BY SECTOR (%, BY COLUMN)

Top
leadership
(a) From the nomenklatura
as a whole
(b) From sectoral sub-elites:
party
Komsomol
soviets
economy
other

Party
elite

Business
Regional
elite Government
elite
Average

75.0

57.1

82.3

74.3

61.0

69.9

21.2
0
63.6
9.1
6.1

65.0
5.0
25.0
5.0
10.0

17.8
1.8
78.6
0
0

0
0
26.9
42.3
30.8

13.1
37.7
3.3
37.7
8.2

23.4
8.9
39.5
18.8
11.0

Source: As Table 1.

Elites and post-communisttransition


This discussion has largely shared the conclusions of those who have argued that
'plus ca change' in the composition of post-communistelites. It would, of course, be
surprisingif the political managersof a post-Soviet system were very different from
those who had been responsible for its operation for many years; and this was
particularlytrue in Russia, where communist rule had lasted for more than two
generationsand where many of its assumptions-surveys suggested-retained a great
deal of support.So it was appropriatethat the post-communistRussian state should
be headed by a Presidentwho had been a member of the Politburo and Secretariat,
and by a prime minister who had been a member of the party's CentralCommittee.
The more 'indigenous' the regime, it would appear,and the greaterits longevity, the
greaterthe extent to which its post-communistleadershipis likely to have its origins
in the nomenklaturaof the Soviet period.
A broadercontinuity coexisted, in the Russian case, with a process of circulation
within the elite as a younger and less compromisedcohort rose to leading positions.
This is what a Gorbachev adviser has called the 'revolution of the second secretaries';44 it was similar, in some ways, to the militarycoups that took place in Africa
under the leadershipof junior officers, not complete outsiders.For the Hungarians,a
change of this kind was best described as a 'power metamorphosis' (metamorphozisa): it was not a transitionfrom one system to another,but the resolution of an
intra-system crisis and the recuperationof a system of authoritarianpower.45For
Boris Kagarlitsky, 'the basic characteristicsof the existing system' still remained.46
For PresidentVaclav Havel, it was a 'velvet restoration'.Or as the former Solidarity
activist, Andrzej Gwiazda, put it in Poland, 'Communismhas not collapsed. Maybe
it's reclining in a more comfortableposition'.47A process of leadershiprenewal that
was largely confined to the junior ranks of the communist elite was a part of this
evolutionarypicture.
A broad continuity also coexisted with a redistributionby sector, as a monolithic
elite reconstituteditself as a bifurcatedone. Trotskyhad long ago arguedthat the elite
would find its privileged position unsatisfactory, as (under Soviet conditions) it
depended upon the temporarycontrol of office. Far better, from their point of view,
to guaranteetheir advantageand make it heritableacross the generationsin the same

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730

OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA

& STEPHEN WHITE

way as ruling groups in other societies: by the private ownership of property and
wealth.48 It was access to the market, in the first instance, that allowed the
nomenklatura to begin to protect their position as the future of the regime became
uncertain; afterwards, for many, it was the market and particularly banking that
allowed them to retain their position of advantage.
It is likely, in the future, that a still wider range of mechanisms of elite renewal will
come into play: particularly access to privileged educational institutions. Already
within the Russian elite a number have emerged as particularly important: among
them the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (where diplomats are
trained), the Moscow Financial Institute (a source of supply for bankers and
entrepreneurs), the Law Faculty of Moscow University and particularly its Economics
Faculty (alma mater for three ministers in the Russian government in 1996, with two
more graduates of other faculties). It is also likely, in the future, that an increasingly
differentiated system of government will throw up local patterns of recruitment and
replacement, with clan and other associations of particular importance.49 If this were
the case, the Russian political elite would be likely to share many of the characteristics of its counterparts in other countries: in the early post-communist years, however,
its membership was still largely rooted in the particular circumstances of communist
single-party rule.
Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences
University of Glasgow
An earlierversionof this articlewas presentedto the InternationalCongressfor Centraland East
EuropeanStudies,Warsaw,in August 1995, and (withfurtherrevisions)to the annualconferenceof
the BritishAssociationfor SlavonicandEast EuropeanStudiesat Cambridge,March1996. It draws
in partupon the Soviet 2ElitesProjectbased at the Universityof Glasgowand supportedby the UK
Economicand Social ResearchCouncil,and directedby Evan Mawdsleyand StephenWhite.
I See Vilfredo Pareto, Treatise on General Sociology (New York, Harcourt,Brace, Jovanovitch,1935).
2
Argumentyifakty, 1994, 35, p. 2 (popularityof USSR);and 1994, 23, p. 2 (communistsstill
in power). In an April 1995 survey 67% of Russiansgave a positive evaluationto the old Soviet
systemof government,comparedwith 26% who evaluatedthe presentregimein the same way: see
RichardRose, New RussiaBarometerIV: SurveyResults(Glasgow,Centrefor the Studyof Public
1995), pp. 42-43.
Policy,
3
See ZdenkaMansfeldova,'Theemergingnew Czechpoliticalelites', a paperpreparedfor the
ECPRjoint sessions in Madrid,April 1994.
4
See for instanceAdamPogorecki,'Thecommunistandpostcommunist
Polish
nomenklatura',
SociologicalReview,106, 2, 1994, pp. 111-123. See also JacekWasilewski(ed.), Konsolidacjaelit
politycznych1991-1993 (Warsaw,InstytutStudiowPoliticznych,1994); Wasilewski,'The crystallizationof the post-communistand post-Solidaritypoliticalelite', in EdmundWnuk-Lipinski(ed.),
After Communism(Warsaw,Instituteof Political Studies, 1995), pp. 117-133; Wnuk-Lipinski&
Wasilewski,'How muchcommunismis left with us?', Politicus,August 1995, pp. 39-44; andIvan
Szelenyiet al. (eds), Elityw Polsce, w Rosji i na Wegrzech(Warsaw,InstytutStudiowPoliticznych,
1995).
5 David Lane & CameronRoss, 'The changingcompositionand structureof the political
elites', in Lane (ed.), Russia in Transition(London,Longmans,1995), p. 68.
6
Up to 80% of local functionarieswere the same as they had been in the Soviet period,
accordingto Rossiiskayagazeta,4 March1992,p. 2. El'tsinhimselfclaimedtherewas less continuity
at nationallevel: Izvestiya,27 March1992, p. 7. A comparisonbetweenthe 'old' and 'new' elites is
i
presentedin B. V. Golovachevet al., 'Formirovanie
pravyashcheielity v Rossii', Ekonomicheskie
mneniya,1995, 6, pp. 18-24, and 1996, 1, pp.
sotsial'nyeperemeny:monitoringobshchestvennogo
32-38; it is less directlyconcernedwith continuitythanthe presentstudybut notes thatabout40%

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FROM SOVIET NOMENKLATURA TO RUSSIAN ELITE

731

of elite members had been born into nomenklatura families (6, p. 21) and that 'three-quarters of
former nomenklatura staff either remained in high state and management posts, or occupied positions
that were close to them' (1, p. 37). The same investigation is drawn upon in N. S. Ershova,
'Transformatsiyapravyashchei elity Rossii v usloviyakh sotsial'nogo pereloma', in T. I. Zaslavskaya
& L. A. Arutyunyan (eds), Kuda idet Rossiya? (Moscow, Interpraks, 1994), pp. 151-155; it reports
that 'over 60%' of the former nomenklatura still occupied elite positions (p. 154).
7
See Thomas A. Baylis, 'Plus qa change? Transformation and continuity amongst East
European elites', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 27, 3, September 1994, pp. 315-328;
Circulation vs Reproduction of Elites during the Postcommunist Transformation of Eastern Europe,
special issue of Theory and Society, 24, 5, October 1995; and John Higley, Judith Kullberg & Jan
Pakulski, 'The persistence of postcommunist elites', Journal of Democracy, 7, 2, April 1996, pp.
133-147.
8
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 3 December 1992, p. 5.
9 For a more general treatment that emphasises elite cohesion see John Higley & Jan Pakulski,
'Revolution and elite transformation in Eastern Europe', Australian Journal of Political Science, 27,
1, March 1992, pp. 104-119; and Higley & Pakulski, 'Elite transformation in Central and Eastern
Europe', ibid., 30, 3, November 1995, pp. 415-435. See also Hellmut Wollmann, 'Change and
continuity of political and administrative elites from communist to post-communist Russia', Governance, 6, 3, July 1993, pp. 325-340.
10 An alternative reputational approach is available in David Lane, 'Gorbachev's political elite
in the terminal stage of the USSR: a reputational analysis', Journal of Communist Studies and
Transition Politics, 10, 1, March 1994, pp. 104-116, and Lane, 'Political elites under Gorbachev and
Yeltsin in the early period of transition: a reputational and analytic study', in Timothy Colton &
Robert C. Tucker (eds), Patterns in Post-Soviet Political Leadership (Boulder, CO, Westview, 1995).
11 These
investigations are as follows: (i) 'Kto pravit Rossiei? (Issledovanie elity Rossiiskoi
provintsii)', 1994; (ii) 'Lidery Rossiiskogo biznesa', 1992-94; (iii) 'Rossiiskaya politicheskaya elita',
1993; (iv) 'Sobstvennost' v Rossii', 1993; (v) 'Material'nyi uroven' zhizni v Moskve i Rossii', 1993;
(vi) 'Politicheskie partii i tsentry vliyaniya Rossii', 1992-93; (vii) 'Politicheskaya elita Brezhnevskoi
formatsii', 1991-93; (viii) 'Vliyatel'nye lyudi pri Gorbacheve i El'tsine', 1992; (ix) 'Obshchestvennoe mnenie o bogatykh i bogatstve', 1992; (x) 'Biznes i reformy', 1992; (xi) 'Byvshie sotrudniki
KGB v novoi roli predprinimatelei', 1992; (xii) 'Biznes i politika', 1992; (xiii) 'Stsenarii politicheskikh izmenenii v Rossii', 1992; (xiv) 'Rossiiskie menedzhery', 1991; (xv) 'Komanda El'tsina',
1991; (xvi) 'Sovetskie millionery', 1991; (xvii) 'Novaya sovetskaya elita', 1990; and (xviii) 'Administrativnaya sistema i ee sub"ekty', 1989-92. Sponsorship for these studies was obtained from a
variety of agencies including the Administration of the President of Russia, the French defence
ministry, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, Columbia University, and the papers
Delovoi mir and Moskovskie novosti.
12 Our
principal biographical sources included the following: Izvestiya TsK KPSS, 1990, 8, pp.
8-61, 10, pp. 28-61, and 11, pp. 32-62; Deputaty Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR: Odinnadtsatyi sozyv
(Moscow: Izvestiya, 1984); Sostav tsentral'nykh organov KPSS, izbrannykh XXVI s"ezdom partii.
Spravochnik (Moscow, Politizdat, 1982; a corresponding volume for the XXVII Congress is available
in TsKhSD, Moscow); A. S. Barsenkov et al., Politicheskaya Rossiya segodnya, 2 vols (Moscow,
Moskovskii rabochii, 1993); Vladimir Pribylovsky, Kto est' kto v rossiiskoi politike, 3 vols (Moscow,
Panorama, 1993); Kto est' kto v Rossii i v blizhnem zarubezh'e: Spravochnik (Moscow, Novoe
vremya, 1993); V. N. Berezovsky & V. V. Chervyakov (eds), Sto partiinykh liderov: kratkii
biograficheskii spravochnik (Moscow, RAU Press, 1993), Elita rossiiskogo biznesa (Moscow, Darin,
1993; revised edition, 1994); I. Bunin et al., Biznesmeny Rossii: 40 istorii uspekha (Moscow, Oko,
1994); P. Gazukin & V. Pribylovsky (eds), Pravitel'stvo Rossiiskoi Federatsii: biograficheskii
spravochnik (Moscow, Panorama, 1995); Vlast'. Deputaty Gosudarstvennoi Dumy. Kratkii biograficheskii spravochnik, 4 parts (Moscow, Institut sovremennoi politiki, 1994); Jeanne Vronskaya
& Vladimir Chuguev, Kto est' kto v Rossii i byvshem SSSR (Moscow, Terra, 1994); A. S. Barsenkov
et al., Federal'noe sobranie Rossii. Sovet Federatsii. Gosudarstvennaya Duma (Moscow, Fond
Foros, 1995); and V. S. Bondarev (ed.), Kto est' kto i pochemu. Politicheskaya elita Rossii v
portretakh (Moscow, Skriptorii, 1995).
13 See for instance Michael
Voslensky, Nomenklatura: Anatomy of the Soviet ruling class
(London, Bodley Head, 1984).
14 For a discussion of the
changing composition of the Central Committee and of what Robert
Daniels described as the 'job slot' system see Evan Mawdsley, 'Portrait of a changing elite: CPSU
Central Committee full members 1939-1990', in Stephen White (ed.), New Directions in Soviet
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 191-206.
History
15
See T. H. Rigby, Political Elites in the USSR (Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1990), Ch. 4; V. G.

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732

OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA

& STEPHEN WHITE

Sirotkin, 'Nomenklatura (zametki istorika)', Vestnik Akademii nauk SSSR, 1990, 6, pp. 12-26; T. P.
Kozhikhina & Yu. Yu. Figatner, 'Sovetskaya nomenklatura: stanovlenie, mekhanizmy deistviya',
Voprosy istorii, 1993, 7, pp. 25-38; and 0. T. Dzhavlanov & V. A. Mikheev, Nomenklatura:
evolyutsiya otbora (Moscow, Luch, 1993).
16 A full listing of the positions that were included in the national party nomenklatura is now
available in the party archives: see Tsentr po khraneniyu sovremennoi dokumentatsii, Moscow, fond
89, perechen' 20, document 77, 7 August 1991.
17
Voslensky, Nomenklatura, pp. 213ff.
18
See for instance Mervyn Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet Union (London, Allen and Unwin,
1978); and Il'ya Zemtsov, Chastnaya zhizn' sovetskoi elity (London, Overseas Publications Interchange, 1986). The party's own investigation into privilege was reported to the Central Committee
in December 1990: Materialy Plenuma Tsentral'nogo komiteta KPSS 10-11 dekabrya 1990 goda
(Moscow, Politizdat, 1991), pp. 86-95.
19 Moskovskie
novosti, 24 April 1988, p. 7.
20
Trotsky's views on this subject were most fully set out in his The Revolution Betrayed (New
York, 1937).
21 Ligachev was reported to have used this term by the director of the Centre for the Scientific
and Technical Creativity of Youth attached to the Bauman district committee of the CPSU, Anatolii
Churgel'. For his assistance with this part of our discussion we are indebted to A. Pavlyukov; we have
also drawn upon interviews for the Soviet Elites Project with former Komsomol first secretaries
Viktor Mishin and Viktor Mironenko.
22 Bunin et
al., Biznesmeny Rossii, pp. 35-36, 141, 199-200 (Zatulin was also chairman of
'Rossiiskii broker'), and 170. A recent investigation found that 7% of young entrepreneurs had
emerged from the Komsomol apparatus:Moskovskaya pravda, 5 November 1995, p. 2.
3 For the Central Committee's resolution see V. N. Sungorkin & I. A. Savvateeva (compilers),
Firma pri gorkome (Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya, 1990), p. 222; for their purposes see XX s"ezd
Vsesoyuznogo Leninskogo Kommunisticheskogo Soyuza molodezhi, 15-18 aprelya 1987 goda: stenograficheskii otchet, 2 vols (Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya, 1987), vol. 1, p. 65.
24
Dokumenty TsK VLKSM, 1987 (Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya, 1988), pp. 64-67; for the
establishment of the All-Union Coordinating Council see Sobranie postanovlenii pravitel'stva SSSR
(otdel pervyi), 1987, 20, art. 76.
25
Dokumenty i materialy II plenuma TsK VLKSM (Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya, 1987), pp.
38-41.
26
Dokumenty TsK VLKSM, 1988 (Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya, 1989), p. 187.
27
Sobranie postanovlenii pravitel'stva SSSR (otdel pervyi), 1988, 29, art. 81.
28
For the text of the law as adopted see Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 1988, 22, art. 355
(at p. 383).
29
Dokumenty TsK VLKSM, 1989 (Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya, 1990), p. 205.
30
Dokumenty i materialy XXI s"ezda Vsesoyuznogo Leninskogo Kommunisticheskogo Soyuza
molodezhi, 11-18 aprelya 1990g (Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya, 1990), p. 28.
31
Ibid., pp. 40-41.
32 Churgel' interview.
33
This account is based upon the testimony of Vladimir Shcherbakov, whose father took
particular responsibility for 'grain business' with the USA within the USSR Ministry of Foreign
Trade.
34
Here and elsewhere we have drawn upon the studies conducted for 'Lidery Rossiiskogo
biznesa'.
35
Zatulin discussed his own career in Biznesmeny Rossii, pp. 199-206; he was 'very grateful'
for the experience he had acquired working in the Komsomol headquarters (p. 200).
36 On Bukato see Kommercheskie banki Rossii.
Spravochnik, 2 vols. (Moscow-New York,
Intelbridge, 1995), vol. 1, p. 411; on Dubenetsky, Kto est' kto v Rossii i v blizhnem zarubezh'e, p.
222. This section also draws upon the 'Lidery Rossiiskogo biznesa' investigation.
37
Bunin et al., Biznesmeny Rossii, pp. 169-170; Kommercheskie banki, vol. 1, pp. 388-391.
38
For a discussion of these changes see Juliet Ellen Johnson, 'The Russian banking system:
institutional responses to the market transition', Europe-Asia Studies, 46, 6, 1994, pp. 971-996, and
Delovye lyudi, No. 55, April 1995, pp. 6-94.
39
For an overview of the contemporary Russian elite see the symposium in 'Politicheskaya elita
Rossii', Mir Rossii, 1995, 3-4, and the interviews collected in K. I. Mikul'sky et al., Elita Rossii o
nastoyashchem i budushchem strany (Moscow, Institut sotsiologii RAN, 1996). Eberhard Schneider,
'The downfall of the nomenklaturaand the new Russian 6elite',a paper presented to the 16th Congress

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FROM SOVIET NOMENKLATURA TO RUSSIAN ELITE

733

of the International Political Science Association, Berlin, August 1994, concentrates upon the
elite.
parliamentary
40
This account is based upon 'Kto pravit Rossiei', part 1: Krasnodarskii krai.
41 Kvantrishvili was assassinated on 5 April 1994: see Izvestiya, 7 April 1994, pp. 1-2.
42
Some of these data were first presented in Ol'ga Kryshtanovskaya, 'Staraya nomenklatura na
novyi lad', Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost', 1995, 1, pp. 51-65.
43 See for instance Sovetskoe
gosudarstvo i pravo, 1989, 9, pp. 18-19, and Narodnyi deputat,
1990, 2, p. 38.
44 Andrei Grachev, Dal'she bez menya. Ukhod Prezidenta (Moscow, Progress-Kul'tura, 1994),
p. 9.
45 Erszebet Szalai as
quoted by Bill Lomax in Gordon Wightman (ed.), Party Formation in
East-Central Europe (Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1994), p. 178.
46 Boris Kagarlitsky, The Disintegration of the Monolith (London, Verso, 1992), pp. 50-51.
47 Quoted in
Jacqueline Hayden, Poles Apart: Solidarity and the New Poland (Dublin, Irish
Academic Press, 1994), p. 33.
48 Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, pp. 253-254.
49 For some
preliminary discussions of elite patterns at the local level see for instance 'Elita
Peterburga', Nevskoe vremya, 12 November 1994, p. 4, and 18 November 1994, p. 5; A. Magomedov,
'Politicheskie elity v rossiiskoi provintsii', Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya,
1994, 4, pp. 72-79; (on Tatarstan)D. V. Badovsky et al., 'Transformatsiyapoliticheskoi elity Rossii',
Politicheskie issledovaniya, 1994, 6, pp. 42-79; N. V. Petrov, 'Politicheskie elity v tsentre i na
mestakh', Rossiiskii monitor, 1995, 5, pp. 41-63; D. V. Badovsky & A. Yu. Shutov, 'Regional'nye
elity v postsovetskoi Rossii: osobennosti politicheskogo uchastiya', Kentavr, 1995, 6, pp. 3-23; and
S. Barzilov & A. Chernyshov, 'Provintsiya: elita, nomenklatura, intelligentsiya', Svobodnaya mysl',
1996, 1, pp. 44-56.

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