Elite Groups in Russia

Elite Groups in Russia VIRGINIE COULLOUDON ince 1992, Russia has been inventing its own version of democracy. The Con- Sstitutional Court acts as a supreme judicial authority; a freely elected president acts as the head of state; a democratically elected parliament is elaborating laws; and a free press exposes the abuses of Russian politicians. Despite the existence of new democratic institutions, Russian officials sometimes seem to let themselves be guided by arbitrariness.1 The notion that the rule of law should prevail over private interests is new in Russia and is shared by only a few politicians.2 The debate on the exact role of the institutions in the decisionmaking process prevails in contemporary research on the Russian elite. There are two opposite approaches: The first emphasizes that the Communist regime collapsed only recently and explains the lack of influence of institutions such as the Constitu- tional Court or the bicameral parliament by the absence of democratic tradition in Russia. Referring to the actual transitional period, such an approach implies that Russian democratic institutions have an important role of education in the actual state building. It considers of secondary importance the fact that those institutions lack influence on the decisionmaking process. The second point of view emphasizes the supremacy of the Russian presiden- tial decrees over laws and legislative documents. It points out that the 1993 con- stitution offers more powers to the president than to the parliament and gives him the last word in all circumstances.3 This approach emphasizes the strategic role not only of the executive power but also of interest groups likely to act as advisers to this same executive power. Since 1992, many scholars have detailed the emergence of new interest groups. There have been numerous studies of the new Russian industrial managers and bankers.4 Konstantin Mikulsky has specifically concentrated on Russian businessmen, showing by in-depth interviews how they consider their own role in the new Russian society.5 Surveys have also been published on the development of the Russian provinces and the role of local elites in regional and federal decisionmaking.6 Among Western scholars, Amy Knight writes that the new security Virginie Coulloudon is directing a research project entitled “The Elite and Patronage in Russia” at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University. She would like to thank the Smith Richardson Foundation for its help in conducting this project. 535 536 DEMOKRATIZATSIYA service functions the same way the KGB did and is accountable not to state interests but to individuals.7 In this approach, “individuals” is the key word. Because legislation is poorly applied, local governors often make their own rules, and decrees are considered more important than laws. Representatives of the executive and their advisers have a key role in decisionmaking. The main issue raised by sociologists is whether these individuals are part of a new elite or should be considered simply as representatives of the former nomenklatura. To study them, many have done quantitative research. Here again, two points of view prevail. Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Yuri Burtin subscribe, for example, to what East European scholars call the “theory of elite reproduction.”8 This theory suggests that the institutional changes that have taken place in Russia since 1991 have not deeply altered the composition of the elite, which continues to grow in membership. The theory of elite reproduction recognizes that the elite may have to adapt to maintain its status, but it holds that the previous elite pos- sesses the capacities to remain at the top of the social order.9 Focusing on the elite since perestroika, Kryshtanovskaya emphasizes that the power of the party-state nomenklatura now lies in its private ownership of economic property.10 Burtin also argues that under President Boris Yeltsin the nomenklatura survives as a socioprofessional group that administers the state, possess- es and distributes its riches, and shares the same political and economic interests.11 None of them denies that the rule of nomenklatura and its privileges are the stuff of bygone days. But they agree with a survey conducted in 1994 by the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Sociology that shows that the old nomenklatura represents 75 percent of Yeltsin’s closest political allies, 60 percent of the parliament, 74 percent of the government, 41 percent of the businessmen, and 83 percent of the regional leaders.12 As those scholars see it, members of the new elite have slipped quite naturally from the old power structures into the new ones, forging their own links with industry and the military. A new network of vested interests, special pleading, and patronage has been created within a political infrastructure. Another approach, referred to as “elite circulation theory,” argues that institutional changes have generated substantial turnover among the elite. This theory holds that the factors that promoted mobility within the elite before 1989 are no longer operational and that new processes are at work that have dislodged old elite from its command posts and replaced it with a new elite holding a new set of attributes.13 Among the supporters of the “elite circulation theory” are Angus Roxburgh and Barbara Green, who study the political confrontation between Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the emergence of a new political elite in Russia.14 Boris Kagarlitsky focuses on the debates of the Moscow city parliament to describe the behavior and views of the new local political elite.15 Russian sociologists N. Lapina and Konstantin Mikulsky prefer to con- centrate on the reasons for the formation of a new elite from a sociological point of view.16 Elite Groups in Russia 537 None of these scholars denies that the Russian elite is progressively creating a clanlike mentality.17 Many Russian scholars and political analysts argue that it is these clans, as opposed to formal political institutions, that exercise real power.18 In 1996, in an interview with Moscow News, Grigory Yavlinsky claimed that the ministers of the Yeltsin government are agents of large monopolies and various oligarchic clan groups in Russia.19 Even First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov agrees with the notion that an oligarchic capitalism rules the country.20 A growing number of articles in the Russian press are devoted to this topic. As one Moscow newspaper pointed out earlier this year, “the main threat to Rus- sia comes neither from communists nor from fascists, but from the rise of an oligarchy.”21 The aim of this article is to explore the elite groups often qualified as “clans” by the Russian press. Examining their structure and the background of their representatives, I will show that these groups do not constitute a single elite ruling the country but several elites struggling for power and thus reproducing traditional patterns of behavior. A Set of Clans By constantly referring to the “Cosa Nostra” or to the “ruling oligarchy,” the Russian press gives the false impression of a monolithic elite.22 That notion does not help to explain why the Russian president so frequently changes his mind and even signs documents and decrees contradicting one another. To understand decisionmaking in Russia, one must consider the profusion and fluidity of elite groups. In fact, one could speak about sets of clans stretching out to the state structures and the civil society’s informal networks. The difficulty of following the evolution of the clans lies in the existence of three different levels of con- nection: federal, sector-related (within a single industrial or economic branch), and micro (within a single ministry or private organization). On a micro level, inside a ministry, an organization, or a plant, the most important connections for building a career are family or friendship links, a tradition inherited from the Soviet times. Under the Soviet regime, family and friendship connections were one of the main criteria for co-optation at all levels of the CPSU (Communist Party) hierarchy. Consider the professional and political career of Yuri Skokov. The son of a KGB officer, Skokov was born in the southern Krasnodar region. High-ranking political protectors, such as Politburo member Vitaly Vorotnikov and Politburo deputy member Georgy Razumovsky, helped him to start a career in the military industrial complex. He was appointed director of one of the local subcontractors of the giant Kvant complex. Because he was already at the top of the plant hierarchy, he was summoned to Moscow to take over from the Kvant director who, after thirty years at the head of the factory, was relegated to the position of a mere foreman. Skokov immediately started to reor- ganize the plant. Although Kvant was still heavily depending on state orders, the new director promised to try a new form of management. In line with Gorbachev’s perestroika, his program pleased both the Soviet president and Yeltsin, then first party secretary in Moscow. Skokov was elected deputy in 1989, and three years later became the first secretary of Russia’s new Security Council. He was sacked 538 DEMOKRATIZATSIYA for political reasons to please the reformers, but remained an informal adviser to the president. Now president of the Federation of Consumer Goods Producers, his friendship with the president gives him access to the Kremlin. Under the Soviet regime, family connections have helped bureaucrats to become rich and politicians to propel themselves to the highest echelons of power. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the ruling elite was trying to stay in power, it became obvious that family connections had less influence on the federal level.

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