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The Politics of Identity in Russia's Postcommunist Transition: The Nation against Itself

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael Urban
Michael Urban*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz, California
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Extract

Politics in postcommunist societies is in large measure a politics of identity. Central to it seem to be two mutually reinforcing moments through which national communities recreate themselves. One involves the "positive" expression of nation and concerns the recovery of those identity markers—symbols, rituals, anthems, history, literature and so forth—that had been suspended and suppressed during the communist epoch. The other moment is "negative." It appears in the act of purging the nation of like markers associated with the period of communist rule that are now openly regarded as alien. The multitude of images projected from the countries of east Europe and the former USSR at the moment of communism's collapse capture these two moments in concentrated fashion. In the crowds chanting national slogans and waving the national flag, while chiseling communist emblems from the facades of public buildings and toppling statues erected to some member of the communist pantheon, we observe a distilled version of this duplex signification: "We are not communist/communism is not us."

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , Fall 1994 , pp. 733 - 765
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1994

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References

1. E.g. on a single page of Nezavisimaia gazeta (11 June 1993) one finds an essay by the leader of the Russian Christian Democratic Movement, Viktor Aksiuchits, accusingBoris Yeltsin of being a communist and another by the liberal journalist, Aleksei Kiva, that applies the same epithet to everyone who doesn't support Yeltsin. Similarly, the UPI dispatch of 12 March 1993 quotes Yeltsin's arch-opponent, Ruslan Khasbulatov, then chairperson of the Supreme Soviet, describing the entire executive branch as “genetically linked with bolshevism,” while Izvestiia on the following day quotes Yeltsin's press secretary's remarks that accuse Khasbulatov of attempting to return the country to a communist regime and (according to ITAR-TASS [19 March 1993]) the entire Congress of People's Deputies of staging a “communist inquisition. ”

2. For a case in point, see Andrei Golovin's remarks in an interview published in Nezavisimaia gazeta (15 July 1993): 6. For an extended discussion, see Michael, Urban, “Contending Conceptions of Nation and State in Russian Politics,” Demokratizatsiia, no. 4 (1993): 1–13Google Scholar.

3. Inter alia, Aleksandr Tsipko, “'Demokraticheskaia Rossiia’ kak bol'shevistskaia i odnovremenno pochvennicheskaia partiia,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (9 April and 13 April 1993): 5; Andrei Shisov, “Vopros ‘chto delat'?’ ostaetsia otkrytym,” Rossiiskaia gazeta (5 June 1993): 3.

4. Evgenii, Krasnikov, “Front umer, no delo ego zhivet,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (27 July 1993): 2Google Scholar.

5. Indira, Dunaeva, “Anpilov byl blagorazumen,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (20 April 1993): 2Google Scholar.

6. A particularly vivid example of this phenomenon involves political actors such as Oleg Rumiantsev, Sergei Stankevich and Evgenii Ambartsumov who had been leading spokesmen for the western-oriented, democratic wing of Russian politics. In 1993, however, these and other prominent figures began preparations for a “Conference of Spiritually Close Peoples” that would draw together political, cultural and religious leaders from a number of countries and stimulate the revival of Byzantine civilization in those places where Orthodox Christianity prevails. For an outline of this project, see Rumiantsev's “Rossiia ishchet soiuznikov,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (29 April 1993): 5.

7. The term “illocutionary interests” should not suggest that the subjects themselves are somehow situated outside of, and are thus in control of, their language. Rather, I take the view that subjects constitute themselves reciprocally in and through available discourses. Inasmuch as this perspective might run against the grain of many current methodological conventions, a word of clarification appears to be in order with respect to what I am trying (and not trying) to say. Perhaps unpacking the term “focus” that regularly appears in academic discourse would help in this respect. “Focus” is a trope that we use to initiate a certain way of looking. “Focusing” does not entail dilating our retinas, donning spectacles or adjusting the lens of a microscope. Rather, “focusing” actually involves constructing the object of our investigation in a particular way. Ordinarily, a focus falls on discrete things, and in the social world these tend to be individuals or collectivities of them. But it is also possible to “refocus,” to adopt another way of looking at the world which renders the “things” which come into view strange or even wrongheaded from customary perspectives. Discourse analysis is an example of refocusing. In attributing certain characteristics to contemporary Russian political discourse, I am not attributing these same characteristics to individuals qua individuals; rather I am attempting to analyze a supra-individual phenomenon. Discourse imposes a set of distinctions and constraints or those participating in it and thus can be analyzed as a system in its own right. Especially when the meaning of given words has not been generally established in the community of speakers—as appears to be the case for political language in contemporary Russia—this approach may have an advantage over, say, content analysis or survey research, inasmuch as it does not regard words as discrete units of meaning but attempts to determine the way in which words come to mean what they do by locating them within the larger system of representation in which they appear. Among the many works outlining this perspective and its application to political language, I have found the following to be especially clear and stimulating: Murray, Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988 Google Scholar; David, Green, Shaping Political Consciousness: The Language of Politics in America from McKinley to Reagan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987 Google Scholar; Pierre, Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social. Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), esp. 451–65Google Scholar; Stanley, Deetz, Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

8. Habermas, Jürgen, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon, 1975 Google Scholar, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon, 1979), The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 1 (Boston: Beacon, 1984).

9. In a perceptive essay Rogers Brubaker has demonstrated that the Russian state emerging from the USSR contained no mutually recognized institutional parameters— territory, state structure or demographic composition—thus all but inviting political contests over their definition. See his “Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutional Analysis,” Theory and Society (forthcoming).

10. Nicolas, Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960), 25–27 Google Scholar; Michael, Cherniavsky, Tsar and People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 212–26Google Scholar.

11. In a fascinating study, Julia Brun-Zejmis has shown how the themes sounded by Chaadaev in the 1830s have reverberated through many of the foremost accomplishments of Russia's samizdat literature in the 1960s and 1970s. See her “Messianic Consciousness as an Expression of National Inferiority: Chaadaev and Some Samizdat Writings of the 1970s,” Slavic Review 50 (Fall 1991): 646-58.

12. Sergei Panarin, “'My’ i ‘oni’ glazami russkikh,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (2 November 1991): 5.

13. These remarks were made by S. Gannushkina in a roundtable moderated by G. Koval'skaia, “Chto znachit byt’ russkim?” Demokraticheskaia Rossiya, no. 32 (3 November 1991): 14. A reflective analysis of this same question can be found in Dmitrii Ol'shanskii, “Politicheskaia psikhologiia raspada,” Nezavisimaiagazeta (16 January 1992): 5.

14. For a discussion of “the Russian idea” as it appears in contemporary political discourse, see Urban, “Contending Conceptions of Nation and State.” For an example of this political orientation today, see Viktor Aksiuchits and Gleb Anishchenko, cochairpersons of the Russian Christian Democratic Movement, “Printsipy khristianskoi politiki v Rossii,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (30 July 1993): 5.

15. Iurii Buida, “Russkii chelovek dorozhe russkoi idei,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (14 May 1993): 2.

16. See the interview given by Aleksei Kazannik to Oleg, Bondarenko, Segodnia, no. 34 (16 July 1993): 11Google Scholar.

17. See the interview given by Sergei Baburin to Vladimir Todies, “Situatsiiu vzryvaet natsional'naia ushchemlennost’ russkikh,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (9 January 1992): 2.

18. See the interview given by Gennadii Burbulis to Len Karpinsky, “ABC of Russia's Revival,” Moscow News, no. 14 (5-12 April 1992): 6-7.

19. For a discussion of the proclivities among Russia's “democrats” to reproduce in their own thinking those deep cultural patterns of authoritarianism cum popular acclamation that they readily detect and condemn in their opponents, see lurii Afanas'ev, “Nomenklatura na ‘skhodke vechevoi, '” Nezavisimaia gazeta (2 April 1992): 1-2.

20. A full development of this point would require an entire study in itself. Here, I wish to do no more than to call attention to the striking similarities between the elements of carnival—especially as these have appeared in Bakhtin's description of the related literary genre, Menippean satire—and a number of features found in contemporary Russian political life. In addition to the playful, masquerade characteristics displayed in each case, a short list might include Bakhtin's remarks on the dialectical relation between “fantasy” and “truth,” the combination of the incongruous, the fixation with “ultimate” questions, and importance in each of scandalous, oxymoronic and Utopian elements. Bakhtin's analysis can be found in his Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1973), esp., 87-103.

21. Iurii, Lotman, The Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture (London: I. B. Tauris, 1990), 27–47 Google Scholar.

22. Connolly, William E., Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), esp. 40–45 Google Scholar.

23. Frederic, Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 82–83 Google Scholar.

24. Jadwiga, Staniszkis, “Forms of Reasoning as Ideology,” Telos, no. 66 (Winter 1985-86): 67-80Google Scholar.

25. Rachel Walker has also contributed to this line of analysis in her “Language and the Politics of Identity in the USSR,” in Michael Urban, ed., Ideology and System Change in the USSR and Eastern Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 3-19.

26. A tendentious but nonetheless insightful and informative analysis of the nature of “the collective” in the Soviet system can be found in Aleksandr Zinov'ev, Kommunism kak real'nost’ (Lausanne: Editions L'Age D'Homme, 1981).

27. Vladimir, Pankov, “Propoved’ o nashikh grekhakh,” Nezavisimaia gazeta. (25 December 1991): 5Google Scholar.

28. A. N., Baranov and E. G., Kazakevich, Parlamenlskie debaty: traditsii i novatsii (Moscow: Znaniie, 1991), esp. 16–30 Google Scholar.

29. Afanas'ev, “Nomenklatura na ‘skhodke vechevoi.' ”

30. Katherine Verdery, “Nationalism and National Sentiment in Post-socialist Romania,” Slavic Review 52 (Summer, 1993): 179-203; esp.189-96.

31. Valerii Vyzhutovich, “R. Khasbulatov: ‘My dolzhny sdelat’ vse, chtoby ne prevratit’ etot s” ezd v pozorishche…’ I prevratili!,” Izvestiia (4 December 1992): 2Google Scholar.

32. Vladimir Shumeiko, “Zachem nuzhen referendum,” Izvestiia (27 February 1993): 4.

33. Mikhail Maliutin el al., Sed'moi S “ezd Nardeputatov: Rozhdenie i gibel’ konstitutsionalizma v Rossii” (Moscow: Parliamentary Service of the Legislative Faction, “Smena—Novaya Politika,” December 1992); Aleksandr Sobianin and Eduard Gel'man, “Politicheskie pozitsii i sostavy deputatskikh fraktsii na VII S ” edze” (Moscow: Independent Information-Analysis Group, February, 1993). I am indebted to Eugene Huskey for this latter reference.

34. Some 400 deputies would have been required to walk out in order to achieve this result. The actual number doing so on 10 December in response to Yeltsin's initiative is a matter of some dispute. Eye witness observers (Mikhail Forin and Vladimir Todres) put the figure at about 100. Nikolai Travkin, leader of the Democratic Party of Russia, has stated that 53 deputies left the hall (interview given to Vladimir, Dudin, Rossiiskaia gazeta [19 January 1993]: 1-2Google Scholar), while Malyutin et al., (supra., 33) cite a number of only 40.

35. See Iurii, Feofanov, “Skhvatka vlastei na fone predstoiashchego referenduma,” hvestiia (28 December 1992): 3Google Scholar.

36. Ibid.

37. The 12 questions devised by the Supreme Soviet on the matter of Russia's Constitution spanned the space bordered by irrelevancy, on one end— “Do you agree that the state should guarantee a right to housing? ” —and acclamatory ambiguity on the other— “Do you agree that the system of state power in the Russian Federation is based on the principle of a division among legislative, executive and judicial [powers]?” The 12 items can be found in “Osnovnye polozheniia novoi Konstitutsii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, vynosimye na vserossiiskii referendum 1 1 aprelia 1993g.,” Narodnyi deputat, no. 3 (1993): 4.

38. Anna, Ostapchuk, “Konstitutsionnyi sud sobiraet politikov,” Nezavisimaia gaze ta (16 January 1993): 1-2Google Scholar; interview given by Valerii Zor'kin to Leonid Nikitinskii, Izvestiia “(27 January 1993): 5.

39. Georgii Ivanov-Smolenskii, “R. Khasbulatov schitaet, chto pravitel'stvo dolzhno podchiniat'sia tol'ko parlamentu,” Izvestiia (9 February 1993): 1.

40. Valerii Vyzhutovich, “Pervyi ‘kruglyi stol’ mozhet stat’ predvestnikom natsional'nogo soglasiia,” Izvestiia (6 February 1993): 1; Ostapchuk, Anna and Rodin, Ivan, “Uchredilsia ‘kruglyi stol, '” Nezavisimaia gazeta (6 February 1993): 1Google Scholar.

41. Ostapchuk and Rodin, “Uchredilsia ‘kruglii stol'. ”

42. Pavel Anokhin, “Deviz ‘kruglogo stola': soglasie i demokratiia,” Rossiiskaia gazeta (9 February 1993): 1; Georgii Ivanov-Smolenskii, “40 partii i obshchestvennykh organ izatsii zaiavili chto ‘kruglyi stol’ 5 fevralia—fiktsiia,” hvestiia (13 February 1993): 2. Ivanov-Smolenskii also notes that “a majority of [the roundtable's] participants were staff associates of one or another state structure. ”

43. Ol'ga Odintsova, “'Demokraticheskii vybor’ protiv kruglogo stola,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (12 February, 1993): 2.

44. Georgii Ivanov-Smolenskii, “Mezhdu rossiiskimi ‘kruglymi stolami’ oboznachaiutsia vse bolee ostrye ugly,” hvestiia (17 February 1993): 1.

45. Symptomatic of contemporary Russian political discourse might be a statement made at the Eighth (extraordinary) Congress of People's Deputies by that body's “Speaker,” Ruslan Khasbulatov: “I'm going to bring about constitutional order in Russia…call the president's chancellery [sic] and summon him here.” Quoted in Len Karpinsky, “Congress as a phenomenon of the political landscape,” Moscow News, no. 13 (26 March 1993): 1-2.

46. For the text of the actual decree, issued five days after the televised speech and making no mention of a “special order” instituting direct presidential rule, see lzvestiya (25 March 1993): 1.

47. The most ludicrous of these would include: (1) Zor'kin's March 21 speech on the floor of the Supreme Soviet that labeled Yeltsin's decree unconstitutional and an “attempted coup d'état” and (2) the March 23 ruling of the Constitutional Court which repeated the unconstitutional claim and added that the decree also was contrary to the Federal Treaty. Each of these actions violated a number of provisions in the court's charter that prohibit judges from discussing outside of session any issue that is before the court, and others that require them to adjudicate only on the basis of signed legal documents. Moreover, the court's ruling that the then non-existent decree violated the Federal Treaty was another canard, inasmuch as the treaty had not been incorporated into the constitution and thus was not a matter of the court's jurisdiction. Finally, the court's decision that Yeltsin's call for a referendum on the constitution was a violation of legality because constitutional issues cannot be decided in this way smacks of inconsistency in view of the fact that precisely such a referendum had been engineered by Zor'kin himself as part of the compromise that he had brokered some four months earlier. For details, see “Konstitutsionnyi sud priznal riad polozhenii televizionnogo obrashcheniia prezidenta k grazhdanam Rossii ne sootvetstvuiushchim Konstitutsii” and “Uvazhaet li predsedatel’ Konstitutsionnogo Suda zakon o Konstitutsionnom Sude?” that appeared in Izvestiia (24 March 1993): 2. See also E. M. Ametisov, “Osoboe mnenie,” ibid. (26 March 1993): 1, 5; Vera Kuznetsova, “Konstitutsionnyi sud: prezident narushil konstitutsiiu,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (24 March 1993): 1.

48. For an outline of the various groups of delegates invited to participate in the Constitutional Convention, see Evgenii, Krasnikov, “Konstitutsionnoe Soveshchanie, mnogo zvanykh, no malo izbrannykh,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (25 May 1993): 1Google Scholar; Aleksandra Lugovskaia, “Zavershaetsia podgotovka k konstitutsionnomu soveshchaniiu,” lzvestiia (2 June 1993): 2. Discussions of its methods can be found in: Vasilii Kononenko, “Konstitutsionnoe soveshchanie idet k kompromissu,” ibid. (10 June 1993): 1; Andrei, Sharapov, “Sobchak i Borovoi zhaluiut prava monarkha do vvedeniia monarkhizma,” Rossiskaia gazeta (9 June 1993): 2Google Scholar.

49. Sergei, Parkhomenko, “Prezident ob” iavliaet vybory ‘problemoi blizhaishikh mesiatsev.'” Segodnia, no. 33 (13July 1993): 1Google Scholar.

50. Ivan, Rodin, “Regiony reshat sud'bu osnovnogo zakona,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (13 May 1993): 1Google Scholar.

51. See the statement of the heads of supreme Soviets in Russia's republics, “Prezidentskii proekt i regional'nye interesy,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (15 May 1993): 1.

52. “VS sozdaet svoe soveshchanie,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (21 May 1993): 1. On the continued (and unsuccessful) efforts conducted by a minority of legislators to bring the Supreme Soviet into the constitutional process initiated by Yeltsin, see Ivan Rodin and Vera Kuznetsova, “Treshchina v verkhushke,” ibid. (2 June 1993): 1-3; Aleksandra Lugovskaia, “Parlamentskie ‘razborki’ mogut zakonchit'sia razvalom samogo parlamenta,” lzvestiia (4 June 1993): 1-2.

53. Ivan Rodin, “VS sobral sobstvennoe ‘konstitutsionnoe soveshchanie, '” Nezavisimaia gazeta (26 May 1993): 2.

54. Idem, “Chleny VS Rossii podderzhivaiut konstitutsionnoe soveshchanie,” Nezavisimaia gazela (4 June. 1993): 2.

55. See the document signed by 16 of the 20 heads of republics in Russia that appeared in Nezavisimaia gazela (27 May 1993): 1-2.

56. Vasilii Kononenko, “Sergei Filatov: Samoe glavnoe seichas—prekratit’ protivostoianie vlastei,” lzvestiia (19 May 1993): 1-2; Boris Reznik, “Dal'nevostochniki podderzhali prezidentskii proekt Konstitutsii,” ibid. (20 May 1993): 2.

57. Rodin, “Regiony reshat sud'bu osnovnogo zakona.” For the membership of the Constitutional Convention's inner body, “the working commission,” see Rossiiskaia gazeta (13 May 1993): 1.

58. Vera Kuznetsova, “Zaiavlenie s iz” iatiiami,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (17June 1993): 1-3; Radik Batyrshin, “Glavy respublik nedoumevaiut,” ibid. (18June 1993): 1.

59. Interview with Viktor Kolomiets, sociologist at Moscow State University and official observer at the Constitutional Convention, 13 July 1993. For reports on this same matter, see Sergei Parkhomenko, “Prezident ob ” iavliaet vybory ‘problemoi blizhaishikh mesiatsev, '” Segodnia, no. 33 (13 June 1993): 1; Dmitrii Volkov, “Proekt Konstitutsii meniaetsia na glazakh,” ibid., 2; Vera Kuznetsova, “Sovetskaia vlast’ na mestakh budet odobriat, '” Nezavisimaia gazeta (13 July 1993): 1.

60. See the reports featured in Moscow News, no. 48 (29 November-6 December 1992): 4.

61. Ivan, Rodin, “Vse khotiat edinyi proekt,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (18Jun. 1993)Google Scholar: 1; Vasilii Kononenko, “Finish v rabote Konstitutsionnogo soveshchaniia poka ne viden,” Izvestiia (15 June 1993): 2.

62. For example, Vladimir, Todres, “Ot Primor'ia do Ekaterinburga—cherez Chitu,” Segodnia, no. 32 (9 July 1993)Google Scholar: 2; Natal'ia Gorodetskaia, “Rossiiskie oblasti khotiat edu i uvazhenie,” ibid., no. 31 (6 July 1993): 2.

63. Andrei Zhukov, “No Agreement on Draft Constitution Yet,” Moscoio News, no. 34 (20 August 1993): 2.

64. For a discussion of this pattern as it developed prior to the Seventh Congress of People's Deputies, see Rastam, Narzikulov, “New Privileges: Post-Perestroika Variant,” Moscow News, no. 42 (18-25 October 1992): 10-11Google Scholar.

65. See the data assembled by Oksana, Dmitriyeva, “Political Games around the Budget,” Moscow News, no. 28 (9 July 1993): 2Google Scholar.

66. Interview with Vyacheslav Igrunov, then Head of the Department for Information and Research, Russian State Committee for Affairs of the Federation (4 July 1993). See the analysis offered by Krindach, Aleksei and Turovskii, Rostislav, “Politicheskoe razvitie rossiiskoi provintsii,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (11 June 1993): 1-2Google Scholar.

67. Igor’ Karpenko, “Resheniia parlamenta o privatizatsii—eto podryv ekonomicheskikh reform,” Izvestiia (23 July 1993): 1.

68. Olga, Berezhnaya, “Deputies intend to hold back privatization,” Moscow News, no. 30 (23 July 1993): 1, 6Google Scholar.

69. A good overview of this phenomenon can be found in Mikhail Lantsman, “Privatizatsiia v Rossii perekhodit v rezhim avtopilota,” Segodnia, no. 30 (2 July 1993): 3. Todies ( “Ot Primor'ia… ” ) notes that Yeltsin's decree, issued in early July 1993, extends the control of local authorities over the privatization process for regions threatening the center with sovereignty. Nezavisimaia gazeta ([9 July 1993]: 2), reports that the Republic of Bashkortostan has already instituted its own licensing for all trade, production and sale of food products. According to an item in Segodnia (no. 30 [2 July 1993]: 2), the government in Samara arbitrarily reduced the percentage of shares in a recently privatized power company that accrue to Moscow, while rewarding itself with the difference. Finally, the Russian Federation's Anti-Monopoly Committee has been confiscated by regional elites who now “supervise” themselves in the course of privatization. On this see Lyudmila, Leontyeva, “Against Monopolies or against Reform?” Moscow News, no. 30 (23 July 1993): 2Google Scholar.

70. Ivan, Rodin, “Parlament schitaet chto odin sovet federatsii uzhe est',” Nezavisimaia gazeta (31 August 1993)Google Scholar: 1.

71. Leonid, Smiriagin, “Politicheskii krisis v Rossii,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (23 September 1993)Google Scholar: 4.

72. Radik Batyrshin, “Goriachie vykhodnye v Moskve,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (18 September 1993): 1, 3; idem, “Novyi raund politicheskoi bor'by v Moskve,” (21 September 1993): 3.

73. Stories of corruption—the disappearance of huge sums from the state treasury, the use of public office for shaking down businesses and private individuals, the ascendance of a “mafia” in Russian life—are, of course, legion. In my view, a most telling aspect of the phenomenon came from the remarks of acquaintances made during a visit to Moscow in July 1993. Resigned to corruption as a fact of life, their complaints focused on their uncertainty as to whom to bribe in order to complete a given transaction, and how much to offer.

74. The seminal case in this respect involved the sacking of Iurii Boldyrev who until March 1993 had served as Head of the Control Administration in the Administration of the President. In this capacity, Boldyrev had secured the dismissal of a number of regional heads of administration and their lieutenants for engaging in corrupt practices. Unfortunately from the point of view of his tenure in office, many of the dismissed officials were allies of the president's “team.” Given Boldyrev's unimpeachable reputation, his filing indicated broadly that “corruption” in Russia is not a legal but a political category. On these events, see Ol'ga Kondrat'eva, “Za vse neset otvetstvennost’ El'tsin,” Rossiiskaia gazeta (10 March 1993): 2; Indira Dunaeva, “Kabinet Boldyreva opechatali,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (10 March 1993): 1. See also the interviews given by Boldyrev: to Lyudmila Telen', Moscow News, no. 9 (25 February 1993): 4; and to Ol'ga Kondrat'eva, Rossiiskaia gazeta (6 April 1993): 4.

75. Liliya Shevtsova, “From an August of Hope to an August of Awakening,” Moscow News, no. 34 (20 August 1993): 1, 4.

76. This was, in fact, made—albeit indirectly—explicit by Khasbulatov who commented on the occasion of accusations (sans concrete charges) made by the head of the Procuracy's special commission before the Supreme Soviet that “the single goal of [Yeltsin's] constitutional reform is to rescue the thieves from accountability.” Quoted in Maksim, Sokolov, “Politicheskii vektor,” Kommersant, no. 25 (21-27 June 1993): 3Google Scholar.

77. For an outline of the history of charges and counter-charges of corruption exchanged by the executive and legislative branches in the aftermath of the April referendum, see Maksim, Sokolov, “Slaboe oruzhie korruptsii,” Kommersant, no. 27 (5-11 July 1993): 3Google Scholar.

78. Oleg Kutasov, “Kak schitaet moskovskaia prokuratura, trastovyi dogovor vitseprezidenta Rutskogo s firinoi ‘Treid Links LTD.'—fal'shivka,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (4 December 1993): 1.

79. Karen Brutents, “Korruptsiia ekonomicheskaia i politicheskaia,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (25 August 1993): 2.

80. The first criminal charges against any of the principals were not filed until 15 September, when the office of the General Procurator of the Russian Federation accused Yeltsin ally Mikhail Poltoranin—who had continued to serve as head of the Federal Information Center that had been formally dissolved by the legislature months earlier—of abuse of office under two articles of the criminal code ( “Poltoraninu pred” iavleno obvinenie,” Nezavisimaia gazeta [18 September 1993]: 1).

81. Alexander, Larin, “The Procurator-General Is Forfeiting Public Trust,” Moscow News, no. 35 (27 August 1993)Google Scholar: 1-2; Vitalii Marsov and Andrei, Poleshchuk, “Skhvatka dvukh klanov v rukovodstve Rossii mozhet privesti stranu k polnoi anarkhii,” Nezavisimaia gazeta (26 August 1993): 1Google Scholar.

82. For an extended discussion, see my “December 1993 as a Replication of Late-Soviet Electoral Practices,” Post-Soviet Affairs 10 (April-June, 1994): 127-58.

83. See note 8, above.

84. For instance, see the remarks of Vladimir Shumeiko, quoted by German Ustinov, “Soperniki opredelilis',” Rossiiskaia Federatsiia, no. 2 (1993): 5.

85. For instance, Nikolai Medvedev, Head of the Department for Work with the Territories in the Administration of the President, has spoken of the 1993 parliamentary elections as “an instrument, more precisely, a means for the achievement of a result qualitatively different [from that associated with elections, namely]… reform and the democratization of all spheres of our social life.” He then equates “reform” with, and only with, the specific course pursued by the President. See the interview that he has given to Vil’ Dorofeev, , Nezavisimaia gazeta (29 December 1993)Google Scholar: 5. Similarly, Mikhail Piskotin, editor of the journal, Narodnyi deputat, which bad been published by the Supreme Soviet before being renamed (Rossiiskaia Federatsiia) and rehoused in the executive following the dissolution of parliament, has stated approvingly that the president's decree of September 21 that inaugurated the second republicwas, above all, directed toward changing the composition of the legislature. See his “Bez avtoritetnykh predstavitel'nykh organov net demokratii,” Rossiiskaia Federatsiia, no. 2 (1993): 2-3.

86. Among the revisions undertaken to advantage Russia's Choice, we might include: the expansion of the number of deputies to be elected on the basis of national lists, which at the time would have favored Russia's Choice inasmuch as it alone had a significant national presence (when it had become clear, however, that Vladimir Zhirinovskii's party had attained such a presence toward the close of the campaign, all electoral commissions were ordered not to supply party identification to candidates on the district ballot); the cancellation of the “separation of powers” provision in the Constitution that had prevented members of the executive from serving simultaneously in the legislature; and the decision, apparently born of dissatisfaction with the current leaders in the regions and republics, to compose the upper chamber, the Council of the Federation, not on the basis of representatives designated by their current offices as was first decreed, but by popular elections.

87. In early December, the Main Administration of the Army launched a propaganda campaign in the military to persuade the troops to vote in favor of the constitutional draft. See Boris Glabov, “Prika/ano golosovat’ pravil'no,” Novaia ezhednevnaia gazeta (9 December 1993): 1. This campaign was ordered by one leader of Russia's Choice, Vladimir Shumeiko, who served as head of the commission supervising the constitutional referendum. For the text of his telegram, instructing the Main Administration of the Army on the matter, see Komsomolskaia pravda (4 December 1993). During this same period the leader of Russia's Choice, Egor Gaidar, took his campaign to the barracks in the St. Petersburg Military District (I am indebted to Sergei Mitrokhin for this information).

88. One glaring instance of this would be the doctored sound track on a television spot produced by USAID for the purpose of publicizing Russia's privatization of the state economy. In place of the original— “Your voucher, your choice ” —those at Russian State Television inserted “Your Choice, Russia's Choice.” Since the law prohibits any party from accepting assistance from foreign governments, the use of this USAID video would appear to constitute a clear violation. However, Russia's Central Electoral Commission, appointed by the President, disagreed.

89. One example of such a tendency would be the formation of Agreement in the Name of Russia, a coalition of “patriotic” leaders—among whom are Aleksandr Rutskoi, Sergei Baburin and Anatolii Luk'ianov—that excludes Zhirinovskii and advertises its readiness to participate in national reconciliation with its opponents (Petr Zhuravlev, “Igry ‘patriotov', '’ Segodnia [17 March 1994]; idem,” Oppozitsiia ob “iavliaet pokhod za soglasiem,” ibid. [18 March 1994]: 2). Since at this writing this organization has not joined those endorsing Yeltsin's Agreement on Civil Peace, it remains unclear whether its conciliatory posture will endure or whether it might serve as another rallying point for the “intemperate” and (now) largely extra-parliamentary opposition, replicating thereby something of the previous experience of opposing roundtables on national accord as discussed above.