From Soviet nomenklatura to Russian élite

White, S.L. and Kryshtanovskaya, O. (1996) From Soviet nomenklatura to Russian élite. Europe-Asia Studies, 48(5), pp. 711-733. (doi: 10.1080/09668139608412377)

Abstract

Revolutions, for Pareto, were above all a matter of elite change. And for many there was a revolution in this sense in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, with changes in government and a shift towards pluralist and democratic politics throughout the 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 leadership but 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 Russian public, for their part, remained committed to the concept of a USSR; they rated their political system less highly than the one they had experienced in the Soviet years; and in any case they thought the communists were still in power.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: White, Professor Stephen
• Authors: White, S.L., and Kryshtanovskaya, O.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: Europe-Asia Studies
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 0966-8136
• ISSN (Online): 1465-3427
• Published Online: 06 November 2007