The recruitment of the soviet ruling elite: general and specific

The aim of the research is to analyze the recruitment system of the Soviet ruling elite. The author was motivated by desire to demonstrate that Soviet nomenkaluta system has determined the institutional development of modern elites. The historical works of M. Voslensky, T. Korzhikhina, Y. Figatner, O. Khlevniuk were the theoretical basis of present article and provided the support for research questions. The author made the following conclusions about the immanent features of Soviet ruling elite. Firstly, the recruitment of the Soviet ruling elite can be defined as highly closed system. Such system based on the merger of power and property, when a position in government gave significant economic resources and individual welfare. Secondly, the recruitment of the Soviet ruling elite created a uniform system of party committees and departments at all levels of government. Thirdly, the lack of separation of powers, rigid and uniform system for selecting the Soviet ruling elite were balanced by high internal elite mobility and some mechanisms of open elite recruitment. Fourthly, informal networks played an important role in the elite recruitment system at all levels of development. Several reasons explain the growth and entrenchment of informal networks within the Soviet ruling elite: party hierarchy was the only channel of elite recruitment; promotion in this system based on non-transparent and ambiguous standards, rules and procedures; loyalty to supervisor (patron) was the key element for a successful career path. Gradually, informal institutions supplanted the formal ones. Such transformation was one of the major causes of Soviet political system crisis. The author states that informal networks have complex and contradictory effect on ruling elite formation. Informal practices could have a positive impact on the elite genesis, they could provide a competition between groups within one ruling elite, some balance between different social interests, but at the same time they could lead to “corruption”, “clientehsm” and greatly impede the development of civil society institutions. The dominance of informal ties creates obstacles to main institutional changes and increases the gap between the normative forms of selecting elites and real political power. Eventually, informal practices became the key source of elite recruitment and defined the post-Soviet transformation of ruling elite in late 1980s. As the result, the main features of modern Russian elite recruitment system are as follows: the increase of informal channels and mechanisms of elite recruitment; the restriction of competition within the ruling elite; the reduction of the legitimacy of selecting elite. Thus, the modern Russian elite genesis demonstrates the reproduction of Soviet system.

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