Regional Elites in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract

A systemic crisis occurred in Soviet society at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. Centrifugal tendencies were greatly strengthened. All this resulted in the disintegration of the USSR. Regional elites began actively to form under conditions of sovereignization and a breakdown of the Union's entire vertical administrative hierarchy. At the same time, the logic of political, social, and economic events was such that the increased independence of the regional elites was accompanied by a weakening of their ties with the federal elite, and even to confrontation. Let us recall that the president of Russia and the erstwhile Supreme Soviet were unable to play the "regional card" even once to serve their political goals.