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Previous research on elite change in Russia, the main findings of which are summarized here, has shown that well over half of post-Soviet Russia's political elite were drawn from the late-Soviet era elite. After a caveat against loose use of the nomenklatura concept, this article focuses on a far narrower sub-group, defined as the 'top' political elite, comprising 135 individuals in late 1988 and ninety-eight in 1996. Many of the old top elite found lower elite roles in post-Soviet Russia and most of the new top elite came from fairly senior jobs, but hardly any passed directly from the old top elite to the new. Only a minority of the top elite in 1996 were 'natural heirs' to their positions while others owed them primarily to connections or to their success in the new open competitive politics. In this respect (as in others) there are substantial differences between the three components of the new top elite, namely members of the government, senior office holders in the State Duma, and leading officials of the presidential administration. The Russian top elite today remains overwhelmingly male. Far more grew up in large cities than did their Soviet-era equivalents. Non-Russians are now relatively less under-represented. All are tertiary graduates, and nearly a half have postgraduate qualifications. Members of the presidential elite are far more likely than government members to be city-born and educated in the social sciences or humanities, and they average almost a decade younger. The Duma elite lies in between in all these respects.

Previous research on elite change in Russia, the main findings of which are summarized here, has shown that well over half of post-Soviet Russia's political elite were drawn from the late-Soviet ere elite. After a caveat against loose use of the nomenklatura concept, this article focuses on a far narrower sub-group, defined as the 'top' political elite, comprising 135 individuals in late 1988 and ninety-eight in 1996. Many of the old top elite found lower elite roles in post-Soviet Russia and most of the new top elite came from fairly senior jobs, but hardly any passed directly from the old top elite to the new. Only a minority of the top elite in 1996 were 'natural heirs' to their positions while others owed them primarily to connections or to their success in the new open competitive politics. In this respect (as in others) there are substantial differences between the three components of the new top elite, namely members of the government, senior office holders in the State Duma, and leading officials of the presidential administration. The Russian top elite today remains overwhelmingly male. Far more grew up in large cities than did their Soviet-era equivalents. Non-Russians are now relatively less under-represented. All are tertiary graduates, and nearly a half have postgraduate qualifications. Members of the presidential elite are far more likely than government members to be city-born and educated in the social sciences or humanities, and they average almost a decade younger. The Duma elite lies in between in all these respects. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

Rigby reviews 'Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia' by Sabrina P. Ramet.

'MORALITY', LENIN TOLD THE 529 APPRENTICE APPARATCHIKI gathered at the Third Congress of the Communist Youth League in October 1920, 'is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building a new, a communist society… We do not believe in an eternal moralit and we expose the falseness of all fables about morality.' Lenin's rapt young listeners learned the lesson well: for some it paved the way to high office in Stalin's party, state and police machines, across the corpses of Lenin's own comrades 'objectively' become 'enemies of the people'; many were to perish as they lived by it. The goal was sublime: the 'true' freedom and unity natural to Man, but thwarted till now by class division and exploitation. For such a goal all expedient instruments and methods were fitting. To spurn vile means where these advanced 'communism' was the true immorality.