#4 - JRL 7024
RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 3, No. 3, 16 January 2003
HOW MANY PARTY MEMBERS? DEPENDS ON WHO'S ASKING. Russia's leading political parties apparently maintain different lists of party members -- one for the media and public consumption, one for the Justice Ministry, and a third for internal use, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on 13 January. And the differences among these lists can be marked. Vladimir Zhirinovskii's Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), for example, informed the Justice Ministry that it has 19,100 members nationally, while it tells the media it has 600,000 members. The Communist Party says that it has 500,000 members, but has registered with the Justice Ministry with only 19,300. According to the daily, there is an entire department at the ministry devoted to comparing the declared number of party members with independently acquired data. In theory, large discrepancies can be a basis for refusing to register a party, but the head of the department for registering pubic and religious organizations, Galina Fokina, told the daily no declaration has ever been turned down for this reason. JAC [Julie A. Corwin]
Name of Party____Number of members____Membership tally____Party cards
_________________as told to press___to Justice Ministry______________
Communist____________500,000__________19,100_____________500,000
Unified Russia__________257,000__________19,600______________50,000
Liberal Democratic______600,000__________19,100_____________475,000
People's Party___________81,400__________39,300______________64,000
Agrarian Party__________100,000__________41,500_____________100,000
Party of Russia's Rebirth____40,000___________n/a________________n/a
Yabloko________________26,500_________12,200_______________n/a
Union of Rightist Forces____20,000_________14,600______________10,000
Party of Life_____________15,000_________11,600_______________n/a
Social-Democratic Party____30,000_________12,700______________30,000
n/a= not available
Source: "Nezavisimaya gazeta," 13 January 2003
CADRES
APPARAT LOOKING A LOT LIKE PUTIN. In an article in "Vremya MN" on 18 September, sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya characterizes the chief differences between the country's ruling elite under President Putin and those that existed under former President Yeltsin and Soviet leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Leonid Brezhnev. According to Kryshtanovskaya, the proportion of intellectuals and women in the elite has decreased, while the numbers coming from the regions and the military have increased. For example, at the deputy-minister level, almost 35 percent of those appointed between 2000 and 2002 were former military or intelligence officials. And a number of these officials have landed in economic ministries: there are four former military officials working as deputy ministers at the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, three at the Communications Ministry, and two each at the Transport, Media, Property Relations, Justice, and Tax ministries. Kryshtanovskaya writes that "between 2000-2002 the new authorities worked hard to create not only an administrative vertical but also an administrative horizontal, as the highest officers in the second and third tiers in the power structure form the country's basic cadre reserve at all levels of political and economic administration." She also notes that the role of the military and intelligence services in forming not only Putin's team but also a support group has been "extraordinary." Putin "has managed not only to strengthen the center, but also to create a group of bureaucrats committed to him personally." JAC
Structure of the Higher Leadership of the Country, 1981-2002, in percentage of members of group
_____________Soviet Politburo______Yeltsin______________Putin
_______________________________Security Council____Security Council
Years___________1981____1988_____1993______1999_________2002
Total members_____21______21_______14________28___________24
Apparatchiks,
ideologues,
secretaries_____23.8____42.9______7.1_______3.6__________4.2
Leaders, members
of the govt_____19.0____26.6_____50.0______39.3__________8.3
'Silovki' and
controllers_____14.3_____9.5_____42.9______46.4_________45.8
Leaders of
parliament_______4.8_____4.8________0_______7.1__________8.3
Regionals_______38.1____14.3________0______29.1____________0
Scientific reps____0_______0________0_______3.6__________4.2
Source: "Vremya MN," 18 September
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