Dissertationsprojekt

Russian regional elites and the democratisation movement in RSFSR in 1987–1991

This work will focus on the role of the Russian Soviet regional political elites during the Perestroika period. This question is often overlooked in the study of the processes in the 15 Soviet republics that became independent states in 1991. However, the Russian regional elites played a significant part in the democratisation process of the late Soviet Union.

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was a complex federation with 88 regions with their own government and branch of the Communist Party. Thirty-one of these regions were autonomies that had a different ethnic makeup, official languages and sometimes had the tradition of distributing governing positions among different ethnicities. This structure was unique for the USSR, as the other 14 Soviet republics had only seven autonomies, and only Russia was officially a federation.

Apart from autonomies, Russia had 49 oblasts, 6 krais, and 2 cities of republican importance (Moscow and Leningrad/Saint-Petersburg). Their regional governments and branches of the Communist Party became a school for the future Perestroika movement and the leaders of New Russia. The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, was a former first secretary of Sverdlovskiy Krai and the Moscow committee of CPSS, and his predecessor, Mikhail Gorbachev, ruled Stavropolskiy Krai in the 1970s.

The Soviet political system was highly centralised, and during the 1960s and 1970s, regional powers were largely dependent and rarely took the initiative. However, this situation changed dramatically during Gorbachev's Perestroika (1985 – 1991). The Glasnost policy, which allowed for freedom of speech, became a means of defending local interests against the centralised state. This policy stimulated the creation of a union between dissidents and local governments, with these governments becoming significant participants in Perestroika.

This study aims to investigate the impact of local authorities and movements in Soviet Russia on the development of Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The research will explore the history of regional activities in the Russian Soviet republics and how attitudes towards them evolved during Perestroika.

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ricarda Vulpius