Decommunization in Russia

Decommunization in Russia is the process of dealing with the communist legacies in terms of institutions and personnel that tends towards breaking with the Soviet past. Compared with the efforts of the other former constituents of the Soviet bloc and the Soviet Union, it has been restricted to half-measures, if conducted at all.^[1]

August Coup

In the aftermath of the abortive August Coup of 1991, on August 23 President of the Russian SFSR Boris Yeltsin suspended the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR for the time of investigation to the applaud of the people, despite the objections of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who insisted that the party as a whole was not to blame for the events.^[2] The Communist Party obkoms in the Russian SFSR were closed, the building of the Central Committee of the CPSU was sealed. On August 24 Gorbachev dissolved the Central Committee of the CPSU and resigned from the position of its Secretary General (but remained President of the Soviet Union). On August 25 Yeltsin issued another decree nationalizing the property of the party (including archives and bank accounts) in favor of the Council of Ministers of the Russian SFSR.^[3] Within a few weeks after the coup the Soviet Union peacefully broke up. On November 6, 1991, Yeltsin banned the CPSU, which had exercised pervasive control over the Soviet society for years^[4] The breakup of the Soviet Union was acknowledged in Belavezha Accords of December 8, ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR on 12 December. On 26 December 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was declared. Its largest constituent republic, the Russian SFSR, was renamed to the Russian Federation. It was formally established on 1 January 1992 and became the successor state to the Soviet Union.

Coup investigation

The Parliamentary Commission for Investigating Causes and Reasons of the coup attempt was established in 1991 under Lev Ponomaryov (including also Gleb Yakunin), but in 1992 it was dissolved at Ruslan Khasbulatov's insistence. Having gained access to secret KGB archives as a member of the committee, in March 1992 Gleb Yakunin published materials about cooperation of the Moscow Patriarchate with KGB. He claimed that Patriarch Alexius II, Mitropolit Filaret of Kiev, Pitrim of Volokolamsk, and others were recruited by the KGB. ^[5][6]

A large part of the archives of the Communist Party (preserved now in state archives such as Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History and State Archive of the Russian Federation), including almost all documents of its Central Committee, remains classified.^[7][8]

In 1992 a number of people's deputies sued Yeltsin, requesting examination of his decrees concerning the Communist Party for compliance with the contemporary Constitution. On November 30, 1992, the Constitutional Court partially reviewed the decrees and lifted the ban against the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR^[9]

Reestablishment of the Communist party

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation was reestablished in February 1993. A number of smaller communist parties claimed to be successors of the CPSU as well.

Unlike in many other countries of the former Soviet bloc, lustration of senior Communist Party and KGB officials in Russia was staunchly resisted and has never been implemented. Many of them have remained in power. In fact, most of the modern Russian politicians started their careers in the Soviet Union. A law project on lustration was first proposed to the parliament in December 1992 by Galina Starovoytova, but it has never been passed.

The persons arrested in connection with of the August Coup were released from prison in 1992, and the charges were lifted under amnesty by the State Duma on February 23, 1994. Vasily Starodubtsev was the Governor of Tula Oblast in 1997-2005, Anatoly Lukyanov was a deputy of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma in 1993-2003, Valentin Varennikov has been a deputy in the State Duma since 1995 (parties: Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Rodina), the latter two were heads of parliamentary committees.

There has been no deliberate attempt to deal with the Soviet past for Russia as a society.^[10]

See also

• Lustration in Poland

References and notes

1. ^ Karl W. Ryavec. Russian Bureaucracy: Power and Pathology, 2003, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0-847-69503-4, page 13
2. ^ Указ Президента РСФСР от 23 августа 1991 года N 79 "О приостановлении деятельности Коммунистической партии РСФСР"
3. ^ Указ Президента РСФСР от 25 августа 1991 года N 90 "Об имуществе КПСС и Коммунистической партии РСФСР"
4. ^ Указ Президента РСФСР от 6 ноября 1991 года N 169 "О деятельности КПСС и КП РСФСР".
5. ^ Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), ISBN 0-14-028487-7
6. ^ Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future. 1994. ISBN 0-374-52738-5.
7. ^ http://www.iisg.nl/~abb/abb_c1.html
   http://www.iisg.nl/~abb/abb_b13.html
   http://www.iisg.nl/~abb/abb_b12.html
8. ^ For a 1993 view on the problem, see Khubova, Dar'ia & Vitaly Chernetsky (1993). The Case of the Russian Archives: An Interview with Iurii N. Afanas'ev. Slavic Review 52 (2), 338-352. For an example of preserved documents, see the Soviet Archive compiled by Vladimir Bukovsky in 1992.
9. ^ http://www.panorama.ru/ks/d9209.shtml
10. ^ Nelson, Susan H. The Bureaucratic Politics of Democracy Promotion: The Russian Democratization Project. PhD Diss, University of Maryland, 2006.

Further reading

• Shevtsova, Lilia (1995). The Two Sides of the New Russia. Journal of Democracy 6 (3), 56-71.
• Stewart, Debra W., Norman A. Sprinthall, Jackie D. Kem (2002) Moral Reasoning in the Context of Reform: A Study of Russian Officials. Public Administration Review 62 (3), 282–297.
• Nelson, Susan H. The Bureaucratic Politics of Democracy Promotion: The Russian Democratization Project. PhD Diss, University of Maryland, 2006.
• Albats, Yevgenia. Bureaucrats and the Russian transition: The politics of accommodation, 1991-2003. PhD Dissertation, Harvard University, 2004.
• Bukovsky, Vladimir. Judgement Day. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1998. ISBN 0895263890

External links

• Communism: A Love Affair?: Russians Nostalgic for Soviet Social Services by The Global Post