Transformation of the Soviet top- elite in its last decade (1981-1991)

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2005

Öğrenci: RAHİB BAYRAMOV

Danışman: PINAR BEDİRHANOĞLU TOKER

Özet:

This thesis focuses on the developments in the Soviet top-elite dynamics from 1981 to 1991. It claims that a careful examination of particular characteristics of the Soviet nomenklatura as a form of top-elite can give us important hints on how the intra-nomenklatura tensions that had been accumulating since its inception aggravated in the last decade of the USSR and contributed substantially to the Union̕s drive to the end. Hence, the main argument of this thesis is that when the Soviet top-elite lost its confidence on the elite-preserving capacity of Gorbachev, it started searching for alternatives, one of the most notable of which was the market economy option advocated by Boris Yeltsin at that time. This shift in the preferences of the Soviet nomenklatura played a considerable role in the dissolution process.