From: thietaniemi@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Khasbulatov (Was: Stereotypes of Soviet Peoples)
Date: 2 Jan 93 11:26:46 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <Sorokin.36.725923408@ps1.iaee.tuwien.ac.at>, Sorokin@ps1.iaee.
tuwien.ac.at (Sorokin Zhenya) writes:

> BTW, comparison of Hasbulatov and Stalin is not too stupid.
> As I remember from the history of CPSU (and Hasbulatov was univ. professor 
> on this subject), Stalin's way to power was that he turned his bureaucratic 
> position (general secretary, i.e. head of typewriters) within the RKP(b) 
> Central Commitee to a dictatorship. Milestones were: 
> 1. Creation of "Secretariat" under personal control. 
> 2. Transferring of ALL paperwork to the "apparat" of this Secratariat. As a 
> result, all activity of CC, _including personal changes_ and _party's press_
> got under controle of the Secretariat. 
> 4. Creating of a new undercover security system under personal control.
> 3. Reproducing of this system downstairs through the party, creating a new 
> hierarchie of power.  
> 
> Hasbulatov's milestones:
> 1. Conservation of the inherited from the communist epoch "Presidium" of the 
> Parliament (Congress, etc.) under *personal* control of the Speaker.
> 2. Transferring of the control of the whole Apparat of the Parliament to 
> this Presidium (internal information, organization, personal changes).
> 3. Creation of the independent "parliamentary guard" under *personal* 
> control. Forbidden by Yeltsin this autumn as anticonstitutional, is now 
> recreated after special bill of the recent Congress.
> 4. Permanent *war* against independency of the mass-media. Recent 
> achievements: Firing of Poltoranin, Yakovlev, takeover of Izvestiya 
> publishing facilities.
> 5. Recent creation of a system of so-called "direct information tarnsfer" 
> between representative structures of all levels, which is parallel to and 
> independent of executive power structure.
> 
> The result was seen on recent Congress: 
> *All* decisions on important subjects were equal to his personal 
> opinion, which he always made known before voting.
> His remark was enough to cancel hearing (!) of the reports of two (!) 
> parliamentary commissions on some subject (I do not remember which one, it 
> was in October-November), where it was known that conclusions were opposite 
> to his opinion. (Guess the result of the voting).
> He established himself as a second man in the state, capable of 
> introducing and cancelling changes in Constitution by personal bargaining 
> with President.
> 
> Try to imagine such power in the hands of parliamentary speaker in any 
> democratic state! Can you remember the name of *any* parliamentary speaker 
> besides Hasbulatov and your own?


According to my understanding, the evaluation of Khasbulatov (Hasbulatov?)
above is very interesting and well informed.

I have been considered over Khasbulatov's personal guard. During the
history this kind of personal guardians were always the first step towards
the dictatorship - like in Athens (the Demagogues) and in Medieval Italy
(signoria). Still, there seems to be one great exception: Stalin did NOT
possess a personal guard, or did he?

asks
the observer
Tapani Hietaniemi, Universitas Helsingiensis
                   urbs fennorum