The “Flight” of Soviet Elites to Opposition in the Late 1980s – Early 1990s: Macro-Sociological Analysis
Authors:   Novosibirsk State University, Russian Federation, Filippov Sergey 
Published: July 2021

The article deals with investigation into the conditions of the defection of the national Soviet party-state functionaries to opposition in the USSR (late 1980s – early 1980s) that is an important indicator of the loyalty of the national elites towards the central government. The analysis is based on comparing two contrastive cases – the Soviet elites of Latvia and those of Kazakhstan in their interactions with the central government as well as local population. Despite seemingly obvious cultural and historical differences, both cases are similar regarding some important aspects such as socio-demographic, economic as well as cultural dynamics in the late Soviet period. In both republics, the proportion of migrants in the whole population as well as in the elites was relatively high. The intensive migration in the post-war period was a result of the rapid industrialization and the Virgin Land campaign in the case of Kazakhstan. The Soviet elites both of Latvia and of Kazakhstan were loyal to the Union center, Russian-speaking and more international than national oriented. Besides, the national movements in both republics were practically nonexistent at the beginning of the perestroika. Nevertheless, many Latvian national ruling cadres joined the opposition in the late 1980s – early 1991s whereas Kazakh national elites remained mostly loyal to the Union center up to the dissolution of the USSR (Kazakhstan declared its independence only on 16 December 1991, as the last republic to leave the USSR) – although Kazakh national party-state functionaries did not have less reasons to get rid of the tough control from Moscow than national elites of Soviet Latvia. As the theoretical basis the author applies the R. Collins` state-centered theory of ethnos elaborated in the framework of the Weberian paradigm. The analysis showed that decreasing loyalty of the Latvian national elites in the late 1980s – early 1991s was due to the success of the protest movement in this republic including the violent confrontation with its rivals in January 1991 (“The Barricades”). A broad support of the protest movement striving for the reestablishment of the independence from the Soviet Union was based on anti-immigration ideological alternative to official Soviet internationalism attracting different social and ethnic groups of Latvian population. A relatively high level of the loyalty of the Kazakh national elites to the central government was caused by the effective suppression of the Kazakh youth riots in December 1986 that triggered the purge of the national ruling cadres in Kazakhstan initiated by Moscow. A relatively low social support of the protest movement in the republic was due to the lack of a broad ideological basis that could create solidarity between different social and ethnic groups that made up the population of Kazakhstan. Besides, the protest of 1986 with Kazakh students as the main participants was perceived by local population in the logic of ethno-territorial conflicts very common in the late Soviet Kazakhstan and evoked therefore not solidarity but fear and anger.