#8 - JRL 7281
Vremya MN
August 8, 2003
THE DECLINE OF THE FAMILY
Competition and rivalry among elites in Russia should continue
Author: Andrei Ryabov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

MANY EVENTS OVER THE LAST SEVERAL MONTHS INDICATE THAT THE POWERFUL
POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL CLAN KNOWN AS "YELTSIN'S FAMILY" IS FOLDING,
AND WILL SOON DEPART FROM THE POLITICAL ARENA. BUT ITS DEPARTURE WILL
DO NO GOOD IF ALL IT MEANS IS REPLACING THE MONOPOLY OF ONE CLAN BY
THE MONOPOLY OF ANOTHER.

It has been reported recently that Boris Yeltsin's apartment in
Yekaterinburg, where he lived while first secretary of the regional
party committee, has been put up for sale. This piece of news cannot
be viewed as political.
On the other hand, the political context is such that even this
trifling news item becomes somewhat symbolic. Too many events and
incidents over the last several months indicate that the powerful
political and financial clan known as "Yeltsin's Family" is folding,
and will soon depart from the political arena. This applies to the
acquisition of the Chelsea football club by Roman Abramovich, and some
other incidents indirectly implying that the senior oligarch of the
Family is withdrawing business from Russia. It also concerns the brawl
over jobs between some prominent politicians who used to belong to the
clan. It also concerns the disappearance from politics of Yeltsin's
daughter Tatiana Diachenko and her husband Valentin Yumashev, who were
the Family's ideas people for a long time. Even that might have been
discounted, if it hadn't taken place against the backdrop of an
undeniable rearrangement of parity in the upper echelons of government
- with the balance shifting to the enemies of the Family, the people
from St. Petersburg who came in with Putin in his rise to power.
There is nothing extraordinary about the Family's influence being
gradually curtailed, since replacement of elites is a natural process.
It is much worse when the elite becomes rigid and closed to infusions
of fresh blood, new faces and ideas. What is unexpected about what is
happening in Russia is that the Family's influence in all spheres of
Russian politics and the economy was so huge until recently that its
positions appeared unshakable.
It so happened, however, that the Family began breaking apart and
found itself gradually removed from the commanding heights in politics
and business. It seems that numerous observers view its decline as a
good thing. Indeed, a great many negative factors and incidents were
associated with the Family - nepotism, favoritism, handing out state
property for a fraction of its value, restricting competition in
politics and the economy, brazen manipulation of public opinion. Not
to mention charges of corruption that have never been augmented by the
decision of any court. Needless to say, given all this Russia could
not expect any high rates of economic development or rapid
modernization of its economy and the social sphere. The continuation
of the Family's political dominance would have doomed the nation to
endless stagnation, with only slow changes forced by the survival
instinct. In the long run, all this would have widened the gap between
Russia and the industrially developed countries.
At the same time, only the naive can believe that departure of
the Family from politics will automatically mean economic prosperity
and a rapid transformation of Russia into a modern state. If the
monopoly of one particular clan gives way to the monopoly of another,
we cannot expect any positive changes in politics. In this case, the
negative features of Russian politics and business associated with the
Family would be reproduced again and again. We can only hope that
competition and rivalry among elites in Russia will continue.