№ 1 - 2001
Korgunyuk Yu.G.
Modern Russia’s Political Elite as Viewed from the Angle of Social Representation (I)

An attempt is made to take away the contradiction between the class conception of politics and the elitist one. The author proposes his own interpretation of the term “class” and constructs a theory based on it according to which there are no reasons to consider political elite a separate integral class because it consists of representatives of different, though not all, but just politically active classes. In the author’s opinion, these are: 1) lumpens and lumpenoids; 2) officialdom; 3) bourgeoisie; 4) intelligentsia, intellectuals. The author establishes a kind of hierarchy between them, of which the criterion is the level of sociality. The predominance of representatives of this or that class within political elite, according to the author, depends on which type of relations predominates in society as a whole. Characteristic of the situation in modern Russia, he holds, is the merger of patronal-clientelary and civil relations, Russians behaving as citizens in the private, and preferring patronal-clientelary relations in the public or social spheres. It’s just this that preconditions, in his opinion, the social composition of Russian political elite consisting mostly of bureacracy. Essential role in the formation of new political elite is also assigned by the author to the intelligentsia which in its time came in actually as a substitute for the lacking class of entrepreneurs and nowadays is gradually replaced by representatives of bourgeoisie per se.