This study is concerned with the influence of regionalism in the Congresses of People's Deputies of the USSR and Russia between 1989 and 1993 and its implications for future reform including the development of federal relations in Russia. In particular, emphasis will be placed on regionalist tendencies developed in Siberia and the Russian Far East. After perestroika, the discussion of federal relations showed varieties of possible developments, ranging from a unitary system to a confederation. Despite these varieties, it appears to be generally perceived that stable and 'genuine' federal relations are required in Russia. However, little attention has been paid to the role of the newly re-emerging political actor, the deputies of the central legislature, who are directly engaged in the establishment of such federal relations. This study reaches three main conclusions. First of all, regional socio-economic disparities affected the attitudes of deputies towards reform, including changes in centre-periphery relations. Secondly, the analysis suggests that at least two main streams of regionalism were developed during 1989-1993: one developed in the Congress by the regional deputy groups, and the other outside the Congresses by regional political leaders. Thirdly, despite growing regionalist tendencies in Russia at that time, regional political actors were not strong enough to initiate a federal structure of their preference, lacking horizontal and vertical coordination. This discussion of regionalism in the Congress leads us to a further conclusion that regional interest articulation was rather chaotic, hampering legislation of policies and thus facilitating the regionalisation of reform. Despite strong regionalist tendencies in some sub-national units, particularly based on ethno-nationalist sentiments, such a development may erode the legacy of reform as well as regional autonomy itself.

In the period of transition which followed the collapse of the USSR, the states of that region were forced to make many political and economic adjustments. A crucial part of the processes was the restructuring of relations among these formerly fraternal republics and as they became in 1991, independent states. For most states structuring relations with Russian became a priority since it is the largest and most dominant regional actor. Such relations are shaped by a number of factors including historical development, economic legacies and geopolitical concerns. These issues have impacted upon the evolving relationship between Russia and its Slav neighbours, Ukraine and Belarus. Drawing on a common background in terms of historical political, economic and cultural development, Russia's relations with these states developed to the point where they were formalized in a Russian Belarusian Community (1996) and a Russian Ukrainian Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation (1997). The impetus for Russia to renegotiate its relations with the states on its western borders was strengthened by the proposed eastward expansion of NATO. Belarus and Ukraine however benefited from this. Belarus was guaranteed cheap supplies of Russian natural resources, vital for its economy, even if this came at the cost of ceding a degree of sovereignty. Ukraine, still excluded from European political and economic organizations was recognized by Russia as an independent state with significant regional influence. Russia secured a buffer zone on its western borders. Russia's relations with Ukraine and Belarus are now qualitatively different. Ukraine has emerged as a potential ally and even future rival to Russia while Belarus has opted to become a Russian client state with, it appears, the ultimate goal of union with Russia.

Hungary's political transformation of 1989 has been generally regarded as a peaceful revolution negotiated between the ruling Communists and the opposition. During the National Roundtable Negotiations, the fundamental framework of governance - including the amendment of the Constitution - was decided by members of Hungary's political elite. Hungary's mode of transition to democracy was an elite-led transformation and this was distinct from Czechoslovakia and Poland where the interests of society had been represented - to a large degree - by the likes of Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa. In view of this, some critics argued that compared to Poland and Czechoslovakia, Hungary had no equivalent high-profile figure who could break with the Communist past and claim the ideas of a new democracy. Hungary, however, had its own figure with democratic credentials. Árpád Göncz, who came to prominence during the inter-war period has been one time or another, a student resistance leader during Nazi occupation in Hungary, a steelworker, an agriculturalist, a literary translator and, he subsequently became the first post-Communist President of Hungary. He experienced the major events of Hungarian history first hand, including the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. During this pivotal time, Göncz undertook a significant role in the resistance that followed the suppression of the Revolution; he was sentenced to life imprisonment as a result. His democratic activities were widely acknowledged by political elites and the general public alike. This, in turn, contributed to his election to the Presidency. Significantly, however, much of the existing literature on Hungary's post-Soviet political development has not attached a high degree of importance to Göncz's role in Hungarian history or his political achievements. At present, there are no biographies of Göncz either in English or Hungarian. Thus this thesis, as the first English language scholarly biography, addresses a gap in the literature through the narration of the story of Göncz's life; an expansive account of Göncz's life is situated within a framework of the wider historical, political and social concerns of his generation. Specifically, the following questions are addressed: how were Göncz's political beliefs developed and how did these beliefs later inform his term as the first post-Communist President of Hungary? Narrative analysis and elite interviewing are employed as the main research methods in order to explore the development of Göncz's political beliefs and their significance for the understanding of Hungarian politics. It is argued that as a whole, Göncz made important contributions to the development of Hungarian democracy. Though not born into a political family and constrained by external forces beyond his control, Göncz attempted to address some of the key social and political problems of the age. It is also argued that the decade of Göncz's Presidency was crucial for the shaping of the basic institutional tenets of governance in post-Soviet Hungary. Despite his lack of experience of governance, Göncz created a template for the role of President and significantly affected the demarcation of powers between president and government in the ever-evolving context of the process of political transformation. While his interpretation of the presidential powers and responsibility was not, and could not be regarded as positive in all respects, Göncz's Presidency was imbuded by his liberal and democratic values.

This thesis analyses institutional and organisational reform in the Former Soviet Union and Russia in order to examine the effects and existence of path dependency and institutional competition in the development of the Russian oil industry. Based on a New Institutional Economics and Transaction Costs Economics framework the thesis establishes a link between the evolution of the oil industry and the institutional matrix associate with the structure of state power. In the post-Soviet setting path dependency is created by the state's continued reliance on a patrimonial structure of state power. Resource and time pressure and the lack of a popular reform consensus resulted in the domination of the former mode of state power over the constitutional-bureaucratic system favoured by the International Financial Institutions. The transaction cost premium associated with the constitutional-bureaucratic structure and the appropriation of income and resources created a bias towards the historic structure of state power. Thus state survival was an important factor in creating path dependency. However, the thesis reveals that due to the less ideologically based political foundation there is greater room for institutional competition. While such competition has remained low at the state administrative level the thesis finds there is some evidence of institutional competition at the industry level. Two corporate strategies (the Soviet Styled Company and the Western Styled Company) have emerged from the original Holding Type Company. These two strategies display different approaches to income extraction, development strategy and ownership structure. The two strategies constitute the basis from which potential institutional competition in the oil industry may develop.

This thesis provides an analysis of the national integration strategy developed in the Czech Republic to address the social exclusion of Romani communities. Based on a careful study of policy documents and interviews with the key actors involved in implementing the integration policy in České Budĕjovice and Ostrava, this thesis identifies the main barriers which exclude Roma from the education system and the labour market and describes how national policy in the spheres of education and employment is being implemented at the local level. By discussing the integration strategy with the people responsible for its implementation, it was possible to look at the policy from a new perspective. These people are experts in dealing with the realities of social exclusion in Romani communities and are in the best position to assess the effectiveness of the different programmes which together make up the integration policy. This study reveals that Romani communities continue to suffer from discrimination and that local authorities play a vital role in ensuring that the policies designed by central government become a reality. Communication between policy makers and those responsible for implementation is crucial to ensure that the programmes that form the core of the integration strategy are implemented fully. Some programmes have been more effective in certain places because local political and economic circumstances have a great deal of influence over the likely success of the policy. Anti-Romani prejudices in wider society and the apathy of Roma who are not interested in the programmes designed to help, remain significant obstacles, but creating an inclusive society and addressing the mistrust which has developed over generations takes time and persistence. Therefore, for the integration policy to succeed, all the key agencies, policy makers and practitioners working with Romani communities must cooperate and share the same agenda.

The period of the New Economic Policy was a time when the Bolshevik government was forced to reconsider its attitude towards the market, as NEP involved the introduction of market elements into Soviet society. This thesis is a comparative study of eleven Soviet economic theorists from this period; Bukharin, Preobrazhenskii, Strumilin, Bazarov, Groman, Kondrat'ev, Oparin, Sokol'nikov, Yurovskii, Chayanov, and Blyumin. It asks two basic questions: how did each theorist conceive of the market, and how did they relate this conception to socialism? The primary source material used is the works of these theorists, and in many cases this material has not been previously discussed by scholars. A theoretical framework places these conceptions into a historical context. The basic result obtained is that there were many diverse conceptions of the market prevalent in this period. The bulk of the thesis investigates these various conceptions, and suggests that their theoretical roots lie in various currents of economic thought: classical, neo-classical, Marxist, and socialist. During NEP these currents were allowed to mix freely to a certain extent, although pressure to censor them began to build towards the end of the 1920s.

Much has been written about Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky. His development of the “Deep Battle” military theory in the late 1920s and 1930s, the attendant mechanisation of the Red Army and his role in the development of the Soviet military/industrial complex have been well-researched. The “Tukhachevsky Affair”, the discussion surrounding his execution in the military purge of 1937, continues to attract interest. However, a detailed analysis of his early life and Civil War command career has never been completed. This gap is filled by this thesis. Tukhachevsky’s early life is explored to provide background, but also to provide a biographical account and to illustrate who he was when he joined the Red Army and Bolshevik Party in 1918. The thesis demonstrates that he was not a communist at this stage. However, his command experiences during the Civil War, combining military tactics of continuous manoeuvre warfare with constant frontline mobilisations, political agitation and repression, allowed him to develop a theory of class warfare and saw his conversion to a belief in the efficacy of Marxist principles when applied to military methods. Tukhachevsky’s success in the Civil War is compared to his failure in the Polish-Soviet War and the basis for the latter is that his continuation of class warfare methods were unsuitable for the conflict in Poland. The success of Tukhachevsky’s class warfare methods is explained by their relevance to the situation and social fabric of Russia at the time. The retention of these principles to form the basis of the operational side of “Deep Battle” is argued, as is Tukhachevsky’s openness to innovation in weaponry and tactics gleaned during his Civil War command. Tukhachevsky’s role in the early Red Army formulation is detailed, as is his development of the concept of “unified command” involving the creation of Red Commanders. The Communist Party leadership’s use of Tukhachevsky as a “troubleshooter” to deal with prioritised areas during the Civil War, leading to his service on every major Front at crucial stages is highlighted, as are the connections he made on the Civil War battlefields, friendly and hostile. It is shown that during his Civil War commands he met with those with whom he would later work and that their collaboration and experimentation began almost immediately.

This thesis analyses the extent and forms of class relations in the Soviet Union. The theoretical approach adopted to the analysis 'of the Soviet class structure is based on a critique of the classical Marxist approach to class, as well as of common sociological approaches to class, particularly the Weberian conception of class. These issues are the concern of the Introduction, which outlines an alternative approach to class structure based on a conception of relations of production which differs from the classical Marxist approach, particularly in avoiding any reliance on the labour theory of value for defining relations of production and hence for demarcating class boundaries. Chapter One provides an outline of developments in the Soviet rural class structure in the 1920s, and by criticising common conceptions of such developments argues that the strategy of socialist transformation adopted in the policy of forced collectivisation was economically unnecessary and politically disastrous. The purpose of this Chapter is to throw the contemporary class structure of the Soviet Union into historical relief, by indicating the historical context out of which many contemporary features of the Soviet Union developed. It is hoped that this will indicate that many features of the contemporary social structure are historically specific, rather than being necessary features of a state socialist society. Following from this, the analysis of relations of production in the 1960s and 1970s is begun in Chapter Two, where the relations between different kinds of economic agents, particularly collective economic agents (economic units) are examined, using the approach developed in the Introduction to analyse the relations of production as relations between economic agents, which affect the relative economic capacities of agents. It is argued that, because such capacities are always subject to change through processes of struggle and negotiation, an important but hitherto rather neglected aspect of the relations ,of production concerns the policies of economic agents. Consequently, the manner in which agents at various levels in the economy calculate both their own internal state and the course of action which they adopt with respect to other agents is subjected to detailed scrutiny in this Chapter. Chapter Three analyses the legal and political conditions of the relations of production, since in the Soviet Union such economic relations are operative primarily between state agencies, or collective agencies whose relations to the state agencies are legally and politically regulated by the state. Consequently, the issue of the 'withering away of the state' with the decline of private property is considered, as well as various common Western conceptions of Soviet politics. Following on from this, the analysis of politics in terms of a series of 'arenas of struggle' is proposed, and in the light of this approach the capacities of the main central party and state agencies to regulate the economy (and hence to determine the relations of production by implementing effective economic plans) is reviewed. The conclusion from this review is that there are serious limits on the capacity of such central party and state agents to co-ordinate the division of labour, so that theories of an all-powerful totalitarian party or elite dominating Soviet politics and the economy are misguided. Nevertheless, it is argued that there is sufficient central control of the state agencies for one to be able to say that various state agencies do not pursue autonomous objectives. In other words, political relations between state agencies are not such as to preclude socialist planning of the overall economy. Chapter Four examines welfare and social policy as a means of assessing the importance of non-wage forms of income, and concludes that the overall effect of such forms of public expenditure is probably, as intended, to equalise incomes. This point is taken up again in Chapter Five, where the occupational structure and wage differentials are examined, prior to an overall assessment of the distribution of income, which concludes that a policy of income equalisation has been pursued fairly successfully over the past twenty-five years or so. While such a policy may now be running into difficulties of various kinds, in so far as it has been successfully pursued, it has meant that the connection between the distribution of income and the access of agents to the means of production has been partially undermined. Hence class relations have been seriously weakened in the Soviet Union, and it is concluded that they are non-existent within the state sector of the economy. However, this does not mean that there is no class structure in the Soviet Union since collective farm members are still in a different class position from state employees. There may also be capitalist relations in the so-called 'parallel economy' but their extent must be severely limited by the official prohibitions on such activities which means that, if resources are diverted from official purposes, this is largely done on an individual 'self-employed' basis. It is also argued that the 'intelligentsia' cannot be considered as a single, separate stratum from the state employed 'working class' or the collective farm members. Consequently, the official theory of the Soviet class structure must be considered to be seriously deficient.

One of the great opportunities afforded to the political scientist since the fall of the Soviet Union has been that of examining politics ‘on the ground’ in non-metropolitan areas. The current study addresses the development of regional and local political party organisations in post-communist Russia. Focusing on the six movements which won representation in the 1999 election to the State Duma, it uses three case study regions in the middle Volga - the Republic of Tatarstan and the provinces of Samara and Ul’yanovsk - to examine party activity at the regional and district levels. Based on extensive fieldwork in Russia, the investigation utilises a broad range of local sources and interviews in its analysis. However, in order to avoid the danger of simply providing an observational study of local politics, wide use is also made of national opinion survey and focus group data. The study begins by examining the context of party activity in Russia, giving a brief history of the party system and its institutional framework. Thereafter, examination is made of the role of parties in regional and local politics, based mainly on official electoral statistics from 1995-2001. This analysis begins by looking at the Russian Federation’s eighty-nine regions in a comparative context, before narrowing the focus to the three case study regions. Parties’ activities, and their interactions with the respective political systems in each region, are examined in detail. Thereafter, the functioning of parties at three levels - federal, regional and district - is examined, using both theoretical and empirical methods. The study goes on to examine the role played by members in Russia’s political parties, most specifically at a regional and local level, utilising survey and focus group material (undertaken specifically for this study) to case new light on the entry patterns, bases of activism, and attitudes of party members in the middle Volga. Furthermore, parties are examined in the context of the 1999-2001 electoral cycle. This analysis concludes that, in the federal elections, particularly that to the State Duma in December 1999, regional nuances dominated over the national campaign; but that party participation was limited in region-specific elections.

The dramatic phenomenon which appeared soon after Stalin's death in March 1953 in the Communist world was the strengthening of friendship and co-operation between the two largest socialist countries - the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The most important reason was that the Soviet leaders wanted to make use of the Chinese Communist Party to maintain their leading position in the socialist camp and the world Communist movement. For the Chinese, the main reason was economic rather than political. They wanted to obtain as much aid as possible from the Soviet side, while implementing their first five-year-plan (1953-1957). Only two and a half months after the death of Stalin, an important agreement was signed in Moscow for assistance to China in the construction and reconstruction of 141 industrial sites. By the end of 1953, China's share of the USSR's total external trade turnover amounted to 20 per cent, while the Soviet Union's share of China's trade was 55.6 per cent. From mid-1958 the Chinese method of building socialism began to take shape: the grouping of agricultural co-operatives into large People's Communes combining small-scale industry with agriculture, the Great Leap Forward. In the eyes of the Soviet leaders this was a great challenge not only to orthodox Marxist thinking, but also to the leading position of the CPSU. What is more, it was in 1958 that it first became apparent that China and the Soviet Union shared different views on a number of foreign policy issues which brought the conflict to a state of high tension. First it was the bombing of Jinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu (Matsu) . Then came the Sino-Indian border clash. On 9 September, in spite of a Chinese request, the Soviet Foreign Ministry issued a `neutral' statement, providing the first public indication that relations were deteriorating rapidly. Khrushchev's China policy appeared to have two elements. 1) To increase the scale of Soviet economic aid to China, thus reassuring it of friendship while increasing Soviet penetration of its economy. 2) To oust Mao Zedong and anti-Soviet elements from the Chinese leadership. The period from 1960 to 1969 was characterised by the Sino-Soviet `cold war', beginning with polemics in ideology and expanding to economic, political and military confrontation. Until the end of 1962 both sides refrained from attacking each other directly. The Chinese directed their attacks against `revisionism' in general and the Yugoslavs in particular; the Russians directed their attacks against `dogmatism' in general and the Albanians in particular. The first major ideological confrontation took place at the Third Congress of the Romanian Workers' Party in Bucharest from 20-25 June 1960. Then on 16 July the Soviet government informed the Chinese government of its decision to withdraw all Soviet technicians working in China. This unilateral decision, which aroused greater resentment in China than any other action, struck a crushing blow at China's economy at a time when the country was suffering from the failure of the Great Leap and a series of natural disasters. The Chinese government replied with charges of revisionism. But as the economic links between the two countries deteriorated, the Chinese leaders eventually published their well-known nine comments, from 15 August 1963 to 14 July 1964, strongly criticising both Soviet internal and external policies. Sino-Sovient relations deteriorated after Khrushchev's fall in October 1964. There were at least two events contributing to this. One was a quarrel about taking `unity of action' to aid North Vietnam, suggested by the Soviet leaders. The other was a dispute about holding an international conference of all Communist parties in 1965. Party relations were broken, although no-one at the time thought that this break could continue for the next 23 years. 1966-1969 witnessed the high-tide of the `Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, and this put the PRC in full confrontation with the USSR for two decades. There is no doubt that the struggle against `Soviet revisionism' which dominated Mao's mind in his later years was one of his main motives for starting the Revolution. Kiu Shaoqi whom he regarded as China's Khrushchev and the representative of the revisionist line inside the Chinese Party, had to be denounced. Smashing revisionists at home meant smashing them abroad and therefore the necessity of ending the few remaining contacts between the Russians and their last Chinese informants. Simultaneously, the first frontier confrontations took place. The boundary question between the PRC and the USSR has occupied an important position in the evolution of Sino-Soviet relations. However, it only led to fighting when relations between the two countries deteriorated for other reasons. Armed clashes occurred on 2 and 15 March 1969, on the Island in the Wusulijang (River Ussuri) called Zhen Bao, just a few weeks before the Ninth Congress of the CCP. Mao concluded that the USSR was behaving like a young imperialist power on the offensive and found ample evidence in the behaviour of Brezhnev. The Soviet Union's policy towards China in the 1970s seemed to want to knock together an `Asian collective security system', aimed at isolating China; to build up its armed forces in the Far East to put pressure on China and Japan in order to compete with the United States in the Pacific Ocean; to use the `Cuba of Asia', Vietnam, as its agent, to seize the whole of Indochina and dominate Southeast Asia, edging the United States out of the continent. The USSR's invasion of Afghanistan seemed to be bent on controlling that country, but also on furthering its long-term strategic objective of expanding its power in South Asia and the Middle East. The Chinese response was inevitably hostile, to try to: a) reduce or eliminate the threat of a `two front war' involving China with more than one major enemy; b) more generally deflect any political and military pressure against the PRC by seeking to prevent `encirclement' by the PRC's enemies; c) form the broadest possible international united front against hegemonism; d) gain stable, diversified foreign trade partners and sources of advanced technology for the PRC, thereby enabling China to modernize its economy. Under Mao's guidance the theory of the Three Worlds was put into practice. China established diplomatic relations with many capitalist countries; and in the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a limited Chinese-American alliance against the Soviet Union. Mao's death and Deng Ziaoping's succession led to a fundamental change in China's internal economic policy and its accompanying ideology, and gradually also to a change in its attitude to the Soviet Union. With Gorbachev's succession in the Soviet Union in 1985 there were corresponding changes, making an eventual rapprochement possible. The evolution of Soviet policy towards China began on 24 March 1982 when Brezhnev made his speech in Tashkent, developed through 28 July 1986 when Gorbachev made his speech in Vladivostok, and culminated in May 1989 when Gorbachev came to Beijing to have the first Sino-Soviet summit. The process of normalization of Sino-Soviet relations was complex and full of difficulties. China identified the three major obstacles as both a barrier to positive change and as a genuine test. The year 1988 saw a breakthrough in eliminating the three obstacles as the Soviet Union promised to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and reduce its forces