The authors wish to acknowledge, with gratitude, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) for the financial support which made possible the collection of the data on which this paper is based. A grant from the National Council for Soviet and East European Research enabled Jeffrey W. Hahn to take a leave of absence from his teaching obligations in the Spring of 1992, a portion of which was used in preparation of this paper. None of these organizations, however, bear any responsibility for the views expressed in it, or for any errors of fact. We would also like to thank Slavic Review for "fast track" consideration of this article, which made possible its timely publication.

1. Colton, Timothy J., “The Politics of Democratization: The Moscow Election of 1990,” Soviet Economy 6 (June 1990)Google Scholar; Dawn Mann, “RSFSR Elections: The Congress of People's Deputies,” RFE/RL Report on the USSR, 13 April 1990; Thomas F. Remington, “The March 1990 RSFSR Elections,” in The 1990 Soviet Elections, ed. Darrell Slider (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming); Jeffrey W. Hahn, “Local Politics and Political Power in Russia: The Case of Yaroslavl,” Soviet Economy 7 (July 1991); Danilenko, Viktor, “Electoral Reforms,” in Perestroika-Era Politics: The Soviet Legislature and Gorbachev's Political Reforms, eds. Huber, Robert T. and Kelley, Donald R. (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1991)Google Scholar; and Embree, Gregory J., “RSFSR Election Results and Roll Call Votes,” Soviet Studies 43 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Hill, Ronald J., “The CPSU: From Monolith to Pluralist,” Soviet Studies 43 (1991): 225–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. See especially Colton, 305.

4. Darrell Slider, “Political Reform and Republic/Local Government” (Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Miami, 24 November 1991).

5. Embree; Slider.

6. Hahn, “Local Politics. “

7. Hahn, “Local Politics;” Embree; Slider.

8. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Elections in the Baltic States and Soviet Republics: A Compendium of Reports on Parliamentary Elections Held in 1990 (Washington: GPO, 1990)Google Scholar; Hahn, Jeffrey W., “Continuity and Change in Russian Political Culture,” British Journal of Political Science 21 (1991): 414 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Colton, 293-96.

9. Rustow, Dankwart, “Transitions to Democracy: Towards a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics 2 (February 1970): 352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Prexworski, Adam, “Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy,” in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, eds. O'Donnell, Guillermo et al. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 58.Google Scholar

11. Palma, Giuseppe Di, To Craft Democracies: An Essay in Democratic Transitions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 54ff Google Scholar.

12. For examples of central press coverage of Tolstoukhov in the early period of perestroika, see Sovetskaia Rossiia, 2 December 1987 or Izvestiia, 19 January 1988; for his defiant yet “reasonable” response to criticism, see Izvestiia, 7 April 1988.

13. For the history of the opposition movement in Yaroslavl, as well as the Party's reaction to it, see the series of articles by Michael Dobbs in the Washington Post, 24-26 March 1989 and by Jonathan Steele in The Guardian, 18July 1989.

14. Izvestiia, 18 June 1988.

15. “Regional-class cities” (goroda oblastnogo podchineniia) refers to those cities in a region large enough to rate their own party and state structures. In the case of Yaroslavl Region, this includes Rybinsk, Pereslavl'-Zalesskii, Rostov, Tutaev and Uglich. Here and throughout the text raion has been translated as administrative district and okrugas electoral district in cases where translation may cause confusion. The figures cited here and elsewhere, unless otherwise noted, are from the regional newspaper, Severnyi rabochii or from the Yaroslavl regional Election Committee. These data are reported in Slavic Review, 16 November 1989.

16. This information was reported at a meeting of the YPF on 27 March 1990 and made available to Jeffrey W. Hahn by one of its leaders. Further confirmation that the breakdown offered here is reasonably accurate was obtained in an interview by Hahn with regional soviet deputy Konstantin Gaidis in June 1991. His analysis of 191 deputies indicated that 45 members of the old apparat held seats, 48 went to chairmen or vice-chairmen of enterprises, 20 to state or collective farm chairmen, 36 to mid-level managers, 23 to professionals of various types, 18 to workers in production and one “entrepreneur” (predprinimatel1).

17. In fact, the data provided by Gaidis in June 1991 on 191 deputies indicate a much higher number of them (68) formerly held nomenklatura positions, including 48 chairmen and vice-chairmen of enterprises and institutions, and 20 chairmen of collective and state farms.

18. The interview was with Jeffrey W. Hahn and took place during a break in the January 1992 meeting of the regional soviet on organizational restructuring. Veselov renounced his party membership shortly after the coup attempt. Kovalev, who did not, and who appears to have been sympathetic to the emergency decree, was not among those nominated to the new position of regional chief of administration (glava administratsii) which replaced his old position as Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee.

19. The accuracy of the March numbers is confirmed by the total number of eligible voters reported for elections to the RSFSR Congress of People's Deputies held the same day (1, 068, 717). ]

20. Dictionary of American History (New York: MacFadden-Bartell, 1970), 398.Google Scholar

21. The one exception was district 82 which experienced an extreme loss of voterswith a mid-level management candidate running unopposed. It seems likely that in this case the loss was gerrymandered to other electoral districts in the Frunze borough of Yaroslavl city since district 82 had no YPF candidate running and it could be considered “safe. “

22. Not all of these seats turned out to be “safe,” however. In at least three cases, the candidates running in them failed to secure election when more than half of the electorate crossed their names off the ballot and repeat elections had to be held.

23. Vol'skii's “Industrial Union” (Promyshlennyi soyuz) is something of a national “Trade Union” of economic managers from the larger economic enterprises and the “military-industrial complex. “

24. The DPR is one of the few new “parties” that actually has created a strong vertical power structure in the regions of the Russian Federation. It split with Democratic Russia over the break-up of the Soviet Union and currently advocates a stronger approach to nationalities policy in the Federation.