Understanding Iurii Luzhkov

Problems of Post-Communism

Volumn 46, Issue 5, 1999, Pages 14-26

  Colton, Timothy J ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0033196208     PISSN: 10758216     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10758216.1999.11655848     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. The Standard so far has been set by Leonid Kuchma, the former director of a missile factory who has been president of neighboring Ukraine since 1994. President Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakstan was also an industrial manager. In Russia, Viktor Chernomyrdin, once head of the Soviet gas industry, served as Russia's prime minister from 1992 to 1998, but thus far has been a flop in electoral politics.
2. Youngsters from the barracks in which he lived "swelled up and died of starvation," Luzhkov wrote later. Survivors were told that "their souls had flown up to heaven, where they would be fed." Iurii Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva [We are your children, Moscow] (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 1996), p. 132.
3. Ibid., p. 129.
4. See ibid., p. 172.
5. Quotation from Boris Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia, trans. Catherine A. Fitzpatrick (New York: Times Books, 1994), p. 86. Luzhkov has said in press interviews that he last took a drink in the mid-1960s.
6. Luzhkov was assigned to the soviet by the city committee of the Communist Party, but he most likely could have withdrawn after one or two terms. He remained on the Moscow soviet until 1990 and was in fact "elected" to the RSFSR Supreme Soviet in 1987.
7. Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 156.
8. As the novice in the city leadership, Luzhkov writes, he was given a "bouquet" of twenty-six supervisory tasks that took in "everything that was unclear, dangerous, and inchoate" (ibid., p. 141). The cooperative movement fell into that category.
9. Ibid., p. 142.
10. The battle over Moscow's vegetable supply is described at length in ibid., pp. 160-73.
11. See the account in Iurii Luzhkov, 72 chasov agonii, avgust 1991 g.: Nachalo i konets kommunisticheskogo putcha v Rossii [Seventy-two hours of agony, August 1991: The beginning and end of the communist putsch in Russia] (Moscow: Magisterium, 1991), pp. 79-80. In My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 152, Luzhkov writes that he felt "unlimited loneliness and desperation" after the purge of Yeltsin. He was also subjected to great personal stress at the time, as his wife Marina died of kidney cancer in 1988.
12. See the account in Iurii Luzhkov, 72 chasov agonii, avgust 1991 g.: Nachalo i konets kommunisticheskogo putcha v Rossii [Seventy-two hours of agony, August 1991: The beginning and end of the communist putsch in Russia] (Moscow: Magisterium, 1991), pp. 79-80. In My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 152, Luzhkov writes that he felt "unlimited loneliness and desperation" after the purge of Yeltsin. He was also subjected to great personal stress at the time, as his wife Marina died of kidney cancer in 1988.
13. Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 175. For an analysis of the up-heaval, see Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), chap. 7.
14. Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 175. For an analysis of the up-heaval, see Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), chap. 7.
15. Most galling was Saikin's decision to sign over several office buildings to the Moscow branch of the Communist Party. Saikin had been director of ZIL, the elephantine Moscow truck plant, and according to Luzhkov he wanted to run Moscow like "a big ZIL."
16. James Billington, Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 102. For more on the putsch in Moscow and Luzhkov's role, see Colton, Moscow, pp. 648-60, and Luzhkov, 72 chasov agonii.
17. James Billington, Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 102. For more on the putsch in Moscow and Luzhkov's role, see Colton, Moscow, pp. 648-60, and Luzhkov, 72 chasov agonii.
18. James Billington, Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 102. For more on the putsch in Moscow and Luzhkov's role, see Colton, Moscow, pp. 648-60, and Luzhkov, 72 chasov agonii.
19. The other committee members were Ivan Silaev, Arkadii Volskii, and Grigorii Yavlinskii.
20. Yeltsin, Struggle for Russia, pp. 154-55.
21. One poll late in 1998 showed that 78 percent of adult Muscovites were satisfied with Luzhkov's work as mayor (Novye izvestiia [December 19, 1998: 1]).
22. New York Times (December 24, 1995): sect. 4, p. 1; and (July 30, 1996): A6. I am grateful to Graham Allison and Ben Dunlap of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions project for letting me use a clipping file that contains these and other stories on Luzhkov.
23. New York Times (December 24, 1995): sect. 4, p. 1; and (July 30, 1996): A6. I am grateful to Graham Allison and Ben Dunlap of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions project for letting me use a clipping file that contains these and other stories on Luzhkov.
24. My deti tvoi, Moskva, pp. 207-8. Luzhkov makes these comments in a chapter of his book dedicated to Nikolai Alekseev, a merchant who was the activist mayor of Moscow for eight years until his assassination in 1893. An equally apt parallel might be the decision-making culture of the Communist Party, where the local first secretary was often referred to colloquially as the khoziain of his area.
25. Alessandra Stanley, "The Power Broker," New York Times Magazine (August 31, 1997): 44.
26. See My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 178, where he praises his recruitment of "decent, literate, and disciplined" officials, irrespective of their past political entanglements.
27. "The structure unites Soviet monumentalism with some of the kitsch of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World" (Stanley, "Power Broker," p. 44).
28. Luzhkov tied privatization to class structure in one of his first statements as mayor: "There is one task which I think to be very important, notably to form a middle class in Moscow. No one ever set this task before. The main goal is to facilitate the emergence in Moscow of individuals having property and businesses of their own and dealing in trade, services, and so on" (official Kremlin International News Broadcast, June 23, 1992).
29. Quotations from Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, pp. 188-89, 285.
30. Ibid., p. 284.
31. According to Izvestiia (February 6, 1999): 2, the Moscow government plans to acquire 25 percent of Sukhoi's stock, force a merger with the MiG firm, and broker deals with jet engine makers. The article says that Luzhkov has retained Aleksandr Kotelkin, the former director of Russia's arms export agency, Rosvooruzhenie, as an adviser on military-industrial questions.
32. The above discussion draws on personal interviews and conversations, scattered articles in the Russian and Western press, and the excellent overview by Virginie Coulloudon, "Moscow City Management: A New Form of Russian Capitalism?" in Winners and Losers: Business Elites and the Economic Transition in Russia, ed. Peter Rutland (Boulder: Westview Press, forthcoming). There is an especially useful sketch of Sistema and other Luzhkov projects by David Hoffman in the Washington Post (December 19, 1997): sect. A, p. 1.
33. The above discussion draws on personal interviews and conversations, scattered articles in the Russian and Western press, and the excellent overview by Virginie Coulloudon, "Moscow City Management: A New Form of Russian Capitalism?" in Winners and Losers: Business Elites and the Economic Transition in Russia, ed. Peter Rutland (Boulder: Westview Press, forthcoming). There is an especially useful sketch of Sistema and other Luzhkov projects by David Hoffman in the Washington Post (December 19, 1997): sect. A, p. 1.
34. Kirsten Vance, "The Power of One," Russia Review (September 22, 1997): 9. Vance gives as an example the Manezh shopping center. Moscow claims to have sunk $110 million into the $350 million project, but when loan guarantees and other inputs are counted in, the real figure may be as high as $305 million.
35. RFE/RL Daily Report (May 21, 1998). The original article was published in Moskovskie novosti (February 22-March 1, 1998): 17.
36. RFE/RL Daily Report (May 21, 1998). The original article was published in Moskovskie novosti (February 22-March 1, 1998): 17.
37. The first round of the presidential election coincided with the Moscow mayoral election. Campaign posters and billboards showed Yeltsin and Luzhkov shaking hands beneath the slogan "Moscow Has Made Its Choice."
38. Official Kremlin International News Broadcast, September 5, 1997.
39. The argument is that a prior edict of the Soviet government, in 1948, subordinated Sevastopol to the Russian republic of the Soviet Union, and that it was not negated by the 1954 transfer of Crimea. The Russian Supreme Soviet advanced this interpretation of Sevastopol's status in July 1993. I am indebted to Oxana Shevel of the Harvard Government Department for enlightenment on the issue.
40. Vladimir Razuvaev in Nezavisimaia gazeta (January 21, 1997): 2.
41. The policy is poorly enforced.
42. Nezavisimaia gazeta (January 14, 1999): 3.
43. Russia's political elite has been all but unanimous in its support for the Serbian position, but Luzhkov indicated unusual depth of feeling on Kosovo by meeting with the extremist deputy premier of Yugoslavia, Vojislav Šešelj, before the onset of the NATO bombing campaign.
44. Only two months before Fatherland's unveiling, he informed a Moscow University audience that he proposed to create "a party of political centrism" (Novye izvestiia [October 27, 1998]: 2).
45. Novye izvestiia (December 22, 1998): 2.
46. Paraphrased in Izvestiia (January 20, 1999): 1.
47. All citations are from "Proekty dokumentov Uchreditelnogo S″ezda Obshcherossiiskoi politicheskoi obshchestvennoi organizatsii 'Otechestvo'" [Draft Documents of the Founding Congress of the All-Russian Public Political Organizational "Fatherland"], Moscow, December 19, 1998, which was kindly made available to the author by Sergei Grigoriev.
48. For example, there are promises both to improve the lot of the Russian peasantry and to ensure that food prices will be "accessible to each citizen."
49. Polls in the early summer of 1999 showed Otechestvo winning roughly 15 percent of the party-list votes.
50. There is an outside chance of an alliance with Viktor Chernomyrdin's Our Home Is Russia, which also relies heavily on regional elites. Some provincial politicians are on the roster of several of these organizations.
51. Anna Ostapchuk and Evgenii Krasnikov, "Luzhkov Plays Center," Moscow News (November 26-December 2, 1998): 3.
52. Andrei Kolesnikov in Izvestiia (January 30, 1999): 2.
53. Several Russian commentators have noted the paradox of Fatherland as "a party of power that tries to oppose power" (partita vlasti, oppozitsionnaia vlasti).
54. Nezavisimaia gazeta (June 22, 1999): 3.
55. Examples would be the rash of press articles in early 1999 on the business endeavors of Elena Baturina, Luzhkov's second wife, whose company got a lucrative contract to install new seats in the city-owned Luzhniki stadium, and the exposés of AFK Sistema. Stories like these are often written and placed in Russian newspapers for a fee payable to the editor or journalist.
56. According to Iosif Ordzhonikidze, a deputy mayor, the city after recent negotiations must still repay foreign creditors $120 million by the end of 1999 and $600 million in the first half of 2000. Even at current exchange rates, he says, "it will be very difficult for the city to repay those debts" (interview in Kommersant [June 22, 1999]: 7).
57. Interview in Moskovskie novosti (June 15-21, 1999): 6.