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An Algebra of Soviet Power Elite Circulation in the
Belorussian Republic 1966 86 1st Edition Michael E.
Urban Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Michael E. Urban
ISBN(s): 9780521372565, 0521372569
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AN ALGEBRA OF SOVIET POWER

Soviet and East European Studies: 67

Editorial Board
Ronald Hill (General editor), Judy Batt, Michael Kaser
Paul Lewis, Margot Light, Alastair McAuley
James Riordan, Stephen White

Soviet and East European Studies, under the auspices of Cambridge

University Press and the British Association for Soviet, Slavonic and
East European Studies (BASSEES), promotes the publication of works
presenting substantial and original research on the economics, politics,
sociology and modern history of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Soviet and East European Studies
69 CHRIS WARD
Russia's cotton workers and the New Economic Policy
Shop-floor culture and state policy 1921-1929
68 LASZLO CSABA
Eastern Europe in the world economy
67 MICHAEL E. URBAN
An algebra of Soviet power
Elite circulation in the Belorussian Republic 1966-1986
66 JANE L. CURRY
Poland's journalists: professionalism and politics
65 MARTIN MYANT
The Czechoslovak economy 1948-1988
The battle for economic reform
64 XAVIER RICHET
The Hungarian model: markets and planning in a socialist economy
63 PAUL G. LEWIS
Political authority and party secretaries in Poland 1975-1986
62 BENJAMIN PINKUS
The Jews of the Soviet Union
The history of a national minority
6l FRANCESCO BENVENUTI
The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918-1922
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Stalin's industrial revolution
Politics and workers, 1928-1932
59 LEWIS SIEGELBAUM
Stakhanovism and the politics of productivity in the USSR, 1935-1941
58 JOSEF M. VAN BRABANT
Adjustment, structural change and economic efficiency
Aspects of monetary cooperation in Eastern Europe
57 ILIANA ZLOCH-CHRISTY
Debt problems of Eastern Europe
56 SUSAN BRIDGER
Women in the Soviet countryside
Women's roles in rural development in the Soviet Union
55 ALLEN LYNCH
The Soviet study of international relations
54 DAVID GRANICK
Job rights in the Soviet Union: their consequences

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AN ALGEBRA OF
SOVIET POWER
Elite circulation in the Belorussian
Republic 1966-86

MICHAEL E. URBAN
Professor of Political Science
Auburn University

The right of the

University of Cambridge
to print and sell
all manner of books
was granted by
Henry VIII in 1534.
The University has printed
and published continuously
since 1584.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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© Cambridge University Press 1989

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1989

A catalogue recordfor this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Urban, Michael E., 1947-
An algebra of Soviet power: elite circulation in the
Belorussian Republic, 1966—86/Michael E. Urban
p. cm. - (Soviet and East European studies: 67)
Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-521-37256-9
1. Belorussian S.S.R. - Officials and employees.
2. Elite (Social sciences) — Belorussian S.S.R.
3. Social mobility - Belorussian S.S.R.
4. Belorussian S.S.R. - Politics and government.
I. Title. II. Series.
JN6646.Z1U74 1989
305.5'2'094785-dc20 89-1038 CIP

ISBN-13 978-0-521-37256-5 hardback

ISBN-10 0-521-37256-9 hardback

Transferred to digital printing 2005

To Veronica, Emily and George
 Contents

List of figures and tables page ix

Preface xi
Acknowledgemen ts xv

1 Method, model and historical background 1

Bureaucracy, personnel and the Soviet form of organization 1
Models and methods 5
Historical sketch 10

2 Hierarchy, mobility and a stratified model 18

Data and method 20
The stratified model and its implications for the question of
hierarchy in Soviet organizations 28
Summary and conclusions 34

3 Centralization as a determinant of elite circulation 35

Centralization as a property of the system 36
Centralization and the circulation of vacancies in the system 38
Summary and conclusions 57

4 The regional structure of elite circulation 59

The main test 61
The two models compared 67
Auxiliary tests 69
Summary and conclusions 74

5 The structure of patronage affiliations 79

Mobility within and across organizations 79
Detecting patronage groups 88
vii
viii Contents

6 Does faction make a difference? 98

The influence of faction on mobility patterns 98
Women in the system 104
The use of negative sanctions 108
Conclusions 114

7 Political succession 116

Succession in the BSSR in the context of Kremlin politics 116
Succession in the perspective of factional contests 126
Implications of the succession for elite circulation 131

8 Conclusions, implications and the question of levels 136

Appendix A Stratification of positions in the Belorussian

Republic, 1966-86 142
Appendix B A roster of factional groups in the Belorussian
Republic, 1966-86 149

Notes 156
Index 176
 Figures and tables

FIGURES

1.1 The basic model underlying Western analyses of Soviet

elites page 7
1.2 A vacancy chain encompassing five positions 8
1.3 Revised model for Soviet elite analysis 9
2.1 Representation of ranking procedure for jobs in sample 25

TABLES

2.1 Sample position matrix for Belorussian Republic, 1966-86 23

2.2 Representation of positions on the Central Committee of
KPB by stratum 30
2.3 Position transitions for department heads, sector heads
and inspectors in the Organization-Party Work Depart-
ment of KPB 31
3.1 Q matrix of transition probabilities of vacancies among
strata, 1966-86 41
3.2 Predicted (P) and observed (O) distributions of chain
lengths by stratum of origin 44
3.3 Predicted (P) and observed (O) distributions of chain
lengths for the top three strata, with and without all-union
jobs 46
3.4 Job matches between career histories of officeholders and
vacancy chains initiated by their exits, 1966-86 48
3.5 Probabilities and relative frequencies of vacancies passing
out of the system in Strata 1-3 (combined), by time
periods, with and without all-union jobs 53
4.1 Predicted (P) and observed (O) distributions of chain
lengths by place of origin, 1966-86 62
ix
 Figures and tables

4.2 R matrix of transition probabilities of vacancies among

regions, 1966-86 64
4.3 Regional origins of Belorussian regional elites, 1966-86 70
4.4 Regions of origin of top elite in BSSR, 1966-86 71
5.1 Frequencies and relative frequencies of personnel supply
among organizations, 1966-86 80
5.2 Frequencies and relative frequencies of personnel supply
among five organizations for two time periods 85
5.3 Rates at which replacements are drawn among organi-
zations, 1966-86 86
5.4 Clientele groupings established by association in
replacement chains 93
5.5 Identification of clients by repeated joint-mobility for
three patronage groups 96
6.1 Average ranks of first, second and highest positions held
for two groups entering system through five channels 101
6.2 Factional affiliation of women and access to elite positions 107
6.3 Official reprimands and their effects on careers 110
7.1 Number of identified members of patronage groups in top
elite positions 127
7.2 Number of identified members of patronage groups
among heads of departments of the Secretariat of the KPB 128
7.3 Number of identified members of patronage groups in
upper levels of the state apparatus 129
7.4 Number of identified members of patronage groups in
elite jobs in the regions 136
 Preface

This book probably got started in Moscow some eight years ago. Its
immediate occasion was yet another bout of insomnia, induced this
time not by one of the usual offenders - heartaches, backaches and
financial woes - but by the insistence of a single nagging question
which I found myself helpless to avoid: How does this system work?
Moments on the street, in the office, in the cafeteria taught me what I
had learned and not learned through years in the classroom and the
library, namely, that, although I might know a number of things about
the Soviet Union, when it came to its basic 'laws of motion' I was
drawing a blank. I simply had not developed concepts that could make
sense of the confusing variety of experiences that I was undergoing. I
lacked a method that was adequate to the task.
While this book is by no means an attempt to address in full the
fundamentals of the Soviet order, it does have a few ambitions along
these lines. Accordingly, one of its aims is to take method seriously. By
'method' I have in mind no more than a particular way of looking at
the world that specifies ex ante how we might compose what would
otherwise be a welter of discordant perceptions into a comprehensible
system of ideas and facts. By this measure, of course, we are always
relying on method, whether we are reading a newspaper or writing a
book on Soviet elites. My point is simply to acknowledge this reliance
and, in so doing, to take it, again, seriously.
In my view, such an orientation toward method neither implies that
the object of analysis disappears behind abstractions, nor that it
represents a mere vessel to be fashioned and refashioned in order to
accommodate some purely methodological exercise. If anything, the
reverse is true. Method might be regarded as the vessel and its utility
consists precisely in its capacity to contain the object of our interest.
Further, we can no more divorce the object from the method which
constitutes it than we can the perception from the perceiver. Method
XI
xii Preface

functions in such a way as to link the object of our interest to our

interest in the object. Through it, we organize our data according to
the categories that we provide for them. Method is our eyes.
This book undertakes a structural study of elite circulation in the
Belorussian Republic of the USSR over the years 1966-86. The idea of
structure as used here should not be confused with that of formal
organizational relations, although the two at times may coincide.
Instead, the concept of structure represents an analytic orientation
away from viewing the fundamental features of the social world as
reducible to individuals and toward a perspective in which the
relations among them, ordered or 'structured' in particular ways,
become the primary focus of attention. As such, this study, while
looking at the Belorussian political elite, is little concerned to describe
those individuals who have held power. For good or ill, the reader will
not find presented here the sort of data - namely, the personal
attributes of individual officeholders - ordinarily encountered in
studies of Soviet elites. Stranger still, this is a book about an elite in one
of the national republics of the USSR that includes no data on the
respective nationalities of the elite's members. The reason for these
omissions is simple enough. Rather than a description of the person-
nel who have held power, the purpose of this study is to describe the
personnel system itself as a set of power relations and to inquire into
the matter of how it is structured. As a consequence, the candidates
for the role of structuring factors which have been identified in more
conventional works on Soviet elites - central control, regional influ-
ences, and patronage relations - appear in a rather unconventional
light. They are not regarded as operating directly on individual actors
but on the set of relations that bind the actors into a system.
The narrative is designed to move from the macro- to the micro-
level. It thereby introduces individual actors, who appear more and
more frequently as the discussion proceeds, in the context of those
relations in which their actions are embedded. Chapter 1 sets out in
some detail the methodology which the book follows and develops a
model for elite analysis congruent with this orientation by contrasting
it to the model that has been commonly employed in the field.
Appended to the end of this chapter is a brief description of this
study's site, the Belorussian Republic, which outlines the salient
historical factors bearing upon the analysis of the Belorussian elite in
the contemporary period.
Chapter 2 is an exercise in elite stratification. Here, the idea of
relations is used to construct a hierarchy of offices in the Republic
 Preface xiii

required for subsequent stages of analysis. Specifically, the relations

among offices is translated as the mobility of the actors who move
among them. The offices themselves are then ranked according to
their respective distances from an uppermost stratum of positions,
with 'distance' measured by the mobility patterns of their incumbents.
When a specified probability exists that the holder of a given office can
enter some position ranked in a stratum somewhere above him, then
the office which he occupies is ranked at one remove from (one
stratum below) the stratum which he has a certain probability of
reaching.
With a hierarchical ranking of offices in place, ensuing chapters take
up the heart of the empirical analysis, viz., the influences of
centralization, regionalism and patronage on the circulation of elites in
the system. Chapter 3, which tests for the centralizing effect, intro-
duces into Soviet elite studies the method of vacancy chain analysis.
This method abstracts from individuals, their attributes and the jobs
that they hold at a particular time in order to determine, in this
instance, whether the mobility patterns of the actors are systematically
shaped by the influence of the centralized nomenklatura. In the same
way that the foregoing chapter distinguishes between the nominal
rank of an office and its rank as determined by the probability for
upward mobility empirically associated with it, this approach distin-
guishes between nominal (the formal appointments mechanism) and
effective centralization and finds that the latter is of remarkably little
consequence in shaping the circulation process.
Chapter 4 replaces the framework of hierarchically ordered strata of
positions with the category of region and repeats the analysis. It finds
that a regionally based model of mobility is able to predict the
movement of personnel in the system with a considerable degree of
accuracy. Certain characteristics of the system when viewed in
regional terms, however, cannot be explained without recourse to the
stratified model of positions and the personal connections among the
actors that link them together into patronage groups.
Patronage is the topic of Chapter 5. With the results of the foregoing
vacancy chain analyses of macro-level characteristics of the personnel
system as a frame of reference, the discussion shifts at this point
toward the micro-level and focuses the vacancy approach on indi-
vidual actors whose mobility patterns evince mutual linkages that
suggest the presence of patronage ties. The data are subjected to two
techniques for discerning patronage affiliations and the patronage
groupings thereby identified become categories for carrying the
xiv Preface

investigation further along the route of micro-level analysis in the

chapters that follow.
Chapter 6 examines the influence of patronage ties on three sets of
events within the system. It seeks to determine, first, whether
affiliation with a given patronage group accounts for differential rates
of mobility in the system for those entering through various recruit-
ment channels. Secondly, it inquires into the career chances of a
particular sub-group of actors, women, in order to determine whether
these are affected by the respective patronage groups with which
various female politicians have been associated. Finally, it takes up the
matter of what might be called 'negative sanctions' - officially voiced
criticism, reprimands and publicly announced dismissals from office -
and asks whether patronage ties account for the rates at which
negative sanctions have been deployed and the effects which they
have had.
Chapter 7 discusses the political succession that took place in
Belorussia over the latter years of this study. Here, the factional
affiliations based on patronage ties are found to be the salient factor in
structuring the competition for office and in shaping the eventual
outcome. Moreover, since the succession in Belorussia began some
two years before the Brezhnev succession in Moscow, this episode in
many respects appears as a diminutive forerunner of the events that
subsequently transpired in the Soviet capital. Although the Brezhnev
succession ultimately determined certain aspects of the succession in
Belorussia, the analysis here shows that the personnel system in the
Republic cannot accurately be regarded as a collection of mere effects
which issue from some primary cause located in the Kremlin. Rather,
the process of elite circulation in Belorussia, taken in this case as
leadership replacement, has its own structure and moves largely
according to its own rhythms. In the end, these indigenous factors
have proven to be the decisive ones in accounting for the transfer of
power from one group to another. Or so it would seem, at least, when
we follow a method that privileges the forest over the tree, that
enables us to see actors in their relational aspect and to study these
relations in their own right.
 Acknowledgements

It has been my good fortune throughout the period that I have worked
on this book to have received much valuable criticism, advice and
encouragement from a number of very capable people. The concep-
tion of the project benefited from discussions with Dave Wilier, Bob
Antonio, Jerry Hough, Harrison White and Dan Nelson. I owe a
particular debt of gratitude to those who read and commented on my
work as it progressed. In particular, I would like to thank Ron Hill,
Stephen White, Joel Moses, George Breslauer, David Lane, Alastair
McAuley, Gene Huskey, Nick Lampert, Larry OToole, John Heilman
and Rachel Walker.
Assistance of another sort came from a second group of indi-
viduals. Bruce Reed supplied not only some very creative computer
programming for the vacancy chain analysis but an understanding
ear and some sound advice on many aspects of the project. Vlad
Toumanoff, Lee Sigelman and Michael Holdsworth lent their
encouragement to me at times when it mattered most. Vitaut and
Zora Kipel made available to me their knowledge of both Belo-
russia and Belorussian materials. Virginia Prickett typed successive
drafts of the manuscript with the skill familiar to those who know
her.
I am grateful for the funding provided to this project by the National
Council for Soviet and East European Research and the National
Science Foundation under Grant SES-8618055. I wish to thank Gerald
Johnson and Robert Montjoy, each of whom as my Department Head
at Auburn University slew bureaucratic monsters on my behalf. For
permission to reprint portions of my work that have previously been
published elsewhere, my appreciation goes to Edward Elgar and the
editors of Slavic Review and British Journal of Political Science. The works
in question are: 'Elite Stratification and Mobility in a Soviet Republic',
David Lane (ed.) Elites and Political Power in the USSR (Aldershot:
xvi Acknowledgements

Edward Elgar, 1988); 'Regionalism in a Systems Perspective:

Explaining Elite Circulation in a Soviet Republic', Slavic Review, Vol. 48
(Fall, 1989); 'Centralization and Elite Circulation in a Soviet Republic',
British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 19 (Jan. 1989).
 Method, model and historical
background

This chapter aims to locate the method, model and object of this study
within the field of research devoted to the analysis of Soviet political
elites. The first section examines the matter of setting or context with a
basic theoretical question in mind; namely, how might we conceptual-
ize the set of sociopolitical relations extant in the USSR which both
defines the system's elite(s) and structures their activity? Here, our
concern is to probe the characteristics of the Soviet form of organi-
zation and, in so doing, to highlight some of the issues associated with
elite analysis in the Soviet case.
The second section covers much the same ground from a methodo-
logical perspective. It presents an outline of the method and model
heretofore employed in Soviet elite studies, and argues that the
conventional approach, which focuses on individual actors and their
attributes, is hampered by some important limitations on the ques-
tions that it can pose and the conclusions that it can reasonably draw.
In order to overcome these shortcomings, a method is introduced
which directly incorporates into the analysis the relations among
actors in the system as they circulate through the array of elite
positions. This method, vacancy chain analysis, and a revised model
for the study of Soviet elites are then explicated in some detail.
Finally, the third section places the object of our study, political
elites in the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR), in an his-
torical perspective. It takes up those national, socioeconomic and
political features of Belorussia's development which bear upon the
empirical analysis of elites in the contemporary BSSR.

Bureaucracy, personnel and the Soviet form of organization

Bureaucracy, as Max Weber appreciated so well, is a highly
refined and singularly effective system of power. In contrast to the
 An algebra of Soviet power

tendency in much contemporary scholarship to interpret the concept

of bureaucratic power narrowly, as the enlarged influence displayed
by formal organizations in the political life of this or that nation state,
Weber's concern was to understand bureaucracy itself as a form of life
whose logic worked in the direction of rationalized social control
through an impersonal mechanism that represented the last word in
both task accomplishment and human domination.1 The adjective
'impersonal' is of particular importance to the issue of bureaucratic
power as Weber saw it. On the one hand, the empirical characteristics
of modern bureaucracy - the location of authority in offices rather than
in individuals, the organization and gradation of such authority accord-
ing to written rules and so forth - emerged out of deep changes in the
structure of social relations which accompanied the passing of tradi-
tional society.2 Foremost among these was the introduction of commo-
dity relations endemic to the capitalist market economy.3 As Marx
understood, relations of this type are in fact social relations which
appear as relations among mere things.4 But it was Weber who
pursued the implications that this insight held for human organi-
zations in the modern world. In modern bureaucracy, in which
individual action transpires through the medium of an impersonal-
ized, rule-bound structure of authority, he discovered the human
embodiment of thing-like relations. Individuals operating within the
bureaucratic mode of organization find that their activity always
reduces to something outside themselves - the job description, the
work schedule - epitomized in the balance sheet of the capitalist firm
and its celebrated 'bottom line'. Relations of this sort enable the
thinking parts of bureaucracy to think in characteristically bureau-
cratic fashion, calculating costs and benefits for the organization
(rather than for the individuals who comprise it) and improving its
performance (but not necessarily the performance of individuals qua
individuals) by means of an ongoing rationalization of the extant set of
relations and routines within it.5
On the other hand, this impersonal form of power ensures at least
the appearance that the power to command, and the content of the
commands themselves, are not the product of some individual(s)
will(s), made, and susceptible to being unmade, by the action of
individuals. Rather, power and the commands which mediate it brook
no (rational) argument; they appear to flow out of the objective logic of
the situation. And well they might. The point, however, is that the
'objective logic of the situation' is itself constructed upon a power
relationship, one that functions all the more effectively because it
 Method, model and historical background

presents itself in impersonal, naturalized forms that are beyond the

control of the individuals who occupy roles within it.6 Through the
control mechanisms inherent in modern bureaucracy - each actor's
potential for upward mobility in the hierarchy of offices, the role of
letters of recommendation in transfers to other organizations, the
promise of pension benefits on retirement, and so on - individual
motivations are brought into agreement with organizational objec-
tives, producing thereby a relationship of domination in which, at its
apogee, a command of the dominators is received by the dominated as
if the latter 'had made the content of the command the maxim of their
conduct for its own sake'. 7
Couching the concept of bureaucracy in terms of a Weberian
ideal-type and specifying its social basis enables us to draw some
important distinctions with respect to Soviet organizations on an
abstract level. These, in turn, find their utility in framing the more
concrete categories by means of which we study these organizations
empirically. It is perhaps too often the case that the word 'bureau-
cracy' has been employed by Western analysts of the Soviet system in a
rather indiscriminate fashion, oriented to the appearance or outer shell
of Soviet organizations - which, after all, share certain of the character-
istics of modern bureaucracy (Soviet organizations, appear to be
ordered hierarchically, to operate on the basis of written regulations,
and so forth) - without tapping their internal structure and dynamics.
When the latter is our concern, however, we notice the absence of a
number of elements which are central to the bureaucratic phenom-
enon in capitalist states. The calculability and rationality for which
bureaucracy is known depend upon the commodity forms (especially,
monetization) of a market economy and either appear in truncated
fashion or disappear altogether in the Soviet context.8 Accordingly, as
Jerry Hough's well-known work showed some 20 years ago, Soviet
organizations do not evince a legal-rational basis for the organization
of authority such as we find in bureaucracies in advanced capitalist
systems.9 Soviet officialdom, too, seems to be organized around
certain non-bureaucratic or even anti-bureaucratic norms10 and dis-
plays orientations, such as a tendency toward the personal appro-
priation of public office,11 that are at odds with modern bureaucratic
practice as we know it. With such things in mind, some scholars have
preferred to think of Soviet organizations as variants of Weber's
(pre-modern) patrimonial bureaucracy.12 Terminological questions
are, however, of less interest to us here than is the matter of how
Soviet organizations structure the action of their members.
 An algebra of Soviet power

In an earlier study, I have drawn the conclusion that the Soviet

pattern of organization rests on 'weak structures' which, relatively
speaking, are ill-suited to sustain domination in Weber's sense of the
term. In sharp contrast to the impersonal relations of a bureaucratic
order, the ensemble of personalized relations extant in the Soviet form
of organization tends to structure the action of officials around
immediate and commonly identified incentives that have little if any
connection to honouring the commands issuing from nominal super-
iors.13 In the language of contemporary sociology, we can distinguish
the strong (impersonal) structures and weak (personal) ties14 associ-
ated with bureaucracy in advanced capitalist states from the weak
structures and attendant strong ties found in Soviet organizations.
These inject a powerfully personal element into Soviet personnel
systems and lead to two important considerations for their study.
First, the relative weakness of formal Soviet organizational struc-
tures in shaping the concrete activity of those within them cautions us
against making assumptions about the relations among actors who
occupy various organizational roles. Unlike our experience with
Western bureaucratic systems in which such roles tend to be reason-
ably well defined and are related one to another in specific ways, those
who enter Soviet organizations do not step into ready-made relations
of a bureaucratic type. Rather, the roles and relations among them are
infused with a largely personal element that sets the stage for a
considerable amount of negotiation among the parties concerned as to
the content of the roles themselves and how relations among them are
to be organized.15 The student of Soviet organizations, then, is above
all a student of the personnel who comprise them, for it is at this level,
rather than at the level of formal organizational design, that so much
of the basic determinants of organized activity are set in motion.
Secondly, the student of personnel is necessarily engaged in a
project that goes beyond the issues associated with personnel admin-
istration in a bureaucratic setting; personnel studies in the Soviet
context spill over into the area of power relations far more so than
would be true, ceteris paribus, for advanced capitalist systems. When
we consider the question of how power is organizationally deployed
in the USSR, how the policy mechanism functions (or fails) to ensure
that subordinates implement the decisions of superiors, it becomes
apparent that the main gear in this mechanism is the placement of
personnel. Unable to offer positive inducements such as substantial
salary increases, stock options, the promise of a partnership and so
forth, and lacking as well anything resembling the major negative
 Method, model and historical background

sanction found in capitalist countries, the threat of unemployment,

those who head Soviet organizations must rely primarily on the
exchange of appointments and promotions in return for compliance
with their substantive directives. In studying elite mobility in the
Soviet context, then, we are at the same time studying the concrete
operation of this singularly important mechanism of power.
Thirdly, the design of our study should benefit by taking these
points into account. A survey of the literature on Soviet elite studies
would point up the influence of certain background assumptions
rooted in the bureaucratic experience which seem largely out of place
in the Soviet milieu. The methodology that informs the present study
can be explicated by contrasting it to (a) the basic model which has
underpinned the great bulk of Western studies in this area and (b) the
specific methodology which they have employed.

Models and methods

The basic model relied upon by Western analysts of Soviet
16
elites might be described as the 'turnover model'. It utilizes indi-
vidual level data, considers one-to-one turnover in jobs (i.e., the
number of individual jobs that changed hands, often for specific time
periods) and employs such variables for incumbents and recruits as
age, education, nationality, sex, career history and so forth.17 The
turnover model of mobility is designed to tell us (1) the rate at which
jobs change hands, (2) the characteristics of incumbents as an aggre-
gate profile, and (3) those attributes among recruits which are likely to
be selected for as replacement occurs. Studies of this type have
produced a series of pictures that change over time, enabling analysts
to make certain empirical statements about elite composition and to
forecast trends by extrapolating from changes in elite composition.
However, as Bohdan Harasymiw has pointed out, 'we still have not
explained the phenomenon epitomized by the classic theorists' notion
of the "circulation of elites" . . . namely, "how do they circulate?"'18
The reason for this persistent lacuna in studies of the Soviet
leadership is simple enough; in the turnover model there is neither a
concept of, nor an empirical referent for, circulation. The turnover
model in fact does not concern itself with elite circulation as a process
but deals instead with the personal attributes of officeholders. These
are two quite different things. By establishing turnover as the focus of
attention and treating the attributes of individuals as the primary
concern, analysts employing this model tend to frame their basic
 An algebra of Soviet power

research questions in a way which is not especially conducive to

asking what seems to me to be the basic question: What does elite
circulation tell us about political power in the USSR? Rather, the
research interests associated with the turnover model19 lead to asking
the questions set out abstractly in Figure l.l. 20 This approach treats
the personal attributes of individuals who have risen to high office in
the Soviet Union as factors defining the elite in a given instance. That
is, the elite is considered from the perspective of how its members
'score' on the variable of personal attributes. These scores, which in
longitudinal studies change over time, are in turn regarded as indica-
tors of change in the policy orientations of the ruling elites or,
relatedly, as indicators of change in the Soviet political system. Here
the tacit influence of the 'bureaucratic' model is apparent. Whether
elite attributes are used as surrogates for policy orientations or
leadership statements on policy are employed,21 the analysis treats
such orientations as meaningful in themselves, assumedly because
the Soviet 'bureaucracy' can or will translate them into practice.
As to the second of the distinctions that we are drawing here,
Valerie Bunce is correct to point out that the field of Soviet elite studies
has relied exclusively on 'methodological individualism' as the prin-
ciple governing empirical analysis.22 As we have seen in our discuss-
ion of the turnover model, this approach regards individuals and their
attributes as the basic unit of analysis and attempts to correlate these
with mobility in order to analyse policy or systems change. The logic in
this method involves a certain leap from aggregated individual char-
acteristics to the characteristics of the system under consideration.
Absent, here, is a method oriented to the level of the system itself
(however we might define it in a given instance), one in which the
relations among individuals, rather than the skin-bound individuals
themselves, appear as the unit of analysis. Whereas the perspective
implicit in methodological individualism cannot but apprehend elite
circulation as the product of aggregated individual choices or inten-
tions,23 a method that gives primacy to the bundle of relations that
constitute a system would view it as the result of an interactive set of
opportunities and constraints to which individuals, qua individuals,
react but which they do not control.24
It goes without saying that conventional studies of elite mobility
have greatly expanded our knowledge of the individuals who at one
time or another constitute the elite(s) in the USSR. Moreover, the
changing profile of elite characteristics is not without implication for
elite behaviour. The life experiences that shape the outlook of a given
Another Random Scribd Document
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 Machine Learning - Lab Manual
Summer 2021 - Center

Prepared by: Researcher Miller

Date: August 12, 2025

Quiz 1: Statistical analysis and interpretation

Learning Objective 1: Best practices and recommendations
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 1: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Learning Objective 2: Literature review and discussion
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Learning Objective 3: Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Experimental procedures and results
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Learning Objective 4: Literature review and discussion
• Literature review and discussion
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Learning Objective 5: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 5: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Remember: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 6: Current trends and future directions
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Example 7: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Current trends and future directions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Note: Research findings and conclusions
• Best practices and recommendations
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Key terms and definitions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Abstract 2: Study tips and learning strategies
Remember: Literature review and discussion
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Remember: Current trends and future directions
• Literature review and discussion
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Important: Critical analysis and evaluation
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Practice Problem 13: Practical applications and examples
• Critical analysis and evaluation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 14: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Remember: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 15: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Key Concept: Current trends and future directions
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Note: Best practices and recommendations
• Best practices and recommendations
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 17: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Definition: Literature review and discussion
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 18: Key terms and definitions
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Important: Study tips and learning strategies
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 20: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Background 3: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
Practice Problem 20: Literature review and discussion
• Comparative analysis and synthesis
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Remember: Case studies and real-world applications
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 22: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Remember: Literature review and discussion
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Practice Problem 23: Comparative analysis and synthesis
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Comparative analysis and synthesis
• Ethical considerations and implications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Definition: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Literature review and discussion
• Best practices and recommendations
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Example 27: Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Research findings and conclusions
• Ethical considerations and implications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Literature review and discussion
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Methodology 4: Learning outcomes and objectives
Key Concept: Current trends and future directions
• Ethical considerations and implications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 31: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Definition: Historical development and evolution
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Important: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Key Concept: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
• Key terms and definitions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Remember: Theoretical framework and methodology
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 35: Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Remember: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Current trends and future directions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Key Concept: Experimental procedures and results
• Learning outcomes and objectives
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Definition: Key terms and definitions
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Note: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Literature review and discussion
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Appendix 5: Experimental procedures and results
Key Concept: Critical analysis and evaluation
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 41: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Note: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Study tips and learning strategies
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Important: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Experimental procedures and results
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Remember: Current trends and future directions
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Key terms and definitions
• Key terms and definitions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 45: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Important: Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Example 46: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
• Current trends and future directions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Note: Key terms and definitions
• Historical development and evolution
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Definition: Key terms and definitions
• Experimental procedures and results
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 49: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Important: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 50: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
References 6: Key terms and definitions
Key Concept: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Historical development and evolution
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Remember: Case studies and real-world applications
• Ethical considerations and implications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Key Concept: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Comparative analysis and synthesis
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Note: Historical development and evolution
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Note: Study tips and learning strategies
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Example 55: Fundamental concepts and principles
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Experimental procedures and results
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Note: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Important: Research findings and conclusions
• Current trends and future directions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 59: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Practice Problem 59: Current trends and future directions
• Study tips and learning strategies
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Results 7: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
Definition: Practical applications and examples
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Research findings and conclusions
• Critical analysis and evaluation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Definition: Ethical considerations and implications
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 63: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
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