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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
Republic of Clans:
e evolution of the Ukrainian political
system
T
oday’s Ukrainian political system is an interplay of public institutions
hijacked by competing clans and patron-client networks specific to post-
Soviet political cultures. In combination, these elements constitute a “clan
state” with a specific cyclic development and dependency of formal institu-
tions from informal patronal groups.
e development of post-Soviet Ukraine provides researchers with rich
material for the study of patronalism and the clan state. e brave attempt
to build liberal democracy and a market economy after the dissolution of
the Soviet Union, alongside social disorientation in a period of huge socio-
economic crises in the mid-1990s, have resulted in the construction of an
oligarchic republic. In this republic, the clans became real actors of political
and economic competition, and facets of the political system adapted to the
needs and style of the major actors.
In this chapter, I will show the historical roots of the contemporary
Ukrainian political system. I will focus on how clans and their informal
structures have emerged as key political subjects of independent Ukraine.
How did formal political institutions come to depend on the clans in
Ukraine? To answer this question I will discuss the methods for a study of
patronal (clan) states in section 1 of the chapter, analyze Soviet roots of the
regional principle of the clans’ formation in section 2, and show how the
post-Soviet Ukrainian political system was constructed to support clans,
to facilitate their development and to let some of them build mafia state
power verticals in section 3.
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
e foundational hypothesis for this article is the assumption that
the gap between formal and informal power institutions and practices is
a core factor defining development of the Ukrainian political system. e
Ukrainian political system reinforces poverty and limited access to deci-
sion making by the vast majority of the population, and makes its citizenry
dependent on patron-client networks of wealth redistribution. As such, the
core institutions of the Ukrainian political system are designed to facilitate
competition and cooperation of clans.
1. A model to describe the post-Soviet Ukrainian state
In order to describe the development of the Ukrainian “clan state,” I will use
analytical models proposed by Henry E. Hale and Bálint Magyar.
In recent decades Henry Hale has developed a theory of post-Soviet
(Eurasian) patronal politics.
1
He describes patronalism as a key feature
of post-Soviet political structures and actions, with its own cyclic nature
of development, and with its roots in both Soviet and pre-Soviet political
culture. He defines patronal politics as one that “refers to politics in soci-
eties where individuals organize their political and economic pursuits pri-
marily around the personalized exchange of concrete rewards and punish-
ments through chains of actual acquaintance, and not primarily around
abstract, impersonal principles such as ideological belief or categorizations
like economic class that include many people one has not actually met in
person. In this politics of individual reward and punishment, power goes
to those who can mete these out, those who can position themselves as
patrons with a large and dependent base of clients.”
2
He goes on to add,
“In short, highly patronalistic societies are those in which connections
not only matter (as they do just about everywhere), but matter over-
whelmingly. Such societies typically feature strong personal friendships
and family ties, weak rule of law, pervasive corruption, low social capital,
extensive patron-client relationships, widespread nepotism, and what soci-
ologists would recognize as “patrimonial” or “neopatrimonial” forms of
domination.”
3
In the proposed model, patronal networks organize themselves into
pyramids that compete with one other to become a single pyramid.4 e
competition between these pyramids causes specific oscillations in the
quality of democracy, or autocracy, in post-Soviet societies.5 is model
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Republic of Clans
is very well applicable to events in the post-1991 history of independent
Ukraine and its neighboring societies.
Hale’s model pays close attention to the specificity of post-Soviet presi-
dentialism and its compliance with a patronal political logic. In his study
of democratic regress in post-Soviet Eurasia, he has rightly focused on a
damage that “a combination of patronalism and presidentialism” does for
democratic prospects of post-Soviet societies.6 Furthermore, Hale’s model
takes into account the roots of post-Soviet patronalism. He specifically
shows that post-Soviet political culture is embedded in forms of elite orga-
nization dating from both imperial and Soviet times.7
As I will demonstrate in sections 2 and 3, the proposed model is appro-
priate for analysis of the macropolitical structures and dynamics of contem-
porary Ukraine. It is also useful for comparing political systems of contem-
porary Eurasia. However, this model lacks an understanding of the internal
dynamics of patronal networks, of their own “political culture.” To analyze
the micropolitics of post-Soviet patronal networks, I combined Hale’s
model with the model of “clan/mafia state” proposed by Bálint Magyar.
A scholar and politician, Bálint Magyar has proposed a model describing
elites’ behavior in post-communist countries. In his book Post-Communist
Mafia State, Magyar is focused on the question of how post-communist
society—with its political and economic peculiarities—practices the creation
and reproduction of patronal networks in an interplay between mafia under-
world (mafia criminal groups) and mafia upper-world (mafia state).8
Magyar’s model also proposes a dynamic picture of patronal politics
as seen from within the clans, or “adopted political family” organized “by
means of mafia culture.”9 is model’s dynamics is described as a further
development of family-like elites’ organizations: “[I]t is built on a network
of contacts grounded essentially in family relationships—as is the case in
the mafia—or the adopted family sealed by businesses in common. New, and
then further families link up to the organization along ties of kinship and
loyalty, fitting into the highly hierarchic, pyramid-like order of subordina-
tion that has the head of the adopted political family at its summit.”10 When
the adopted political families illegitimately consolidate power in their
hands, a “mafia state” is established.
e major actor in the “mafia state” political system, a family-like clan,
is described as a patronal network with specific features. Here, different
networks of acquaintance are organized into (1) a single-pyramid adopted
political family that (2) extends over formal institutions, (3) is based on
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
patronal, not organizational loyalty, and (4) follows the cultural patterns of
a patriarchal family or clan.11
Another important element of Magyar’s model are the actors of the
political-economic clan. In his description, this structure includes: (a)
poligarchs, core visible political and invisible economic personalities, the
patrons of a clan; (b) a circle of oligarchs, with visible economic power and
invisible political power (which vary according to their history of adoption
and closeness to the patron: inner circle, adopted, surrendered, autono-
mous and so on); (c) other circles including stooges (middlemen between the
legitimate and illegitimate spheres for the public), corruption brokers (those
bringing the partners of the corrupt transaction together), security providers
and so forth.
Finally, unlike Hale, who looks back to the patronalism of imperial
times, Bálint Magyar ensures that the communist legacy is taken into
account. Magyar shows how post-communist elites used the commu-
nist experience and the residual elements of communist political culture
in order to recreate patronal politics. He specifically wrote that “[t]he use
of post-communist in the designation does not refer merely to a historical
sequence, but rather to the fact that the conditions preceding the demo-
cratic big bang have a decisive role in the formation of the system. Namely
that it came about on the foundations of a communist dictatorship, as a product
of the debris left by its decay.”12 In the case of Ukraine, the Soviet experience
was instrumental in creating conditions that favored the development of
regional clans, and a political system characterized as a “republic of clans.”
In this combination of the two models, I see an opportunity to analyze
and describe the ways the Ukrainian political system was created and has
developed in the last 25 years. As I have demonstrated, the models of
Magyar and Hale do not contradict each other. On the contrary, they add
to a possibility to describe the post-communist and post-Soviet realities of
Ukraine and its neighbors.
2. e Soviet legacy: Emergence and evolution of Ukrainian
regional financial-political groups
Regional groups were at the core of political development and wealth dis-
tribution in Ukraine. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian regional
groups evolved by applying Soviet nomenklatura culture to the new reali-
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Republic of Clans
ties of emerging political pluralism, privatization and market economy.
e Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was a huge organization
that functioned as a mechanism for selection and promotion of leaders
and active loyal citizens into power positions. e party demanded the full
loyalty of its members and local units to its central leadership; in return
for loyalty, members of the nomenklatura were allowed to hold their status
irrespective of their success as public managers. In the new conditions,
these regional clans became a generic form of the emerging new power
elites’ organization in independent Ukraine.13
Among many other features of the Soviet nomenklatura, the principle
of self-organization around regional party units turned out to be decisive.14
e Soviet power elites developed as regional groups in a response to the
prohibition of factions in the CPSU.
In early post-revolutionary times, the inner life of the party was
energized by internal discussion between numerous factions: “leftists,”
“rightists,” “left-rightists,” “right-leftists,” followers of Trotsky, Zinoviev,
Bukharin, Sapronov, Smirnov and others. ese factions were organized
around alternative solutions for issues such as the constitution of the
Soviet Union, the role of the Party in governance, the role of professional
unions and, of course, control over key positions in the Party. In order to
stably control the Party and the Soviet governments in both the center and
republics of the Union, the polylogue inside the CPSU had to be destroyed.
Joseph Dzhugashvili, more famously known by his nom de guerre,
Stalin, managed to reorganize the Communist Party and monopolize control
in his hands through the prohibition of the existing factions. Richard Pipes
has described how this prohibition provided Dzhugashvili with an oppor-
tunity to prevail in the intra-party competition between 1921 and 1933.
15
Initially, decisive power was removed from the Party Congress and given to
the Central Committee. Secondly, the power shifted from the Central Com-
mittee to the Politburo. irdly, the power was informally consolidated by
three individual members of the Politburo: namely Zinoviev, Kamenev and
Stalin. Finally, the fourth critical step involved the prohibition of factions
(or oppositions, as they were then called). is was the moment when Joseph
Stalin completed his personal monopolization of power.
One of the many consequences of Stalin’s “revolution from above”
was a change to the principle of internal party competition: instead of
groups being organized around ideological principles, the major competi-
tors became regional groups. Old and young members of regional party
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
units supported each other in their careers at all levels of Soviet power
structures. ese groups did not undermine the ideological monopoly of
the party’s “magistral line” (the policies approved by the General Secretary
and the Politburo), instead channeling the energy of emerging leaders into
controlled behavior for the benefit of the Party. e ideological blindness
of regional groups is especially visible in the case of the Southern regional
group: Mikhail Suslov (a Stalinist and leading ideologist of the Brezhnev
era) supported the career of his younger comrade Yurii Andropov (a con-
servative reformist, later to become the chief of the KGB and General Secre-
tary in 1982–84), who in turn supported Mikhail Gorbachev (a social-dem-
ocratic reformist and General Secretary from 1985–91).
It is important to stress that the regional groups were informal units
with blurred identities and limits. Looking at the groups from the 1960s to
1980s (those from Leningrad, Pribaltika, the North, Eastern Siberia, Dni-
propetrovsk and so on), one can see that same nomenklatura representa-
tive could be a member of several groups. For instance, Andropov was sup-
ported simultaneously by the Southern group and the Northern group in
his career. He belonged to the first group by origin, having been born in the
Stavropol Province (Stavropolskaya gubernia), and to the second by virtue
of his initial career in the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (Karelo-
Finskaya SSR). As this example shows, the belonging to a group was rather
flexible and informal. However, this distance between formal party struc-
tures and informal units was very important for Soviet political culture,
especially in the later, post-totalitarian Soviet periods.
In the Ukrainian context, the regional principle has become very
strong in the post-WWII context. is power arrangement has its origins
in access to the huge funding provided by central government for indus-
trial reconstruction projects in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. As
Paul R. Magocsi described, World War II left Soviet Ukraine a wasteland.
ere was a desperate depletion of the labor force, with 5.5 million Ukrai-
nians killed, 3.9 million evacuated eastwards, and a further 2.2 million
transferred to Germany as forced laborers. Moreover, 714 cities and towns,
along with 28,000 villages, were totally or substantially destroyed, 16,150
enterprises were demolished, 833 mines were blown up, 872 state farms
were destroyed, and a further 27,910 collective farms were shattered. Infra-
structure too was devastated; all major roads, bridges, and electric power
stations had to be rebuilt.16 Ukraine had to be restored, and this restoration
needed proper managers.
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Republic of Clans
e Soviet government invested a great deal into economic reconstruc-
tion in the post-war period: according to the calculations of Mark Har-
rison, by 1948 the GPD per capita had reached the USSR’s level in 1938.
17
e resources invested were not only financial; indeed, human resources
were also imported wholesale to the Ukrainian SSR. ese included all levels
of Party, government and industrial hierarchy: from rank-and-file Party
members, workers and miners to regional party leaders and “red directors.”
18
As such, the newly appointed leaders of the local party, governmental and
industrial agencies managed huge resources and had huge power.
To manage the fourth Five-Year Plan (1946–50) in the Ukrainian SSR,
a new management structure had to be created. Eric Duskin has rightly
noted that the post-war recovery in the Soviet Union—unlike other major
participants of WWII—was undertaken with the guidance of the same
pre-war leaders.19 Nevertheless, in all formerly occupied territories, and
particularly in Ukraine, the regional leadership was deeply influenced by
the consequences of Nazi occupation; the central and regional Ukrainian
leadership was literally filtered: up until the final days of the USSR, citizens
who lived under the Nazi occupation were regarded as suspicious. e con-
tinuity of the Soviet political regime in Ukraine, therefore, took place in the
realm of public management, not persons. Some dislocated regional leaders
returned to Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovs’k and Stalino/Donets’k. However,
many new people were coming to start new lives as party, government and
industrial managers in Ukraine. Moreover, both old and new cadres soon
organized themselves into regional groups resembling those that existed
before the war.
e funding from the Union center led to increased competition
between re-emerging regional groups within the Ukrainian SSR. New
and old party leaders predominantly gathered around the three biggest
party units and industrial clusters in Kharkiv, Stalino/Donets’k and
Dnipropetrovs’k.
Although Kharkiv lost its status as Ukrainian capital before the war,
it remained one of the administrative, industrial, cultural and scientific
centers of Soviet Ukraine. Post-war funding here was largely invested into
scientific industry. e local party unit was also influential in the nearby
Poltava and Sumy oblasts. From my interviews with several local party and
Komsomol activists, I learned that the Kharkiv regional group cultivated
close ties to culture and science; they also cherished the idea of belonging
to the pre-Stalin Bolshevik tradition of party politics.20 is group was
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
also more concerned about “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism,” ideological
issues, and supported what they called “equal opportunities for Ukrainian
and Russian cultures” in the republic. It was critical for this group to dif-
ferentiate itself from the Kyiv-based Central Committee and from the
Donets’k regional group.
With the heavy inflow of financial and human resources, Stalino/
Donets’k re-emerged as a heavy industrial and mining center. e local
Party leadership was also influential on issues in the Voroshilovgrad/
Luhans’k oblast, an important part of the Donbas cluster. rough inter-
views with former local Party officials, I observed that this group associated
itself less with ideological issues and more with industry.21 As one of the
former oblast secretaries said to me, “Here, I always felt myself more of a
manager and engineer than a Party boss.” is vision of their connection to
industry, and a special attachment to “simple miners and workers” seems to
be an important part of the Donets’k regional Party group’s identity.
Here it is important to add some data from a conversation with two
retired investigators of the Soviet economic police, the OBKhSS (Depart-
ment Against Misappropriation of Socialist Property), in 2012. Both of
the investigators began working in the Donets’k OBKhSS in 1971; one
remained in Donets’k until his retirement in 1998, while the other fin-
ished his career in Kyiv’s Ministry of Interior in 2004. Both described the
Donets’k regional group as the most financially connected, both to the
formal Soviet economy and its black market counterpart. Moreover, both
also stated that it was quite easy for this group to survive the USSR’s disso-
lution: they managed to sustain control of the Donbas region and maintain
informal autonomy from Kyiv until 2003.
e Dnipropetrovs’k regional group was probably the most successful
in terms of competition. Its representative, Leonid Brezhnev, became USSR
General Secretary in 1964. From this point, this regional group provided
cadres not only to organizations in Kyiv, but also in Moscow. is group
connected Party officials, local government bureaucrats, “red directors,”
Komsomol leaders, and the so-called “technical intelligentsia.”22 e influ-
ence of this group extended to the Zaporizhzhya and Kirovograd oblasts.
From my interviews with several retired local Party, industry and
Komsomol employees, I found that—at least by the 1970s—this group
had gained the ability to lead not only republican, but also all-Union orga-
nizations.23 In these interviews, all three interlocutors stressed that they
felt themselves in “competition for power and resources in the republic”;
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Republic of Clans
they additionally felt that the dominance of the Dnipropetrovs’k group
was unquestionable during the rule of General Secretary Brezhnev and
Ukraine’s First Secretary Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, who held this position
from 1972–89.
As I have previously stated, it is important to stress that these regional
groups had very blurred and unstable identities during the Soviet period.
All three of my interlocutors agreed that they felt a sense of belonging to
the regional group only when they were leaving their oblast (for instance,
at republican and all-Union congresses, or during business trips in other
republics). In their everyday life and work, they rather associated them-
selves as Party or Komsomol activists and “Soviet men,” not representa-
tives of a regional group. When they were asked to analyze retrospectively
how they began identifying themselves with a particular regional group, my
interviewees referred to three decisive factors for becoming a member of
the group: firstly, entry into the CPSU in a local Party unit; secondly, entry
into one of the regional higher education institutions; and thirdly, the fact
that they were born in the region. It appears that local Party units and edu-
cational centers created a feeling of regional identity in local nomenklatura
circles by the end of the USSR’s existence.
Based on my interviews, along with a scarce extant scholarly litera-
ture dedicated to local elites in the Soviet Union, I am able to reconstruct
the structure of a regional group in different periods.
24
By the end of the
1980s, it united leaders of three generations. e first generation was one
of mixed origin, with the majority coming from other regions or repub-
lics of the Soviet Union after World War II. In the next two generations,
the majority of members were born, and/or educated, in the region. ese
groups were organized during the Fourth Five-Year Plan, though their
institutionalization took place when a new generation of leaders came to
power within the same group (between 1950 and 1965). is institutional-
ization also coincided with the end of Stalin’s rule, which provided regional
groups with more predictability, safety and autonomy vis-à-vis the over-
sight of the center.
e core of the regional group (proto-poligarchs) consisted of the First
Secretary of the Party unit, the head of the oblast’s KGB division, the chief
of police, and a handful of directors of key industrial units. ese leaders
were recognized based on their official positions. e second layer of
leaders (proto-oligarchs) included other secretaries of the oblast Party unit,
leaders of the Komsomol and professional unions (at oblast and city levels),
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
heads of police agencies, oblast and city courts, high-ranking members of
industrial and trade organizations (at oblast and city levels), heads of local
educational institutions, and others. e third important layer, from which
the Ukrainian independentist leadership emerged, included leading repre-
sentatives of the intelligentsia (such as editors of the local press, leading
journalists, some visible writers, poets and/or scholars), informal members
of the shadow economy (for example, tsekhoviky, the underground entre-
preneurs of the Soviet era whose activity was regarded to be criminal),
alongside members of the cooperative movement, agricultural companies
and so forth. e communication within and between these circles was
mediated mostly by the Party and local government during their official and
unofficial meetings. e importance of the latter was growing ever further
by the 1980s.
In this structure, the most stable positions had people from the second
and third layers. ey had more informal power and assets, and were rarely
victims of unsuccessful competition with other regional groups. e cadres
from the core of the group were more tightly controlled by Party and KGB
structures, both republican and all-Union, and had a shorter life-cycle;
their assets depended more on their post. Since their position was more
vulnerable, they promoted group ethics that demanded not only loyalty to
state and Party, but also personal loyalty to them in exchange for a stable
income, career and safety. Moreover, the core group promoted a distinct
regional group identity. With the change of figures at the core, the safety of
the second and third layers usually remained intact.
e above description pertains to the micropolitics of regional
groups. e macropolitical picture, on the other hand, can best be
described as managed competition of the groups for leading positions
in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Even though the Ukrainian
SSR provided the Union structure with two General Secretaries (Nikita
Khrushchev from 1956–64, followed by Leonid Brezhnev from 1964–82),
the major aims of the Ukrainian regional groups’ competition were for
two positions: firstly, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Ukrainian Communist Party; and secondly, the Chairperson of the Council
of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR. Competition at the central Union level
was much tougher, while in the Ukrainian SSR, the groups faced lesser
risks if they lost the contest. is moderate competitive strategy created
a system of balances in the Ukrainian republic: if the First Secretary was
chosen from one group, the Chairperson of the Council of Ministers
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Republic of Clans
would usually come from another. As Table 6.1 shows, this balance was
in place since the end of the 1950s, when regional groups became more or
less institutionalized.
Table 6.1. Rulers of Soviet Ukraine since 1957
First Secretary
of Central
Committee
of Ukrainian
Communist
Party, period
of service
Regional group
Chairperson
of the Council
of Ministers
of Ukrainian
SSR, period of
service
Regional group
Mykola Pid-
hornyi, 1957–63 Kharkiv Volodymyr
Shcherbytsky,
1961–63
Dnipropetrovs’k
Petro Shelest,
1963–72 Kharkiv Ivan Kazanets’,
1963–65
Volodymyr
Shcherbytsky,
1965–72
Donets’k
Dnipropetrovs’k
Volodymyr
Shcherbytsky,
1972–89
Dnipropetrovs’k Oleksandr Lyas-
hko, 1972–87
Vitalii Masol,
1987–90
Donets’k
Donets’k
Volodymyr
Ivashko,
1989–90
Kharkiv Vitalii Masol,
1987–90 Donets’k
Stanislav
Hurenko,
1990–91
Donets’k Vitold Fokin,
1990–92 Dnipropetrovs’k/
Donets’k
From this table, we can see that political competition in the Ukrainian SSR
occurred between three regional groups. ese groups represented one of
the sub-types of Soviet nomenklatura patronalism where socio-political
equilibrium was reached at two levels, local and republican. At the local
level, the regional group organized the political and economic activities of
local elites primarily around the personalized exchange of concrete rewards,
with downsides including the increasing loss of the Party’s ideology by the
1980s. At the republican level, the regional groups were reaching equi-
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
librium in a balanced hierarchy of First Secretaries and Chairmen of the
Council of Ministers.
When the Soviet Union was dissolved and the central Politburo’s over-
sight vanished, political competition in independent Ukraine continued to
organize around the contest between regional groups.
3. Establishment of the political-economic clans’ dominance
in independent Ukraine
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian elites found them-
selves in a situation where their Moscow based-supervisors—namely
President Gorbachev, the Union government, the KGB, the CPSU Politburo
and the Central Committee—had lost any control over them. Left alone,
Ukrainian ruling groups in Kyiv were divided into two major blocs, namely
national communists and national democrats.25 e former were in power
in 1990–92, and their strategy was to legitimize their power as rulers of
the newly independent state. eir party, the Communist Party of Ukraine,
was dissolved in September 1991, before even the referendum on indepen-
dence (December 1, 1991) and the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union
(December 25–26, 1991). However, some of the Communist party leaders,
led by Leonid Kravchuk, managed to maintain their control over govern-
ment. When he obtained the post of parliamentary speaker, Kravchuk
abandoned the Party in August 1991. A number of other party bosses did
likewise, exchanging Party positions for formal government or local admin-
istrations’ posts.
e second group, national democrats, was in “constructive opposi-
tion” to the communists: they were eager to cooperate with the national
communists on the creation of an independent state, and stood opposed to
attempts at a re-creation of the Union under another name. eir leaders
originated from both the dissident movement of the Soviet period, and
from the reform communists of the perestroika period. ey promoted the
idea of Ukrainian independence and the construction of a nation-state,
while resisting attempts to create strong post-Union links.
e consensus of these two groups around the idea of independence
made it possible for Leonid Kravchuk to be elected as the first president
of Ukraine in December 1991. However, Kravchuk did not manage to
establish his own lasting rule. Although he managed to transfer from his
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Republic of Clans
Party post to a government position in a timely fashion in 1991 (unlike
his formal Party boss Stanislav Hurenko), he did not have the support of
any regional group. Kravchuk instead ruled as a mediator between national
communists and national democrats in Kyiv, among regional groups
around Ukraine, and between Russia and the West. is mediation role was
too limited to provide him with the ability to sustain his domination of
Ukrainian politics.
As many other former Soviet republics, Ukraine was inventing itself
as a post-communist polity and a modern society in the 1990s. is post-
Soviet society was essentially forced to invent from scratch the funda-
mental institutions governing both private and public spheres, which had
been absent in the Soviet Union until the era of perestoika. ese inven-
tions included political pluralism, new democratic procedures (parliamen-
tarism, elections, local self-governance and so forth), a plurality of eco-
nomic actors, a market economy, entrepreneurship, the rule of law and
many others. Every invention of this period was simultaneously rooted
in Soviet totalitarian and perestroika experiences, pre-Soviet traditions,
Western political and economic models, and experimentation with new
forms of political and economic life.
For the purposes of this study, it is sufficient to mention that the
competition of many different political and economic forms of elites’ self-
organization in this hugely complex situation has led to the victory of
relatively small, highly solidary regional elites’ groups. ese groups first
managed to take control of major industries, later commandeering local
governments, and then, finally, central government. In the absence of
a more or less stable order, the old patronal networks of Soviet regional
groups have gained new life in a socially, politically and economically dis-
organized country with disoriented populations. Even though there were
other forms of elites’ organizations in Ukraine (including ideology-based
parties), the principle of an informal personal union of leaders, all of whom
had common experience of living and cooperating in their region, won out
by the end of the 1990s.
e competitive advantage of regional patronal networks was based on
four key elements:
• stable solidarity within the group, based on personal loyalty to the
leadership hierarchy;
• the safety of its members and their businesses in an era of conflicts
between criminal groups and power abuse by officials from Kyiv;
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
• their support for the growth of assets and power of loyal members
according to their position in the hierarchy of the group;
• informal ties that reduced the price of interactions between political
and economic actors belonging to the same group.
However, the dominant regional political-economic clans’ advantage was
connected with their seamless transfer from the public to the private
sphere in the emerging Ukrainian state. Emerging triumphant from the
local conflicts between criminal groups, mass privatization, and entre-
preneurial competition, the clans’ leaders have been easily converting
their new economic force into political power, initially in local adminis-
trations, and later in central government. is principle of indifference to
the private-public divide was a legacy of Soviet regional groups which were
deeply influential in the formation of the new Ukrainian republic. e so-
called “systemic corruption” of Ukraine was an after-effect of the victory
of regional clans as the major form of elites’ self-organization in Ukraine.
Moreover, the long-term post-Soviet devolution of democracy, as outlined
by Henry Hale,26 was another result of the same victory.
Historically, the victory of regional groups took place over a lengthy
period between 1993 and 1999. In 1993, a political crisis, caused by rivalry
between president Kravchuk and Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, led to
early presidential elections and the appointment of acting prime-minister
Yuchym Zvyahilsky. is latter appointment was the first event showing
the increasing strength of the regional groups.
Zvyahilsky made his career as an engineer and a mine manager. In the
Soviet times, he moved from the third layer of the regional group into the
upper circle of the second group when he became a director of the biggest
Donbas mine, Zasyadko. When the Party monopoly was lifted, he and other
“red directors” came to constitute the core of the regional clan. e transi-
tion of power went smoothly, former party bosses got retired safely, and
those representatives of the second and third layers who were successful in
privatizing local industries or establishing personal control over formally
state-owned enterprises established a new hierarchy. Zvyahilsky’s career is
illustrative of this change: he became a Ukrainian MP in 1990 and 1994, a
head of Donets’k city council in 1992, and vice prime minister and acting
prime minister in 1993.
Conversely, this moment did not yet confirm the triumph of the
regional clans. Half a year later, in 1994, Zvyahilsky was fired, while Leonid
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Republic of Clans
Kravchuk lost the presidential elections to Leonid Kuchma, a representative
of Dnipropetrovs’k regional groups. It is important to note that during the
presidential elections of 1994, candidates supported by parties adopting
Western ideologies, along with perestroika-era political organizations,
failed to advance beyond the first round: five candidates supported by the
Socialist Party, and others affiliated to Rukh, the Republican Party, the
Democratic Party and other perestroika-era groups all gained less than 15%
of voters’ support. In the second round of elections, Kuchma won with 52%
of the vote.
However, it is also important to stress that in 1994, regional groups
were not that united. From interviews with members of Kuchma’s elec-
toral team of 1994, it became clear that the winning candidate was sup-
ported only by part of the Dnipropetrovs’k regional group because of local
rivalries. Kuchma also gained very limited support from the Donets’k and
Kharkiv groups. Kuchma’s victory was likely based on the votes of the Rus-
sophone population, who feared Kravchuk’s alleged “fast Ukrainization.”27
President Kuchma ruled Ukraine for two terms: from 1994–99, and
1999–2004. It was the presidential elections of 1999 that manifested the
hegemony of the regional clans. During his first term, Kuchma once again
played the role of dispatcher between different financial-political groups,
as Kravchuk had. However, Kuchma and his team also promoted the insti-
tutionalization of an oligarchic republic. In June 1996, under pressure
from Kuchma, the Verkhovna Rada approved a new Constitution with
very strong powers for the President. By using constitutional powers, his
informal role of dispatcher between emerging clans, and his own power
interests, Kuchma used both legal and illegal means to be re-elected in 1999
and establish the so-called post-Soviet power vertical—in other words, a
single-pyramid patronal system—in Ukraine.
e “power vertical” system was tested in the 1990s in Lukashenko’s
Belarus and Yeltsin’s Russia. e post-Soviet power vertical was merging
into a single top-down structure incorporating all nominally separate
branches of power and institutions, as well as local institutions of self-gov-
ernment.28
e power vertical was an ideal environment for the development
of clans in Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries. In such a structure,
formal institutions (like the presidency, cabinet of ministers, parliament,
local councils, and courts) function in accord with two parallel codes. Nomi-
nally, they were subject to the formal rule of law. In reality, the power insti-
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
tutions followed the informal rules of the vertical, the adopted political
family. Formal rules could have been violated (though a law-abiding façade
has always been maintained), while the real distribution of power and
wealth was conducted according to a social contract consisting of informal,
unwritten rules. us, the courts served as a tool to legitimize corporate
raiding, not to provide justice for citizens.29 e police tended to function
both as a government-controlled racket and the provider of public security.
e cabinet of ministers managed shadow financial flows in parallel with its
formal role in the executive body.
To fulfill the major macropolitical role of the clans’ coordination and
peaceful coexistence, the Ukrainian political system needed to re-estab-
lish a CPSU-type pyramid with the Politburo and Central Committee at its
summit. e Soviet legacy was reconstituted in the new political culture of
Ukraine as a specific institution, known as the Presidential Administration
(PA). is institution did not function as the Communist Party had within
the nomenklatura, but as the decision making center of the adopted polit-
ical family. In terms of strategic decision- and policymaking, monitoring
the implementation of informal rules, as well as arbitrage in the clans’
conflicts, the Presidential Administration was already functional by 1998.
I have interviewed two employees who worked for Kuchma’s PA from 1994–
99, and both told me that they left their jobs because of a significant change
in the style and functionality of the organization: from its foundation as
a patronage service to the president in 1994–96, by 1997 the PA’s agenda
shifted to permanent arbitrage in semi-criminal conflicts among clans, pro-
viding cover for shadow political and economic deals, and collecting rent
from the clans. Since both interviewees had experience of working in Soviet
power institutions, they have compared the Presidential Administration of
1998–99 as a “perverted version” of the old Central Committee that made
strategic decisions for formal and informal institutions, managed the clans’
balance of interests, and promoted corruption at all levels in Ukraine.
Even though the power vertical is a common model for most post-
Soviet political systems, there are country-related specificities. In Russia,
for example, the functions of the Central Committee were transferred to
the Presidential Administration based on the personal experience of old
and new employees. While this transition was not smooth, it was largely
completed thanks to the adoption of the new super-presidential constitu-
tion of 1993. Since then, major decisions on domestic, international, and
local issues have been made in a largely systematic fashion by the PA.
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Republic of Clans
Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, which was established in 1996–97,
put the Presidential Administration above all other institutions of the
state. Yet Belarus lacked the necessary human capital to fulfill all of the
Central Committee’s functions. ese limitations have forced Lukashenko
to play a lead role in both strategic and tactical decision-making. e CPSU
Central Committee employees were seemingly not involved in the creation
of the Belarusian PA.
As in Belarus and Russia, the Ukrainian Presidential Administra-
tion had developed into the country’s leading institution by 1998–99.30
Ukraine’s Presidential Administration was built in accordance with the
Belarusian model, when Central Committee functionality was accepted
without a transition of Soviet experience to PA officials. However, the
Ukrainian PA has specifically focused on the facilitation of balance among
different regional clans. e Presidential Administration’s dual function,
along with the weakness of the Cabinet of Ministers and the limited power
of parliament, helped Ukraine’s oligarchs develop a form of pluralistic
authoritarianism, a multi-pyramid patronal network based on the balance
of interests among several patronal networks.
is pluralistic authoritarianism was a highly contradictory political
model. It demanded that the president be an impartial broker who balances
the interests of key clans, yet it also allows him to function as the country’s
sole ruler. As such, the model has several built-in weaknesses that limit its
lifespan. For example, it lacks institutional mechanisms that commit the
president to impartiality: the clans’ system of patronalism is applied by
the president himself if/when he creates his own clan and tries to subdue
the others. When such attempts arose from the presidency, the clans used
formal means, such as parliamentary procedure, and informal means, such
as the Maidan protests, to sack the dysfunctional president.
Pluralistic authoritarian systems were fully functional in Ukraine on
two occasions: during the latter period of Kuchma’s first presidency (1998–
99, and during his second term in 1999–2004) and in the years of Viktor
Yanukovych’s presidency (2010–14). In both cases, they disintegrated
almost immediately when the president attempted to promote himself to
a Lukashenko-style position and ceased to be an impartial, honest broker
of the system. Rivalries among key clans then reached a breaking point and
toppled the newly formed power vertical.
e system of pluralist authoritarianism was based on the functioning
of clans that developed between regional groups in the 1990s. Between
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
1993 and 2010 there were two major regional groups that gave birth to
Ukrainian oligarchic clans: namely, the Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk
groups.
e Dnipropetrovs’k group was the first to end up with control
over Kyiv and Ukraine. Leonid Kuchma used his personal ties with
Dnipropetrovs’k elites to find cadres for many positions in government.
Simultaneously, the local leaders used their contacts with the president
to promote their smaller groups’ interests. As a result, there were several
strong clans organized from within this regional network (see Table 6.2).
Here are a selection of them:
Table 6.2. Clans of Dnipropetrovs’k regional group
Clan Period of
activity Poligarch(s) Controlled public posts/
institutions
Kuchma—
Pinchuk
clan
1994 for
Leonid
Kuchma; 1998
for Victor
Pinchuk;
active until
today
Leonid
Kuchma,
Victor
Pinchuk
President (1994–2004), MP
(1998–2006), parliamenta-
ry factions and MP groups,
control over separate min-
istries and general prosecu-
tor’s office (1994–2005);
low-profile clan since 2005,
with control over separate
MPs, deputy-ministers and
vice-general prosecutors
Pavlo
Lazarenko
clan
1995–99 Pavlo
Lazarenko,
Yulia
Tymoshenko
Governor of
Dnipropetrovs’k (1992–
1995), Prime Minister
(1996–7), party and par-
liamentary faction “Hro-
mada” (1997–9); arrested
in USA in 1999, sentenced
to 9 years’ imprisonment
Privat
Group 1992–present Igor
Kolomoyskii,
Gennadii
Bogoliubov
Governor of
Dnipropetrovs’k (2014–
15), separate MPs, parlia-
mentary parties and fac-
tions (from 1998 to today),
deputy heads of National
Bank, managers and Board
members of state-owned
gas and oil companies
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Republic of Clans
To study the Dnipropetrovs’k clans, I conducted 21 interviews with former
and present members of these clans from 2007–16. Based on the data
received from these interviews, as well as information from open sources,31
I can conclude the following.
1. e Dnipropetrovs’k regional group is a common name for many
big and small clan-like patronal organizations. ey emerged in
Dnipropetrovs’k and Kyiv in the mid-1990s, and were often competing
against and attacking each other. To limit the damage from these con-
flicts, the groups addressed president Kuchma to judge on their issues.
Later this function was also used for clan conflicts from other regions.
2.
e Dnipropetrovs’k clans have never been able to create a common
political party to represent them at national level. eir conflicts in
the city were transferred to Kyiv when the emigration of the group’s
leaders began. For example, competition between Igor Kolomoyskyi and
Viktor Pinchuk started back in 1994. e last grand conflict of the same
persons and their corporations was settled by a London court in 2016.
3. e Dnipropetrovs’k clans shared an indifference to political ideologies
and church issues. ey supported equally Ukrainian Orthodox and
Protestant churches, and Ukrainian Jewish communities. For example,
the Privat Group and Viktor Pinchuk were supporting the Jewish com-
munity in Dnipropetrovs’k (or even presiding over it, as in the case
of Gennadii Bogoliubov), but also local Orthodox communities. Laza-
renko’s clan was often cooperating with Baptist and other Protestant
religious groups in Ukraine.
4. By the beginning of 2000, these clans from within have organized as
adopted political families. In terms of the methodology described in
section 1, these clans were informal groups incorporating individual
political and economic leaders and their small groups into a clan loyal
to one or two patrons. In the terminology used by interviewees, words
like “papa” (father), “sam” (he/himself) or similar were respectfully
added to the patrons’ names, and were pronounced with some awe and
respect, resembling the cultural patterns of the patriarchal family.
e major rival of the Dnipropetrovs’k clans, the Donets’k regional group,
has also been a common name for several clans that became visible in
Ukrainian national politics only in 2002–2003. e Donets’k regional group
featured both “old” and “young” clans. e “old” clans were organized by
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
members of the second layer of the Soviet-era group: Yuchym Zvyahilsky,
Volodymyr Boyko, Volodymyr Rybak, and Victor Yanukovych. ese figures
held leading posts in local enterprises during the Soviet period. e most
visible “new” clans were founded by Rinat Akhmetov and Boris Kolesnikov
(for details see Table 6.3).
To study the Donets’k clans, I conducted 37 interviews with former
and present members of these clans from 2009–2016. Based on the data
received from these interviews, as well as information from open sources,32
I can conclude the following.
1. e Donets’k regional group is a common name for many clan-like
patronal organizations, both big and small, that were much more
tightly connected than their Dnipropetrovs’k rivals. ese clans
emerged in Donetsk in the mid-1990s and coalesced around the
figure of Viktor Yanukovych from 1997 onward.
2. In 2001, they (together with some minor clans from Crimea, Vin-
nytsia and other regions) established the Party of Regions. is party
was successful at liaising between established clans and groups of
local elites from southeastern Ukraine. Even though Viktor Yanu-
kovych was rarely the formal head of the party, he was its informal
leader up until his escape to Russia in February 2014.
3. e Donets’k clans shared an ideological framework, incorpo-
rating elements of neo-Soviet nostalgia, support for the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), and support for Rus-
sophones. As a result, they were a gravitational core for Kharkiv,
Crimea, Odessa and other regional groups.
4. By the late 1990s, these clans were already organized as adopted
political families. is is reflected in the terminology used by inter-
viewees, including words like “papa” (father, a respectful name for
Viktor Yanukovych), “aktsioner” (shareholder, a respectful name for
Rinat Akhmetov), and “stariki” (old guys, a respectful reference to old
clans’ masters). In some cases, criminal nicknames33 were also used
for leaders (for instance, “Parus” for Victor Yanukovych).
In addition to these two major regional agglomerates of clans, there were
other smaller groups who organized the local elites of Kharkiv and Lviv
oblasts, the city of Chernivtsi, Podillia (the region consisting of Vinnytsia
and Khmelnytskyi oblasts), and other regions of Ukraine.
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Republic of Clans
Table 6.3. Clans of Donets’k regional group
Clan Period of
activity Poligarch(s) Controlled public posts/institutions
“Old” clans 1991/2—
present,
in varying
forms
Yuchym Zvyahilsky,
Volodymyr Boiko,
Volodymyr Rybak, Mykola
Azarov and some others
Acting Prime Minster, vice prime
ministers, governors, heads of Oblast
Council/City Council, MPs, MP groups,
separate ministers and deputy ministers,
Party of Regions, Tax Administration, etc.
Yanu kovych clan 2003–
2014 Victor Yanukovych,
Alexander Yanukovych
(since 2010)
Governor of Donetsk (1997–2002),
Head of Oblast Council (1999–2001),
Prime Minister (2002–05, 2006–07),
President (2010-14), Party of Regions and
parliamentary factions (2003–14); most
public institutions in 2010–14; in exile
since February 2014
“New” clans 1995–
present Rinat Akhmetov (since
1995), Borys Kolesnikov
(since 1998)
Governors and mayors of Donets’k
(1996–2014), Party of Regions,
Opposition Bloc, separate MPs,
parliamentary factions (1998–present),
deputy heads of National Bank and
general prosecutor, separate ministers
and state-owned companies
Smaller and newer
clans:
Kliuyev brothers, Yuriy
Boiko’s group, “Odessa”
clan, Kharkiv groups,
etc.
1996–
present Andriy Kliuyev (since 2000),
Yuriy Boiko (since 2001),
Sergii Kivalov (since 2002),
Yevhen Kushnaryov (1996–
2007), Mikhail Dobkin
(2006–present)
Judiciary/separate courts, Central
Electoral Commission, separate ministers
and state-owned companies
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
ese clans were also connected with organized crime. e formation
of Ukrainian clans took place in the era of the post-Soviet “criminal revo-
lution.”34 Some of the leaders of this “revolution” turned out to be among
the poligarchs and oligarchs of the clans (among them the twice-convicted
Victor Yanukovych, and Rinat Akhmetov, who is believed to have led crim-
inal groups in Donetsk since 1995). Others remained at the level of secu-
rity providers and chiefs of teams responsible for corporate raiding.35 e
criminal underworld was one of the most important sources of cadres for
Ukrainian clans.
Structurally, these clans evolved tremendously: starting as fairly
straightforward adopted family-like groups, they soon became sophisti-
cated multi-layer organizations.
1. In the initial stage, the clans centered around the key patronal figure
of the “poligarch” (or several partners/poligarchs), central figures
demanding loyalty from all the members of a clan or a group of
clans. ey were surrounded by an inner circle of oligarchs, “adopted
oligarchs” and “surrendered oligarchs” who controlled key plants,
banks, and other economic assets. e next circle (of “stooges” and
political partners) included leaders of dependent political parties,
heads of executive, legislative and judiciary institutions and de jure
state-owned enterprises, and managers of media holdings. A separate
group of associates would be “security providers”: criminal groups
and dependent officers of the secret services and the police. is
structure was strong enough to succeed during privatization, survive
the criminal wars, and successfully conduct (or defend its interests
from) corporate raiding attacks.
2. Around 2000–2002, the major clans started moving from shadow
political and economic activity into a more public posture. ose
economic assets that were legally owned by poligarchs and the inner
oligarchic circle were incorporated; this process produced the largest
Ukrainian corporation of 2000–2014. e same organizational
process was occurring with political assets and client networks. Small
parties were merging into larger, more durable organizations, such
as the Party of Regions or Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna. Client
networks were managed by emerging private and corporate philan-
thropic foundations.36
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Republic of Clans
e Orange Revolution of 2004 has halted the process of creating a unified
authoritarian regime, sustained political pluralism, and reinforced the
strength of the parliament with constitutional changes in 2004–2006,
which created a divided executive branch. However, the Presidential Admin-
istration (which was renamed the Presidential Secretariat during the presi-
dency of Yushchenko, though its functions remained the same) re-emerged
in 2006–2007 as an important part of the political system. Strong presiden-
tial rule was re-established in 2010 by decision of the Constitutional Court,
giving new impetus to the attempts of creating a single-pyramid system, a
“mafia state.”
In essence, between 1993 and 2014 Ukraine has gone through
numerous attempts to transform a regime dominated by a multi-pyramid
network system (patronal democracy) into a single-pyramid patronal
system (“mafia state”). Two Maidan protests (the Orange Revolution of
2004 and the Euromaidan of 2013–14) provided the Ukrainian citizenry
with chances to break the government’s dependency on clans organized
around one dominant patronal network. Both times the protests led to the
establishment of a mixed parliamentary-presidential system, political and
ideological pluralism, the decline of the prior presidential administration,
and a reduced role for clans in public politics.
e protests’ impact on the establishment of a mafia state can be seen
from recent developments in Ukraine. Between December 2013 and March
2014, Yanukovych’s attempt to stabilize a mafia state and its power vertical
collapsed.
e first stimulus of the collapse was the police’s heavy-handed
response to youth protests in late November 2013, which encouraged mass
demonstrations the following month. e Euromaidan protesters took over
several administrative buildings in Kyiv and the surrounding regions, and
by the end of December, the Yanukovych family had lost control of parts of
Ukraine’s territory.
e second decisive moment was on January 16, 2014, when a group
of pro-Yanukovych MPs, who did not actually have a majority in the Rada
at the time, voted for a package of dictatorial laws. e suddenness of their
imposition in Ukraine radicalized the protest movement and led to the first
deaths in the streets of Kyiv. Some clans from the ruling party turned on
Yanukovych in the hope that they could benefit from any change in regime.
Many officials abandoned their prior loyalty to the president, covertly
switched sides, and sabotaged their patron’s orders.
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
e third crack to the regime came on February 19–21, 2014, when
clashes between police and protesters resulted in mass bloodshed. Viktor
Yanukovych and his family fled Kyiv for Russia. By that time, most clans
subordinated to the Yanukovych family were looking for opportunities
to survive the revolution, while retaining their assets and power. As the
clans knew from the post-Orange Revolution period, the new leaders
would look for support for their emerging regime from all powerful indi-
viduals and groups. As such, by the end of the Euromaidan most influen-
tial clans distanced themselves from the Family and started looking for
new possibilities, leaving the short-lived Yanukovych mafia state and its
power vertical to fall.
With the power vertical shattered, bold steps were taken toward dem-
ocratic renewal. e new leaders restored the constitution of 2004, which
mandated a parliamentary-presidential system, and returned some of the
political liberties that the Yanukovych regime had erased. However, the
slow pace of reforms, the rise of both old and new clans, and the impact of
the Donbas war often seemed to suggest the probability of new mafia state
development, when a dominant patronal network tries to force its competi-
tors into surrender.37 Furthermore, there is a growing body of evidence sug-
gesting that the Euromaidan and the Donbas war forced the clans to adapt
and evolve into groups with a new structure.
It is important to stress that the Euromaidan events had a mixed impact
on clans. On one hand, the Donets’k clans have lost their power. On the
other hand, many other clans have attempted to increase their own wealth
and power. For example, the Privat Group (a surviving remnant of the
Dnipropetrovs’k group) has had tremendous success in 2014 and the begin-
ning of 2015. One of its poligarchs, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, supported the revolu-
tionary government in the fight against separatists in Donbas and Russian
occupants in Crimea. In return for his loyalty, he was appointed governor of
Dnipropetrovs’k. His clan’s informal control stretched to Odessa, Kherson,
Zaporizhia, Donets’k and Kirovograd oblasts. Furthermore, the Privat Group
was creative in its evolution. To survive and prosper in post-Euromaidan
Ukraine, the clan has developed new structures, including several volunteer
battalions (which fought separatists but also provided military support to
the clan’s economic and political interests), several NGOs (supporting bat-
talions with money and other resources), and several new extreme right
political parties. However, the growth of this clan ceased due to conflict with
president Poroshenko and his own emerging clan.
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Republic of Clans
Today, Ukraine is a battleground in the struggle between clans and
formal political institutions. e reforms of 2014–15 aimed to support the
institutional development of the government, parliament, judiciary, local
communities and political parties. In 2016, the danger of a return of the
republic of clans emerged. Will Ukraine decisively break with the clan state?
It is too early to come up with a definitive answer.
Conclusions
In spite of revolutionary attempts at democratic state building, contem-
porary Ukraine continues to function as a “republic of clans.” As I dem-
onstrated in sections 2 and 3, clans and their informal structures have
emerged as key political subjects within independent Ukraine. e Ukrai-
nian political and socio-economic system was constructed in such a way
that it afforded clans an opportunity to develop their patronal networks
and pyramids while controlling vast public and private industries, and yet
limited possibilities for one clan monopoly. e balance of Ukrainian plu-
ralist authoritarianism was guaranteed by the president and Presidential
Administration, as well as by a partially free parliament. Even though each
clan had its own authoritarian agenda, the political system of pluralist
authoritarianism resulted in three distinctive characteristics, which I will
list here.
Firstly, pluralist authoritarianism produced a decay in democratic stan-
dards, but with some considerable level of pluralism in media and politics.
e oscillation of Ukraine’s political development, about which Henry Hale
wrote, has repeatedly centered upon equilibrium of the “clan state” stage,
with short periods of freedom (within the framework of the “patronal
state” before 1998, and in 2005–2008) and aborted attempts to erect a
“mafia state” (2001–2004, 2012–13).
Secondly, the authoritarian rule of the “mafia state” has thus far been
confined to short periods. In the moments of single-clan supremacy and
attempts of “power vertical” establishment, the regime was usually making
a huge number of critical mistakes, consolidating the dissatisfaction of cli-
ents-citizens and failing to fully subdue the clans. In both the cases of 2004
and 2013–14, the Ukrainian political system led to the establishment of a
parliamentary-presidential rule that limited the power of the president and
his clan-dispatching role for some time.
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MIKHAIL MINAKOV
irdly, the “clan state” repeatedly re-emerged after authoritarian
attempts and revolutionary protests. All major political institutions can
effectively function only as agencies with formal façades and informal
agendas. But because of the persistent survival of competing patronal net-
works, these revolutions—in spite of their democratic agenda—do not
result in the birth of liberal democracy, but only of patronal democracy.
I have also shown that Soviet Ukrainian elites’ experience was consti-
tutive for the formation of regional clans and the construction of a post-
Soviet political system. e role of CPSU leaders and the Central Committee
was taken by presidents and the Presidential Administration, respectively.
Up until 2013, the regional groups dominant in Soviet times remained
the strongest among other clans’ agglomerates. e destruction of Soviet
state property and the Communist administrative system, the rapid impov-
erishment of the vast majority of the population, and the privatization of
Soviet industry provided a politico-economic basis for the emergence of
the republic of clans. Moreover, I did not find any proof of Henry Hale’s
hypothesis that patronal networks apply also to pre-Soviet political culture;
this may be a Ukrainian specificity.
By merging Hale’s “patronal networks” model and Magyar’s “clan
state” model, I gained the possibility to describe the evolution of clans
in both macro- and micro-political contexts. e Ukrainian clans evolved
from the Soviet nomenklatura’s regional groups into smaller but more
stable adopted political families, which with time developed more formal
structures with political parties, corporations, media holdings and philan-
thropic foundations, and adapted to the socio-political changes after the
Maidan.
I also presented some evidence that the ideological indifference of
patronal networks, about which Henry Hale wrote, was present only in the
case of the Dnipropetrovs’k clans. Donets’k clans, rather, were attached
to a sort of nostalgic neo-Sovietism and clericalism. e same ideological
markers are associated with the identities of smaller clans from Central and
Western Ukraine. As su ch, the notable role of i deolog y in determining iden-
tity within patronal networks may need to be re-examined.
As the above facts and deliberations show, the Ukrainian political
system is premised largely on the gap between formal and informal power
institutions and practices. e distance between formal and informal power
institutions can be neither minimal, as in states with strong rule of law and
open access order, nor maximal, as in stages of the “mafia state” when this
Stubborn Structures 00 könyv.indb 242 2018.10.11. 10:42
243
Republic of Clans
gap was so big that it destroyed the legitimacy of the regime. e republic
of clans is designed to facilitate competition and cooperation of clans, while
limiting access to resources for all alternative forms of elites’ and counter-
elites’ organization.
NOTES
1 Henry E. Hale, “Democracy or autocracy on the march? e colored revolutions
as normal dynamics of patronal presidentialism,” Communist and Post-Commu-
nist Studies 39, no. 3 (2006): 305–29; Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime
Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (Washington, DC: George Washington Uni-
versity, 2014); Hale, “25 Years after the USSR: What’s Gone Wrong?” Journal of
Democracy 27, no. 3 (2016): 24–35.
2 Hale, Patronal Politics, 9–10.
3 Hale, “25 Years after the USSR,” 28.
4 Hale, Patronal Politics, 10ff.
5 Hale, “25 Years after the USSR.”
6 Ibid., 26.
7 Ibid., 28–29.
8 Bálint Magyar, Post-Communist Mafia State: e Case of Hungary (Budapest–New
York: Central European University Press and Noran Libro, 2015.
9 Ibid., 9.
10 Ibid., 51.
11 Ibid., 54ff.
12 Ibid., 2015, 50.
13 For more on the Soviet roots of Ukrainian elites, see Mikhail Minakov, Develop-
ment and Dystopia: Studies in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Eastern Europe (Stuttgart:
ibidem, 2018).
14 For an in-depth analysis of Soviet nomenklatura, see Mervin Matthews, Privi-
lege in the Soviet Union: A Study of Elite Life-Styles under Communism (New York:
Routledge, 2011).
15 Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime: 1919–1924 (Boxton: Vintage,
1995).
16 Paul R. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2010),
684–85.
17 Mark Harrison, “e Soviet Union after 1945: Economic Recovery and Political
Repression,” 2. Last modified April 14, 2010, https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/
soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/pp2011postprint.pdf.
18 David Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and Restoration of the
Stalinist System after World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), 28ff.
19 Eric Duskin, Stalinist Reconstruction and the Confirmation of a New Elite, 1945–
1953 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 3.
Stubborn Structures 00 könyv.indb 243 2018.10.11. 10:42
244
MIKHAIL MINAKOV
20 In 2009–11, I made interviews with three persons who worked at middle-level
posts in Kharkiv oblast Communist Party office and two persons who worked at
leading levels in Kharkiv city Komsomol office between 1968 and 1991.
21 In 2011–12, I made interviews with two persons who worked at high-level and
two persons who worked at low-level posts in Donets’k oblast Communist Party
office between 1961 and 1991.
22 A Soviet term for people working as chief constructors, senior engineers and
professionals alike.
23 In 2008–2009, I made interviews with three persons who worked at high and
middle-level posts in Dnipropetrovs’k Communist Party and Komsomol offices
between 1975 and 1991.
24 For the role of local elites in Soviet Union, see Sue Bridger and Frances Pine,
eds. Surviving Post-Socialism: Local Strategies and Regional Responses in Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union (New York: Routledge, 1998); Kimitaka Mat-
suzato, “Local Elites under Transition: County and City Politics in Russia 1985–
1996,” Europe-Asia Studies 51, no. 8 (1999): 1367–1400; Matthews, Privilege in
the Soviet Union; Peter Rutland, e Politics of Economic Stagnation in e Soviet
Union: e Role of Local Party Organs in Economic Management (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1993).
25 Georgii Kasianov, Ukraina 1991–2007: Ocherki noveishei istorii (Kyiv: Nash Chas,
2008).
26 Hale, “25 Years after the USSR.”
27 For details, please see Alex Kireev, “Ukraine. Presidential Election 1994.” Elec-
toral Geography 2.0, accessed July 30, 2017, https://www.electoralgeography.
com/new/en/countries/u/ukraine/ukraine-presidential-election-1994.html.
28 Andrew Monaghan, “e Vertikal: Power and Authority in Russia,” International
Affairs 88, no. 1 (2012): 1–16; Vladimir Gel’man and Sergei Ryzhenkov, “Local
Regimes, Sub-national Governance and the ‘Power Vertical’ in Contemporary
Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies 63, no. 3 (2011): 449–65.
29 See Matthew Rojansky, “Corporate Raiding in Ukraine: Prevention, Defense,
and Policy Reform,” Review of Central and East European Law 39, nos. 3–4 (2014):
245–89.
30 See results of the Ukrainian experts’ poll conducted by journalists of “Mirror
Weekly” (Rating of influence, Zerkalo nedeli, October 7–14, 1999).
31 For more information on the Dnipropetrovs’k clans, see Viatcheslav Aviout-
skii, “The Consolidation of Ukrainian Business Clans,” Revue Internationale
d’Intelligence Economique 2 (2010): 119–41; Sławomir Matuszak, e Oligarchic
Democracy: e Influence of Business Groups on Ukrainian Politics (Warsaw: Centre
for Eastern Studies, 2012); Svitlana Konochuk and Viacheslav Pikhovshek, Dni-
propetrovska Simia – 2 [e Dniprpetrovs’k family] (Kyiv: Pravo, 1997).
32 For more information on the Donets’k clans, see Hans Van Zon, “Is the Donetsk
Model Sustainable?” Geographia Polonica 78, no. 2 (2007): 70–82; Van Zon, “e
Rise of Conglomerates in Ukraine: e Donetsk Case,” in Big Business and Eco-
nomic Development, ed. Alex E. Fernández Jilberto and Barbara Hogenboom
(Basingstoke: Routledge, 2007), 378–97; Avioutskii, “The Consolidation of
Stubborn Structures 00 könyv.indb 244 2018.10.11. 10:42
245
Republic of Clans
Ukrainian”; Matuszak, e Oligarchic Democracy; Sergei Kuzin, Donetskaia mafia:
Antologia [e Donets’k mafia: Antology] (Kyiv: Poligrafkniga, 2006).
33 Criminal nicknames are important part of specific post-Soviet political and busi-
ness sub-cultures as they indicate certain level of importance of a person in the
criminal hierarchy and his/her specific personal qualities. ey are also often
used in non-public conversations of politicians and businesspeople, as well as by
the press when writing about the politicians in question.
34 For more on the post-Soviet criminal revolution, see Alexander Kupatadze,
Organized Crime, Political Transitions and State Formation in Post-Soviet Eurasia
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
35 Kuzin, Donetskaia mafia, 17ff; Kupatadze, Organized Crime, 90ff.
36 By 2006, over sixty poligarchs and oligarchs had their own registered philan-
thropic foundations. ey all were visible participants of Victor Yushchenko’s
philanthropic initiatives, such as the restoration of Baturyn castle or the “Zihriy
lyubovyu dytynu” programme (“Warm a child with love” program, aiming to
support families with ten or more children).
37 e possibility of new construction of the mafia state is proved by facts dis-
cussed in Balázs Jarábik and Mikhail Minakov, “Ukrainian Hybrid State.” Carn-
egie Endowment for International Peace, last modified April 22, 2016, http://
carnegieendowment.org/2016/04/22/ukraine-s-hybrid-state-pub-63417; Sergii
Leshchenko, “Poroshenko creates his own ‘family’ clan.” Kyiv Post, July 24,
2016, http://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/sergii-leshchenko-weve-
returned-to-the-family-poroshenko-creates-his-clan-419429.html; Mikhail
Minakov, “A Decisive Turn? Risks for Ukrainian Democracy after the Euro-
maidan,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, last modified February
3, 2016, http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/02/03/decisive-turn-risks-for-
ukrainian-democracy-after-euromaidan-pub-62641.
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