Word: apparatchik
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Born to peasants in western Ukraine, he earned the equivalent of a master's degree in political economy at Kiev University, then embarked on a career as a party apparatchik, rising to head the propaganda department of the Ukrainian Communist Party. Authoritarian by nature, he has the acumen necessary to secure a powerful position alongside Yeltsin. To those who question his sincerity, Kravchuk responds, "A man cannot keep the same views all his life." All people undergo changes, he argues. His just happened to come all at once...
...three, only Shushkevich was not a professional party apparatchik. The son of a poet, he won a doctorate in physics and math, then served as deputy rector for science at Lenin State University in Minsk. He was long a party member, but did not turn to politics until after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when he joined a campaign to expose official attempts to cover up the damage. His reputation as an outspoken critic earned him a seat in 1990 in the Belorussian supreme soviet, where he was elected chairman last September...
...could afford such a housecleaning because it has skilled noncommunists from the former West Germany to fill critical jobs. But other East European nations need the expertise of old bureaucrats and so are more tolerant of past party ties. In 1989 Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel appointed Josef Tosovsky, an apparatchik whose star rose under communist rule, to be president of his country's state bank. Other ex-functionaries have found comfortable posts outside the power structure. Jerzy Urban, who ran Polish state television during the last days of the communist regime, now edits a satirical magazine that mocks postcommunist politicians...
...Monday, TASS, the Soviet news agency, reported falsely that Gorbachev was ill and had yielded his powers temporarily to Yanayev. An hour later, TASS announced the formation of the eight-member State Committee for the State of Emergency, ostensibly headed by Yanayev. Actually, this gray and ineffectual apparatchik was only a figurehead; the real power probably was held by Kryuchkov, Pugo and Yazov, plus possibly lesser-known figures. Some of Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin's aides later fingered Baklanov as the chief plotter. The committee announced that it would rule by decree for six months, and began setting...
Smith is much stronger as a raconteur, depicting the grief of a widow in Nagorno-Karabakh whose son was axed in half by marauding Azerbaijanis, or the fear of a Ukrainian farmer whose state subsidies are in doubt, or the shock of a lifetime apparatchik who faces opposition for the first time in his political career for his seat in the Soviet Parliament...