ABSTRACT
For cadres drawn from the indigenous nationalities, the coinciding ethnic, economic, and administrative-territorial cleavages that divide the minority nationality territories in the periphery from the Russian political center of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) are likely to lend both additional strength and an ethnic dimension to the representation of local interests. The impact of ethnicity on behavior, and especially attitudes toward internationality relations, might be susceptible to management through social and economic policies among the so-called "eastern" nationalities. One of the most important sources of irregular elite behavior is structural—the conflicting political demands placed upon those who occupy elite roles. In the post-Stalin period, and especially during Brezhnev's tenure as general secretary, increasing numbers of minority elite cadres achieved membership in key leadership groups in the USSR's ethnonational territories and in central decision-making organs. The promotion of minority elites to positions in the central leadership could be expected to complicate an already difficult task.
