ABSTRACT
A mid-level academic and a middle-rank army officer without prior governmental experience, the two entered political life in 1989, attempting to win seats in the Soviet parliament, and gained elite status by getting elected to the Russian legislature in 1990. In no other communist country was the collapse of the regime followed by so intense, prolonged, and ultimately violent a conflict within the "regime founding coalition" as in Russia. At its heart was a bitter power struggle involving Boris Yeltsin, on the one hand, and Ruslan Khasbulatov and Aleksandr Rutskoi, on the other. In social background and early career, Khasbulatov and Rutskoi were typical of many coming members of the new Russian political elite. Ruslan Khasbulatov was born in 1942 in Groznyi, Chechnia, the son of a deputy director of the local metallurgical plant. Khasbulatov's political ambitions first appeared during his student years. From 1965 to 1967, he was a secretary of the Komsomol committee of Moscow State University.
