In Stalin's day, a disgraced party official received a show trial and a bullet in the head. In more recent times, Kremlin power brokers who fell from grace languished in obscure retirement. But last week Boris Yeltsin, who had lost his job as head of the Moscow Communist Party in spectacular fashion only seven days earlier, was appointed first deputy chairman of the State Committee for Construction, a government position that carries ministerial rank. While that represents a demotion, Kremlin watchers could not recall any previous Soviet official's being vilified and sacked from a top job, then re-emerging so quickly in...
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