Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao Torigian Joseph
How succession in authoritarian regimes was less a competition of visions for the future and more a settling of scoresThe political successions in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao,…
Specifikacia Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao Torigian Joseph
How succession in authoritarian regimes was less a competition of visions for the future and more a settling of scoresThe political successions in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao, respectively, are often explained as triumphs of inner-party democracy, leading to a victory of "reformers" over "conservatives" or "radicals." In traditional thinking, Leninist institutions provide competitors a mechanism for debating policy and making promises, stipulate rules for leadership selection, and prevent the military and secret police from playing a coercive role. Here, Joseph Torigian argues that the post-cult of personality power struggles in history's two greatest Leninist regimes were instead shaped by the politics of personal prestige, historical antagonisms, backhanded political maneuvering, and substantial violence. Mining newly discovered material from Russia