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An essential exploration of how authoritarian regimes operate at
the local level How do local leaders govern in a large
dictatorship? What resources do they draw on? Yoram Gorlizki and
Oleg Khlevniuk examine these questions by looking at one of the
most important authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century.
Starting in the early years after the Second World War and taking
the story through to the 1970s, they chart the strategies of Soviet
regional leaders, paying particular attention to the forging and
evolution of local trust networks.
Following his country's victory over Nazi Germany, Joseph Stalin
was widely hailed as a great wartime leader and international
statesman. Unchallenged on the domestic front, he headed one of the
most powerful nations in the world. Yet, in the period from the end
of World War II until his death, Stalin remained a man possessed by
his fears. In order to reinforce his despotic rule in the face of
old age and uncertain health, he habitually humiliated and
terrorized members of his inner circle. He had their telephones
bugged and even forced his deputy, Viacheslav Molotov, to betray
his own spouse as a token of his allegiance.
Often dismissed as paranoid and irrational, Stalin's behavior
followed a clear political logic, contend Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg
Khlevniuk. Stalin's consistent and overriding goal after the war
was to consolidate the Soviet Union's status as a superpower and,
in the face of growing decrepitude, to maintain his own hold as
leader of that power. To that end, he fashioned a system of
leadership that was at once patrimonial-repressive and quite
modern. While maintaining informal relations based on personal
loyalty at the apex of the system, in the postwar period Stalin
also vested authority in committees, elevated younger specialists,
and initiated key institutional innovations with lasting
consequences.
Close scrutiny of Stalin's relationships with his most intimate
colleagues also shows how, in the teeth of periodic persecution,
Stalin's deputies cultivated informal norms and mutual
understandings which provided the foundations for collective rule
after his death. Based on newly released archival documents,
including personal correspondence, drafts of CentralCommittee
paperwork, new memoirs, and interviews with former functionaries
and the families of Politburo members, this book will appeal to all
those interested in Soviet history, political history, and the
lives of dictators.
Cold Peace was a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2005.
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