THE D

URABILITY

OF

REVOLUTI

ONARY

REGIMES: T

HE CASE O

F

THE U

SSR

L UC

AN

WA

Y,

UN

I VE

RS

I TY

OF T

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WHAT EXPLAINS AUTHORITARIAN DURABILITY?

Revolutionary Regimes among the most durable forms of authoritarianism in the modern era

Average tenure of Revolutionary Regimes since 1900: 31 years

Average tenure of non-Revolutionary Regimes since 1900: 16 years

REVOLUTIONARY DURABILITY IN THE FACE OF SEVERE CRISIS

Large scale famine (USSR, China, N Korea)

Severe economic downturn (Zimbabwe in the 2000s. Cuba in the 1990s)

Severe external pressure (Russia after 1917; Cuba, Iran, Vietnam)

REVOLUTIONARY REGIME

Authoritarian regimes that emerge out of sustained, ideological, and violent struggle from below, and whose establishment is accompanied by mass mobilization and significant efforts to transform state structures and the existing social order.

REVOLUTIONARY REGIMES SINCE 1900

REVOLUTIONARY REGIMES

Classic Social Revolutions:China, Cuba, Iran, Mexico, Russia

Radical national liberation struggles:Angola, Mozambique, Vietnam, Zimbabwe

A THEORY OF REVOLUTIONARY DURABILITY

COHESIVE PARTY

Blood + Ideas = UnityArmed struggle creates

“military ethos”Ideological Polarization

creates “us and them” ethosDefection = treasonFear of counter-revolution

STRONG AND LOYAL OF ARMY

Coups greatest threat to authoritarian regimes

Creation of new armed services from scratch ties security services to ruling party fewer coups

DESTRUCTION OF ALTERNATIVES

Not just institutions but societal context

War facilitates destruction of alternative power centers:old army, church, other parties

Increased room for error

THE USSR:A DURABLE AUTHORITARIAN

REGIME

• 74 years• Multiple and severe crises:• Early death of founding leader (1922-

24)• Famines 1921, 1932-3• War with Germany• Cold War

USSR AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY-STATE

Invention of the authoritarian party state:

Samuel Huntington:

CPSU the “ultimate organizational weapon and the chief Bolshevik contribution to modern politics.”

What is to be Done? (1902)

• Revolution to be created by small, disciplined, vanguard party

LENIN AND SOVIET DURABILITY

• Party racked by indiscipline before 1917

• Focus on intellectual debate

• Obedience to Lenin “the exception rather than the rule”• Local autonomy of

party cells

BUT: BOLSHEVIKS NOT “LENINIST” BEFORE 1917

MY THEORY:ORIGINS OF SOVIET

DURABILITYBolshevik radicalismpolarization and

civil war

• Extremely Disciplined Party• Powerful and Loyal Security Services• Destruction of alternative centers of

power

BOLSHEVIK RADICALISM

• Break with Mensheviks in 1903• Immediate seizure of power by

Socialist Parties• Nationalization of land, end of

private property• Acceptance/Embrace of Red

Terror

BOLSHEVIK RADICALISM AND CIVIL WAR

October Revolution creates challenge to domestic and world capitalist order

Domestic: Old army/bureaucracy, land owning class

International: Russia “a Socialist oasis on the middle of the raging imperialist sea.”

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY DISCIPLINE

Civil war “formative education” for the party leadership; almost all top leaders until the 1950s active in civil war

(1) life and death struggle convinces local party officials to seek greater subordination to the center;

(2) the infusion of new tougher cadres: “leather jacketed thugs”

CIVIL WAR AND THE SECURITY SERVICES

• Initially – standing army not envisioned in Socialist state•Cheka (KGB) a product of “hasty innovation”

• Brutality of civil war + Marxist class war Normalization of extreme brutality

• Cheka fused with party• Lenin: “A good Communist is also a

good Chekist”• Cheka high esprit de corp

CIVIL WAR AND DESTRUCTION OF ALTERNATIVES

• Old Army•After war: coopted, dead or in exile•Monarchy/landowners•Other sociailst parties (SRs, Mensheviks)•Motivates destruction of SRs, Mensheviks

Polarization self limiting of Menshevik/SR opposition

POSTWAR SOVIET STATE

• Miraculous victory• Small party in 1917 world’s first Socialist

state• Isolated Internationally• International pariahWar scare

• Isolated from rest of population• Kronstadt rebellion 1921

USSR AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

• Limited economic transformation

• No Central Planning

• “real” social revolution 1929?

CORE ELEMENTS OF SOVIET SYSTEM

THE PARTY•Quasi-religious conception of party discipline – ban on factions 1921•First mover advantage and succession struggle•Leather jacketed thugs

 

CORE ELEMENTS OF SOVIET SYSTEM

THE KGB

• Effective: Cheka a “vast and effective apparatus”

• Brutal: names of Cheka change but prerogatives and power the same• Stomach for violence against political

enemies• Loyal: strong ties to party• No coup attempt until 1991

 

CORE ELEMENTS OF SOVIET SYSTEM

NO RIVALS

• No serious organized opposition• Anti Soviet forces “exhausted and

prostrate or pulverized”

Room for error by regime

 

DURABILITY IN FACE OF CRISIS

• Party discipline and succession crisis 1922-1924

Trotsky: “My party right or wrong .. I know one cannot be right against the party ... for history has not created other ways for the realization of what is right”

Others support Stalin for fear of counter-revolution

• Famine 1921, 1932-33• WWII

CONCLUSION

• Not leadership

• Ideas and Violence and durability