1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910452654303321

Autore

Getty J. Arch (John Arch), <1950->

Titolo

Practicing Stalinism [[electronic resource] ] : Bolsheviks, boyars, and the persistence of tradition / / J. Arch Getty

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven, : Yale University Press, 2013

ISBN

0-300-19885-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (380 p.)

Disciplina

324.247/07509041

Soggetti

Politics, Practical - Soviet Union

Politics, Practical - Social aspects - Soviet Union

Electronic books.

Soviet Union Politics and government 1917-1936

Soviet Union Politics and government 1936-1953

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Soviet Organizational Acronyms and Abbreviations -- Note on Transliteration and Party/Government Terms -- Introduction -- 1. The Old and the New -- 2. Cults and Personalities, Politics and Bodies -- 3. The Party Personnel System: Upstairs at the Central Committee -- 4. The Party Personnel System: Downstairs at the Central Committee -- 5. Principled and Personal Conflicts -- 6. Stalin and the Clans I: The "King's Men" -- 7. Stalin and the Clans II: Who Can Vote? Who Can Shoot? -- 8. Stalin and the Clans III: The Last Stand of the Clans -- Epilogue. The New and the Old -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In old Russia, patron/client relations, "clan" politics, and a variety of other informal practices spanned the centuries. Government was understood to be patrimonial and personal rather than legal, and office holding was far less important than proximity to patrons. Working from heretofore unused documents from the Communist archives, J. Arch Getty shows how these political practices and traditions from old Russia have persisted throughout the twentieth-century Soviet Union and down to the present day. Getty examines a number of case studies of political practices in the Stalin era and after. These include cults of



personality, the transformation of Old Bolsheviks into noble grandees, the Communist Party's personnel selection system, and the rise of political clans ("family circles") after the 1917 Revolutions. Stalin's conflicts with these clans, and his eventual destruction of them, were key elements of the Great Purges of the 1930's. But although Stalin could destroy the competing clans, he could not destroy the historically embedded patron-client relationship, as a final chapter on political practice under Putin shows.