European University Institute Library

Practicing Stalinism, Bolsheviks, boyars, and the persistence of tradition, J. Arch Getty

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

Practicing Stalinism

bibliography

827198374

J. Arch Getty

Bolsheviks, boyars, and the persistence of tradition

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 1930s. 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

The old and the new -- Cults and personalities, politics and bodies -- The party personnel system: upstairs at the Central Committee -- The party personnel system: downstairs at the Central Committee -- Principled and personal conflicts -- Stalin and the clans I: the "King's men" -- Stalin and the clans II: who can vote? who can shoot? -- Stalin and the clans III: the last stand of the clans -- Epilogue. The new and the old