Commissars, Commanders, and Civilian Authority : : The Structure of Soviet Military Politics / / Timothy J. Colton.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Complete eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Colton, Timothy J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1979
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Russian Research Center Studies ; 79
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (365 p.) :; illustrated
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Introduction --; Part One. The Military Party Organs --; 1 The Structure of the Military Party Organs --; 2 The Roles of the Military Party Organs --; 3 The Military Party Organs in Military Administration --; 4 The Monitoring Capability of the Military Party Organs --; Part Two. The Military Party Organs and Military Politics --; 5 Routine Administrative Politics --; 6 The Great Purge --; 7 World War II Decision Making --; 8 The Zhukov Affair --; 9 Public Demand Articulations --; Part Three. Army-Party Relations Reassessed --; 10 The Army in Soviet Politics: Capabilities and Participation --; 11 Explaining the Army's Political Quiescence --; 12 Civil-Military Relations and Soviet Development --; Appendixes, Notes, Index --; Appendix A Biographical Data on Soviet Military Officers --; Appendix Β A Note on Primary Sources --; Notes --; Index --; Russian Research Center Studies
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780674497443; 9783110353488; 9783110353563; 9783110442212
• DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674497443
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Timothy J. Colton.

For six decade the Soviet system has been immune to military rebellion and takeover, which often characterizes modernizing countries. How can we explain the stability of Soviet military politics, asks Timothy Colton in his compelling interpretation of civil-military relations in the Soviet Union. Hitherto most western scholars have posited a basic dichotomy of interests between the Soviet army and the Communist party. They view the two institutions as conflictprone, with civilian supremacy depending primarily upon the party's control of officers through its organs within the military establishment. Colton challenges this thesis and argues that the military party organs have come to possess few of the attributes of an effective controlling device, and that the commissars and their heirs have operated as allies rather than adversaries of the military commanders. In explaining the extraordinary stability in army-party relations in terms of overlapping interests rather than controlling mechanisms, Colton offers a major case study and a new model to students of comparative military politics.