The Dynamics of Soviet Politics / / ed. by Robert V. Daniels, Paul Cocks, Nancy Whittier Heer.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Complete eBook Package
• MitwirkendeR: BRZEZINSKI, ZBIGNIEW,; CARLISLE, DONALD S.,; COCKS, PAUL,; DANIELS, ROBERT V.,; DONALDSON, ROBERT H.,; HODGSON, JOHN H.,; HOUGH, JERRY F.,; MARANTZ, PAUL,; MASSELL, GREGORY J.,; MILLER, ROBERT F.,; MILLS, RICHARD M.,; MOULY, RUTH W.,; RAKOWSKAHARMSTONE, TERESA,; SPECHLER, DINA,; ULAM, ADAM B.,; WARSHOFSKY LAPIDUS, GAIL,; WHITTIER HEER, NANCY,
• HerausgeberIn: Cocks, Paul,; Daniels, Robert V.,; Heer, Nancy Whittier,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1976
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Russian Research Center Studies ; 76
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (427 p.)

The Dynamics of Soviet Politics is the result of reflective and thorough research into the centers of a system whose inner debates are not open to public discussion and review, a system which tolerates no public opposition parties, no prying congressional committees, and no investigative journalists to ferret out secrets. The expert authors offer an inside view of the workings of this closed system a view rarely found elsewhere in discussions of Soviet affairs. Their work, building as it does on the achievements of Soviet studies over the last thirty years, is firmly rooted in established knowledge and covers sufficient new ground to enable future studies of Soviet politics and social practices to move ahead unencumbered by stereotypes, sensationalism, or mystification. Among the subjects included are: attitudes toward leadership and a general discussion of the uses of political history; the dramatic cycles of officially permitted dissent; the legitimacy of leadership within a system that has no constitutional provision for succession; the gradual adoption of Western-inspired administrative procedures and "systems management"; a study of group competition, and bureaucratic bargaining; Khrushchev's virgin-lands experiment and its subsequent retrenchment; the apolitical values of adolescents; the problems of integrating Central Asia into the Soviet system; a history of peaceful coexistence and its current importance in Soviet foreign policy priorities, and, finally, an overview of Soviet government as an extension of prerevolutionary oligarchy, with an emphasis on adaptation to political change.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- PART ONE. Problems and Perspectives -- 1. Do We Know All There Is to Know about the USSR? -- PART TWO. Political Leadership and Power -- 2. Political Leadership in Soviet Historiography: Cult or Collective? -- 3. Permitted Dissent in the Decade after Stalin: Criticism and Protest in Novy mir, 1953-1964 -- 4. Toward a Theory of Soviet Leadership Maintenance -- 5. Office Holding and Elite Status: The Central Committee of the CPSU -- 6. The Problem of Succession -- 7. Party "Saturation" in the Soviet Union -- PART THREE. The Policy Process: Administration and Control -- 8. The Scientific-Technical Revolution and the Soviet Administrative Debate -- 9. The Policy Process and Bureaucratic Politics -- 10. The Virgin Lands since Khrushchev: Choices and Decisions in Soviet Policy Making -- PART FOUR. Political Development and Social Change -- 11. Socialism and Modernity: Education, Industrialization, and Social Change in the USSR -- 12. Values and Aspirations of Soviet Youth -- Modernization, Generations, and the Uzbek Soviet Intelligentsia -- 14. Modernization and National Policy in Soviet Central Asia: Problems and Prospects -- PART FIVE. Continuity and Change in Foreign Policy -- 15. Peaceful Coexistence: From Heresy to Orthodoxy -- 16. Global Power Relationships in the Seventies: The View from the Kremlin -- PART SIX. Some Reflections -- 17. Soviet Politics: From the Future to the Past? -- Notes -- Contributors -- Index -- RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER STUDIES