Stalinism and Executive Power: Formal and Informal Contours of Stalinism

Abstract

One of the key characteristics of Stalinism was the relationship between its formal and informal aspects. This is reflected clearly in the way in which, over time, the formal institutions of rule were supplanted by more informal mechanisms of decision-making. However, although the formal institutions seemed to atrophy, they were not abolished, but continued to become the basis upon which the post-Stalin leadership rested. The essay explains why one of those institutions, the Politburo, was maintained despite its atrophy as a decision-making organ, explaining this principally as a result of both strategic and tactical considerations.     

Stalinism and the demise of old Siberia

James Hughes, Stalinism in a Russian Province: Collectivization and Dekulakization in Siberia. New York: St Martin's Press, 1996, xv, 271 pp. + tables, maps, documents.

Valentin Rasputin, Siberia, Siberia. Translated with introduction by Margaret Winchell and Gerald Mikkelson. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996, vi, 438 pp. + photographs, bibliography of Western scholarship.

Vasily Shukshin, Stories from a Siberian Village. Translated by Laura Michael and John Givens. Foreword by Kathleen Parthé. Introduction by John Givens. DeKalb: Northern Illinois Press, xlviii, 256 pp.     

Policing the Party: Conflicts between Local Prosecutors and Party Leaders under Late Stalinism

During the late Stalin era, many of the USSR's local party control officials and prosecutors entered into a protracted conflict over who had the right to judge the conduct of communists; prosecutors charged that party committees were shielding communists from prosecution, while control officials claimed that party organs were deferring to prosecutors and abandoning their traditional oversight role. This article will argue that although some party committees were interfering in the courts, the dominant story of party–procuracy relations under post-war Stalinism involved the disengagement of party organs from the oversight of administrative wrongdoing, with long-lasting consequences for the Soviet regime's attitude toward corruption.     

Tradition,UMNO and political succession in Malaysia

ABSTRACT Leaders of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Malaysia's ruling party, invented 'Malay tradition' for the purpose of maintaining control not only over the domestic political process, but also in their own ranks. Yet, this did not deter challenges to the leadership which were also legitimised on the basis of tradition. In this regard, the rhetoric of tradition also functioned as a barometer assessing the stakes and the levels of support for the contestants. When the stakes of political contestation became extraordinarily high, the major protagonists were quite willing to depart from tradition to determine outcomes. Realising its instrumental worth, the UMNO elites manufactured tradition to legitimise deviations from established norms. But in the process of reinventing the wheel, the leaders of UMNO inadvertently contributed to the construction of ethnic identity.     

Oil,Coalitions, and Regime Durability: the Origins and Persistence of Popular Rentierism in Kuwait

While the canonical literature on oil wealth suggests that hydrocarbon windfalls encourage repressive despotism, Kuwait provides a case of an oil-rich autocracy governing instead through popular rentierism—that is, through a broad coalition of social forces, one that furnishes enduring loyalty from below while constraining abuses of state power from above. This paper provides a theoretically guided explanation for this exceptional outcome. I argue that the Kuwaiti regime’s coalitional bargains originated in the pre-oil era, when domestic opposition and geopolitical constrictions compelled it to forge new social alliances at the dawn of modern statehood. This inclusionary strategy mediated the subsequent effect of oil rents, which the regime used to institutionalize its mass base with costly material and symbolic side payments. Such popular incorporation bound large constituent classes to the regime’s survival, precluding the need for widespread repression. After 50 years, these coalitional bargains have also proven remarkably resilient, as social actors have continued to endorse the autocratic leadership despite economic crisis and wartime defeat.