Gill Graeme. Collective Leadership in Soviet Politics

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. — 351 p. — ISBN10: 3319769618; ISBN13: 978-3319769615 — (Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership)This book studies the way in which the top leadership in the Soviet Union changed over time from 1917 until the collapse of the country in 1991. Its principal focus is the tension between individual leadership and collective rule, and it charts how this played out over the life of the regime. The strategies used by the most prominent leader in each period – Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev – to acquire and retain power are counterposed to the strategies used by the other oligarchs to protect themselves and sustain their positions. This is analyzed against the backdrop of the emergence of norms designed to structure oligarch politics. The book will appeal to students and scholars interested in the fields of political leadership, Soviet politics and Soviet history.Introduction: The Study of Soviet LeadershipThe Institutional Basis of Elite PoliticsOligarchy with a Predominant Leader, 1917-22Institutional Fluidity
Dynamics of Conflict Within the Collective
The Shape of Elite Consensus
Personalized PoliticsRule by Pure Oligarchy, 1923-29Strategies of Factional Conflict
On Factions
The Dynamics of OppositionFrom the Predominant to the Dominant Leader, 1930-53Oligarchy with a Predominant Leader, 1930-34
The Leader Dominant and Involved, 1935-41
Dominant Leader Within the Collective, 1941-45
Dominant, but Distant, 1945-53The Limits of the Predominant Leader, 1953-64The Elite Consensus
The Post-Stalin Elite
Undermining Collectivism
The Achilles Heel of Leadership PredominancePredominant Leader Within the Collective, 1964-82Development of a Brezhnev Faction?
Norms of Elite Politics
Institutional Contours of Elite PoliticsCollectivism Collapses, 1982-91The Interregnum: Andropov and Chernenko
Gorbachev and the Collapse of Collective LeadershipFormal Norms
Informal Norms