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
Summary
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 20th-century Soviet Union and down to the present day
