Ruling Russia : authoritarianism from the revolution to Putin

340 Pages·2014·10.473 MB·English

by  Zimmerman, William

Ruling Russia

Ruling Russia
AuthoritAriAnism from the
revolution to Putin
William Zimmerman
P r i n c e t o n un i v e r s i t y P r e s s
P r i n c e t o n An d ox f o r d
Copyright © 2014 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
Jacket art: clockwise from top left:
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ca. 1920, (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division);
Mikhail Gorbachev in Aberdeen, on the occasion of receiving the Freedom of the City
award, © Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Alamy; Joseph Stalin, (Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division); Vladimir Putin, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2005, © Northfoto,
courtesy of Shutterstock; Russian flag background © Cattallina/Shutterstock.
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zimmerman, William, 1936–
 Ruling Russia : authoritarianism from the revolution to Putin / William Zimmerman.
   pages cm
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-0-691-16148-8 (hardback)
 1. Authoritarianism—Soviet Union. 2. Authoritarianism—Russia (Federation)
3. Democratization—Russia (Federation) 4. Soviet Union—Politics and government.
5. Russia (Federation)—Politics and government—1991– I. Title.
 JN6531.Z56 2014
 320.947—dc23   2013048288
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Palatino Linotype
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
ChAPter One
From Democratic Centralism to Democratic Centralism 14
ChAPter Two
Alternative Mobilization Strategies, 1917–1 934 43
ChAPter Three
From Narrow Selectorate to Autocracy 75
ChAPter Four
The Great Purge 102
ChAPter Five
From Totalitarianism to Welfare Authoritarianism 130
ChAPter Six
Uncertainty and “Democratization”: The Evolution
of Post- Brezhnevian Politics, 1982–1 991 164
ChAPter Seven
Democratizing Russia, 1991– 1997 196
ChAPter Eight
The Demise of Schumpeterian Democracy, the Return
to Certainty, and Normal (“Full”) Authoritarianism,
1998– 2008 220
ChAPter Nine
The Return of Uncertainty? The 2011–2 012 Electoral Cycle 267
ChAPter Ten
The Past and Future of Russian Authoritarianism 291
Selected Bibliography 311
Index 323

Acknowledgments
It took me some while to write this book. In the process I incurred a
number of debts. I and three former graduate students— Valerie Bunce,
Olesya Tkacheva, and David Rivera— conducted a workshop during
which we discussed a draft of the first two-t hirds of my book. I re-
peated the experience via videoconferencing with Russian colleagues—
Vladimir Gelman, Eduard Ponarin, Yegor Lazarev, and Kirill Kalinin.
All provided valuable oral and written comments on my work at the
stage I was in and provided me with useful suggestions about the
directions I should take in completing the manuscript. It would not
have been possible for me to conduct the two book conferences were
it not for the financial support and vote of confidence I received from
Teresa Sullivan, who was provost of the university when this project
was launched, and the willingness of Vice Provost Lori Pierce to bear
with my turgid pace after Professor Sullivan had departed Ann Arbor
to become president of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.
Rivera, Kalinin (currently an advanced graduate student at Michi-
gan), and Tkacheva rendered further assistance in this project—R ivera
by providing me with detailed criticisms of every chapter, Kalinin by
preparing the figures in Chapters 8 and 9, and Tkacheva by helping
me with some transliteration issues. Kelly Grossmann provided valu-
able assistance in preparing the Selected Bibliography. In addition
Kira Youdina exemplified the utility for students and faculty of the
university’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program by chas-
ing down fugitive sources and comparing Russian and English versions
of key utterances by various early Bolsheviks.
Special words of thanks go to George Breslauer and Patrick Shields,
both of whom made valuable comments on versions of the manuscript.
As George has done on multiple occasions and in multiple roles in the
course of half a century of friendship, he challenged me to sharpen my
thinking about the book. Patrick had good ideas about the ways the
manuscript could be improved and kept after me to finish the manu-
script. An anonymous reviewer made useful substantive suggestions
and also called my attention to ways the manuscript might be made
more accessible to upper- division undergraduates.
Earlier versions of parts of some chapters have appeared previously.
My comments about Marshal Sokolovsky first appeared as a review
essay in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. My analysis of Russian citizen
viii • Acknowledgments
assessments of the strengths and attitudes of Russian leaders draws
from an earlier Princeton University Press book (The Russian People and
Foreign Policy, 2002). Undertaking empirically those questions would
not have been possible had I not participated in a 1995– 96 wave of mass
surveys of which Timothy Colton was the principal investigator and
if he had not shared data from subsequent surveys. My first effort to
show systematically the trend away from mobilized participation and
its consequences for the nature of the Soviet system came as a result of
my participation in the Soviet Interview Project and appeared in James
Millar, ed., Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR (© Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1987). The section in which I report our ability to esti-
mate changes in Soviet military spending first appeared as an article
(coauthored with Glenn Palmer) in the American Political Science Review
(© Cambridge University Press).
My wife, Susan McClanahan, supported me in multiple ways, most
notably by graciously and in good humor accepting the fact that I have
done in retirement what I did when I was drawing a salary from the
University of Michigan.
This book would not have been possible without the advice, re-
search, and friendship of my former students over the years. For that
reason, I take particular pleasure in dedicating this book to them.
Bill Zimmerman
center for PoliticAl studies And
dePArtment of PoliticAl science
university of michigAn Ann Arbor
Ruling Russia