How do local leaders govern in a large dictatorship? What resources do they draw on? This book examines these questions by looking at one of the most important authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. Starting in the early years after the Second World War and taking the story through to the 1970s, the book charts the strategies of Soviet regional leaders, paying particular attention to the forging and evolution of local trust networks. The book begins with an explanation of what dictatorship is and how it works, and it analyzes how countries move from one form of dictatorship to another ... More

How do local leaders govern in a large dictatorship? What resources do they draw on? This book examines these questions by looking at one of the most important authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. Starting in the early years after the Second World War and taking the story through to the 1970s, the book charts the strategies of Soviet regional leaders, paying particular attention to the forging and evolution of local trust networks. The book begins with an explanation of what dictatorship is and how it works, and it analyzes how countries move from one form of dictatorship to another. It also looks at the most important dictatorships of the modern era in a new perspective. It focuses on the personal dictatorship that formed in the Soviet Union from the 1930s that center on the supreme leader, Joseph Stalin, and talks about substate dictators that were nested in Stalin's statewide dictatorship. The book builds on recent developments in the theory of dictatorship, such as the distinction between the dictator's problem of controlling threats from the masses, the problem of authoritarian control, and the problem of authoritarian power sharing. It discusses the challenges that substate leaders faced after the war and the party-based tools they used to forge networks. The book moves on to examine the stabilization of hierarchies and the changing balance between co-optation and political exclusion after the war, and explores the various ways in which substate leaders responded to new impulses at a regional level. It looks at the succession struggle in Moscow and its effects on the environment in which substate leaders operated. The book's conclusion suggests how a public discursive framework can help provide a benchmark for comparing the Soviet Union with other regimes, including that of contemporary post-communist Russia. It summarizes how substate leaders and their strategies can shed light on dictatorship and on how it changes over time. It also explains that the Soviet case falls into two broad categories, one empirical and historical, the other comparative and theoretical. The chapter draws attention to a parallel act of delegation at the regional level. It also recounts how Joseph Stalin handed over power on a provisional basis to regional leaders due to his inability to penetrate the inner recesses of local administration.