| Commissars, Commanders, and Civilian Authority: The Structure of Soviet Military Politics Contributor(s): Colton, Timothy J. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0674145356 ISBN-13: 9780674145351 Publisher: Harvard University Press OUR PRICE: $65.84 Product Type: Hardcover Published: May 1979 Annotation: The basic rationale for this detailed study of the military party organs is to generate evidence about the question of persistence in army-party relations. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History - Political Science |
| Dewey: 322.509 |
| LCCN: 78023342 |
| Series: Russian Research Center Studies |
| Physical Information: 1.37" H x 6.54" W x 9.62" (1.78 lbs) 374 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: For six decade the Soviet system has been immune to military rebellion and takeover, which often characterizes modernizing countries. How can we explain the stability of Soviet military politics, asks Timothy Colton in his compelling interpretation of civil-military relations in the Soviet Union. Hitherto most western scholars have posited a basic dichotomy of interests between the Soviet army and the Communist party. They view the two institutions as conflictprone, with civilian supremacy depending primarily upon the party's control of officers through its organs within the military establishment. Colton challenges this thesis and argues that the military party organs have come to possess few of the attributes of an effective controlling device, and that the commissars and their heirs have operated as allies rather than adversaries of the military commanders. In explaining the extraordinary stability in army-party relations in terms of overlapping interests rather than controlling mechanisms, Colton offers a major case study and a new model to students of comparative military politics. |