THE POLITICAL CIRCLE OF NIZHNY NOVGOROD STUDENTS UNDER THE PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP

By the mid-1920s, the remnants of the multi-party system in the USSR were eliminated, and the political monopoly of the RCP(b) fully established in the country. During Lenin’s illness in 1922–1923, Stalin and his allies began to solve all the issues in the highest party leadership. During this period, a struggle for power began between the Bolshevik leaders, which found expression in the subsequent party discussions. In May-June 1927, a Statement of the 83 appeared, which at that time collected about 1.5 thousand signatures of representatives of the old Leninist Guard. This statement was signed by supporters of Trotsky in the opposition of 1923–1924 and supporters of Zinoviev and Kamenev in the opposition of 1925–1926. They shared a common goal — the desire to change the intra-party regime. Since the party-state apparatus prevented the opposition from forming a legal faction, it was forced to use the methods of illegal work familiar from pre-revolutionary times: creation of a coordination center, its own channels for distributing information, issuing statements, «platforms», leaflets, sending representatives to the places, organization of secret meetings. Under these conditions, a political circle formes among Nizhny Novgorod students, basing on the ideas of the opposition. Students with the help of leaflets called on the population to unite those who disagree with the political arbitrariness of the authorities and create an opposition movement «Union of Struggle for the Dictatorship of the Working Class», which could resist the party and state bodies basing on «militant Marxism». OGPU rapid operational actions led to finding and eliminating the political circle among Nizhny Novgorod student youth. Thus, the forced use of illegal methods by the opposition gave Stalin a reason to strengthen punitive measures against dissenters. Thus, at the end of the 1920s, the prerequisites for the formation of totalitarianism finally formed in the USSR.

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On the Way to “Brezhnev Stability”: Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1966–1968

Modern History of Russia ◽

10.21638/11701/spbu24.2020.308 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 685-701

Author(s):

K. A. Boldovskiy ◽

◽

N. Yu. Pivovarov ◽

◽

Keyword(s):

Primary Source ◽

Power Structure ◽

Central Committee ◽

Primary Sources ◽

The Political ◽

Collective Leadership ◽

Party Leaders ◽

State Apparatus ◽

Party State

The article uses primary sources not previously published, including draft minutes of the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat during the period 1966–1967. This primary source clearly demonstrates the practice of making the most important decisions in one of the most important bodies of the party apparatus during the formation of the practice of “collective leadership”. The article shows the place of the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat in the power structure of the USSR. Despite the brevity of notes, an analysis suggests several conclusions about the political and economic orientations of the country’s leaders in the early Brezhnev period. Speeches made during discussions of various issues demonstrate the desire of party leaders to move away from unjustified (in their opinion), reforms of the Khrushchev-era management apparatus and to focus instead on systematic changes aimed at strengthening the role of the party-state apparatus and improving the economy. The article also analyzes speeches by individual party leaders who most clearly expressed their position, such as L.I.Brezhnev, M.A.Suslov, D.F.Ustinov, and A.N.Shelepin. The article discusses the organization of the activities of the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee: the composition of participants in meetings, the distribution of responsibilities between them, the procedure for preparing agenda items for meetings of departments of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the practice of discussions, and attempts to streamline the work of the Secretariat.

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Modernization of Soviet Russia in 1920-1930-ies: transformation programme of the RCP(b) — VKP(b) as instruments of struggle for power

10.12737/1064904 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ivan Anfert'ev

Keyword(s):

Political Life ◽

The Political ◽

University Professors ◽

State Apparatus ◽

History Of ◽

Soviet Russia ◽

Proletarian Revolution ◽

Managerial Experience ◽

Ruling Party ◽

Party State

The monograph is devoted to studying the process of implementation of modernization projects of the RCP(b) - VKP(b) 1920-1930-ies in the context of intra-party struggle for power. A lack of managerial experience in the leadership of the country, declared utopian ideas, the bureaucratization of the party-state apparatus and the commitment to radical ways of solving problems gave rise to political and socio-economic crises affect the results. Revealed the limits of the political life of leaders of the ruling party in the implementation of the political-administrative projects considered as a series of unjustified social and economic experiments, criticized the concept of the Soviet state as an apparatus of violence in the interests of the world proletarian revolution. Intended for specialists in the history of Soviet Russia of the twentieth century, University professors, and for anyone interested in Russian history.

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Legislating for a De Jure One-Party State in 1982 and “Party Hopping” in 2012

Advances in Electronic Government, Digital Divide, and Regional Development - Political Discourse in Emergent, Fragile, and Failed Democracies ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-0081-0.ch016 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 286-305

Author(s):

Sammy Gakero Gachigua

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Party System ◽

Political Elite ◽

The Political ◽

Freedom Of Association ◽

History Of ◽

Party State

This study investigates the framing of arguments used in debating the Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill 1982 and the Election Amendment Bill 2012 in order to interrogate how the elite conceive of the place of political parties in Kenya, as well as examining the transformations of this conception in the two periods. Through coercion and fallaciously invoking the democratic intentions of the bill, the illustrious history of KANU, and the need to unite behind KANU and President Moi, the 1982 bill resulted in an overinstitutionalized party system. The passage of the 2012 bill resulted in perpetuating an underinstitutionalized party system legitimized through overwhelmingly invoking the desire for freedom of association. Despite the differences in the framing of the arguments and the resultant impact of the bills, there is a strong underlying continuity that shows an instrumentalist conceptualization of political parties by the political elite in both the periods.

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How Illiteracy Became a Problem (And Literacy Stopped Being One)

Journal of Education ◽

10.1177/002205748316500105 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 165 (1) ◽

pp. 35-52 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

James Donald

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Political Discourse ◽

Sociology Of Education ◽

The Political ◽

State Apparatus ◽

Late Eighteenth ◽

Political Problem ◽

Education Act ◽

Cultural Movement

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the conjunction of fairly widespread literacy with a new radical political discourse produced a powerful cultural movement in England. In responding to it, the ruling bloc devised new modes of ideological intervention which had significant effects on the shape of the emerging state apparatus. By the time Forster's Education Act was introduced in 1870, the political “problem” had been redefined in terms of the illiteracy, deficient language, and debased tastes of working-class pupils. This history raises questions about the conceptualization of hegemony and resistance in the sociology of education.

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Features of party education in the USSR in the late 1920s-1930s

Scientific bulletin of the Southern Institute of Management ◽

10.31775/2305-3100-2019-4-129-133 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 129-133

Author(s):

A. G. Ryabchenko ◽

I. D. Zolotareva

Keyword(s):

Cultural Revolution ◽

Middle Management ◽

Political Elite ◽

The Political ◽

Country Group ◽

State Apparatus ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Further Development ◽

Party State

The article attempts to reveal the main features of the emergence and further development of the Soviet party elite of the USSR in 1920-1930. In the article, the political elite is understood as the partyadministrative elite of the country, which, as a rule, consisted of members or candidates of the CPSU (b), and was the most significant in its influence on the life of the country group of managers, both national and local authorities. One of the necessary attributes, by the end of the 1920s. it became possible to get education in Soviet party schools in a number of relevant areas. At the beginning of the 1930s. had to deploy a system of party schools, lower, middle and higher, the main purpose of which was to train the party-Soviet and partyeconomic managers of higher and middle management. But also higher education institutions not party also were a forge of shots of party managers-functionaries and Communists-economic managers and experts. The article is devoted to the history of the system of training managers of the party-state apparatus of the USSR. Attention is drawn to the peculiarities of the formation of the Soviet state, associated with the implementation of three global transformations, such as industrialization, collectivization and cultural revolution, which contributed to a significant change in the social structure of society.

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Eenpartijstaten in Zwart Afrika : Evolutie, recente ontwikkelingen, perspectieven

Res Publica ◽

10.21825/rp.v26i2.19236 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 143-179

Author(s):

Filip Reyntjens

Keyword(s):

Political Development ◽

Critical Analysis ◽

Party System ◽

The Political ◽

National Unity ◽

Political Class ◽

Recent Developments ◽

Party Ideology ◽

Coups D'etat ◽

Party State

Together with the emergence of strong executive presidencies and the frequency of coups d'Etat, the single party is one of the striking features of the political development in Africa South of the Sahara since 1960.More than half the countries of the continent are presently under one-party rule. This article attempts to analyse the origins, recent developments, and perspectives in the field of African single-party states. Sameelements favourable to the emergence of this phenomenon were the colonial heritage, the precolonial tradition, and the aura of legitimacy of the national liberation movements. Several techniques were usedby African leaders to impose rule by one party; distinction is made between political, legal and institutional, and authoritarian means. African leaders have relied on several justifications to rationalise the introduction of such regimes : economie development, national unity and nation-building, the absence of class-differentiation, the unanimitarian tradition, and the need to give constitutional recognition to a de facto situation. A critical analysis shows that these arguments do not, in general, withstand closer examination. The conclusion is that the single-party «ideology» serves mainly to protect the hegemony of a small and privileged political class of rulers against challenge of its position. As far as perspectives are concerned, three possibilities seem to be developing simultaneously : the Party-State, the no-party state, and the multi-party state. It is argued in a conclusion that the single-party state need not be undemocratic ; some conditions for a democratic one-party system are set forth.

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Nation, Locality and Radical Identity

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474425612.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Malcolm Petrie

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Communist Party ◽

The Political ◽

Central Control ◽

Election Campaigns ◽

Labour Movement ◽

General Elections ◽

Political Left ◽

National Model ◽

Selection Of

Concentrating upon the years between the 1924 and 1929 general elections, which separated the first and second minority Labour governments, this chapter traces the rise of a modernised, national vision of Labour politics in Scotland. It considers first the reworking of understandings of sovereignty within the Labour movement, as the autonomy enjoyed by provincial trades councils was circumscribed, and notions of Labour as a confederation of working-class bodies, which could in places include the Communist Party, were replaced by a more hierarchical, national model. The electoral consequences of this shift are then considered, as greater central control was exercised over the selection of parliamentary candidates and the conduct of election campaigns. This chapter presents a study of the changing horizons of the political left in inter-war Scotland, analysing the declining importance of locality in the construction of radical political identities.

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Back to the Westminster model? The Brexit process and the UK political system

International Political Science Review ◽

10.1177/0192512120967375 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 019251212096737

Author(s):

Gianfranco Baldini ◽

Edoardo Bressanelli ◽

Emanuele Massetti

Keyword(s):

Political System ◽

Party System ◽

Political Process ◽

Three Dimensions ◽

Executive Power ◽

The Political ◽

Westminster Model ◽

The Uk ◽

Quantitative Indicators ◽

The Impact

This article investigates the impact of Brexit on the British political system. By critically engaging with the conceptualisation of the Westminster model proposed by Arend Lijphart, it analyses the strains of Brexit on three dimensions developed from from Lijphart’s framework: elections and the party system, executive– legislative dynamics and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Supplementing quantitative indicators with an in-depth qualitative analysis, the article shows that the process of Brexit has ultimately reaffirmed, with some important caveats, key features of the Westminster model: the resilience of the two-party system, executive dominance over Parliament and the unitary character of the political system. Inheriting a context marked by the progressive weakening of key majoritarian features of the political system, the Brexit process has brought back some of the traditional executive power-hoarding dynamics. Yet, this prevailing trend has created strains and resistances that keep the political process open to different developments.

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