Commissars, Commanders, and Civilian Authority: The Structure of Soviet Military Politics

by Timothy J Colton

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674497429
Publisher:	Harvard
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Series:	Russian Research Center Studies Series , #79
Edition description:	Reprint 2014 ed.
Pages:	373
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Colton Timothy J. :

Timothy J. Colton is the Morris and Anna Feldberg Professor of Government and Russian Studies, and the Director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. The Military Party Organs

1. The Structure of the Military Party Organs

2. The Roles of the Military Party Organs

3. The Military Party Organs in Military Administration

4. The Monitoring Capability of the Military Party Organs

II. The Military Party Organs and Military Politics

5. Routine Administrative Politics

6. The Great Purge

7. World War II Decision Making

8. The Zhukov Affair

9. Public Demand Articulations

III. Army-Party Relations Reassessed

10. The Army in Soviet Politics: Capabilities and Participation

11. Explaining the Army's Political Quiescence

12. Civil-Military Relations and Soviet Development

Appendix A: Biographical Data on Soviet Military Officers

Appendix B: A Note on Primary Sources

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

A fine, scholarly book that will no doubt quickly establish itself as the standard work on the role of the Soviet military as a political actor and as an institution. It is a basic study and a clear historical review, and at the same time it presents an advanced and sophisticated analytical approach to Soviet military politics...The result is a detailed study of the Soviet military that has high comparative value for the examination of military political conduct in general. This is an advanced work.

Colton's study is excellent in terms of both content and methodology.

It has been generally assumed by Western observers that there is and has been tension in the military between the party's political officers and the military commanders... [Colton] argues the contrary thesis that the Military Party Organs for the most part are not in conflict with the regular military staff and command... Professor Colton is able to support his theses with an abundance of evidence...He not only has surveyed all the available military press and some of the party and government press but has made extensive use of the published memoirs by military commanders in World War II... This volume is well worth reading and makes an important contribution in refuting the views of many Western observers on Soviet civil-military relations.

From the Publisher

It has been generally assumed by Western observers that there is and has been tension in the military between the party's political officers and the military commanders... [Colton] argues the contrary thesis that the Military Party Organs for the most part are not in conflict with the regular military staff and command... Professor Colton is able to support his theses with an abundance of evidence...He not only has surveyed all the available military press and some of the party and government press but has made extensive use of the published memoirs by military commanders in World War II... This volume is well worth reading and makes an important contribution in refuting the views of many Western observers on Soviet civil-military relations.

Russian Review

Colton's study is excellent in terms of both content and methodology.

Slavic Review

A fine, scholarly book that will no doubt quickly establish itself as the standard work on the role of the Soviet military as a political actor and as an institution. It is a basic study and a clear historical review, and at the same time it presents an advanced and sophisticated analytical approach to Soviet military politics...The result is a detailed study of the Soviet military that has high comparative value for the examination of military political conduct in general. This is an advanced work.

Choice

It has been generally assumed by Western observers that there is and has been tension in the military between the party's political officers and the military commanders... [Colton] argues the contrary thesis that the Military Party Organs for the most part are not in conflict with the regular military staff and command... Professor Colton is able to support his theses with an abundance of evidence...He not only has surveyed all the available military press and some of the party and government press but has made extensive use of the published memoirs by military commanders in World War II... This volume is well worth reading and makes an important contribution in refuting the views of many Western observers on Soviet civil-military relations.

Russian Review - David T. Cattell

Colton's study is excellent in terms of both content and methodology.

Slavic Review - Jonathan Harris