2 - Networks and coalition building in the Brezhnev period

Summary

The formation and power consolidation of a Soviet political regime is a long and complex drama in which actors compete for a role within the institutional hierarchy. In the wake of the October 1964 succession Leonid Brezhnev and other politicians maneuvered to build a new governing coalition. In the absence of explicit and formal rules, informal and extralegal arrangements were critical to the unfolding process of a new regime's emergence and consolidation.

The dynamics of the Soviet political system ensure that mastery of the political process does not automatically follow leadership turnover. A political succession is only the first step. The system needs a powerful chief executive who can shore up all his power, who can build alliances with other politicians and interests, and who can address the policy agenda.

A new Soviet leader will ultimately desire to differentiate himself and his regime from that of his predecessor, but this will require time. The new leader, after all, was likely to have been an important member of the past regime. Any desire for distancing – as through policy innovation – requires the new leader to consolidate his position, bringing in a new “team” of politicians while forging working relations with important incumbents. Unlike Western liberal democracies, there are no rules and no tradition mandating automatic replacement of personnel in the policy-making apparatus. In the Soviet system, the new leader must strengthen his position by easing out weaker and hostile incumbents, promoting reliable subordinates, and forming alliances with powerful incumbent politicians.