The Kind of Political System We Inherited: The Anatomy of the "Pre-April" Political Regime

Abstract

Of course, one cannot equate the times of Stalin with the times of Brezhnev. The differences are evident even to the unaided eye, as they say. However, perhaps it is also only to the unaided eye that they appear to be fundamental. For an eye equipped, however, with a theoretical lens or with a practical knowledge of the inner workings of the political machinery, these differences do not seem so substantial; to the contrary even, it becomes clearly evident that the two periods are fundamentally of a kind. Perhaps it is most correct to look at them as two phases in the development of essentially one and the same political regime. To convince ourselves of this, we must analyze the basic supporting pillars, the institutions of power (the principles governing the structure of power), and the principles governing the implementation of power, on which our political system rested (currently referred to by the fashionable euphemism of the administrative command system) from the thirties to the first half of th...