The Problem of Succession in the Soviet Political System: The Case of Khrushchev

Abstract

The mode of succession has long been recognized as one of the principal factors in determining the stability of a given political system and a key datum in the analysis of power relations within such a system. Essentially, the problem can be stated as involving (a) the technique of choosing a successor to a political leader, and (b) the successor's legitimization in the legal, traditional, or charismatic sense. This paper will deal primarily with the technique of succession in the Soviet system, touching only marginally on the question of legitimization. While drawing analogies from the post-Lenin succession crisis, the paper will attempt to identify the factors that shaped the nature and the course of the post-Stalin power struggle and the technique that ensured Khrushchev's victory over his rivals. Needless to say, limitations of evidence have introduced a considerable speculative element into the discussion, and some of the generalizations are therefore, at best, only tentative hypotheses that will have to be tested against such empirical evidence as may become available in the future.Although modern constitutionalism has largely resolved the problem of succession by legally defining the technique of succession and making the technique the criterion of legitimacy, the very nature of the totalitarian dictatorship that emerged in Russia after 1917 precludes a constitutional solution to the problem. “… dictatorship,” Lenin wrote in 1920, “means neither more nor less than unlimited power resting directly on force, not limited by anything, not restrained by any laws or any absolute rules.”