Practicing Stalinism

In this lively and stimulating work, J. Arch Getty explores the unspoken connections and patronage networks that lie at the heart of Russian politics. Getty contests that ‘deep structures’—the informal, the personal and the arbitrary—have been at the centre of Russian governance for several centuries. Thus, though this work largely focuses on the Stalinist 1930s, it draws a number of connections between different periods in history. In keeping with recent work such as Theodore Weeks’s Across the Revolutionary Divide (2010), this book is keen to consider what did not (as well as what did) change across key turning-points in Russian history. Combining rigorous archival research with a narrative sweep that owes something to Max Weber’s analysis of the major types of authority, Getty’s book is, above all, a study of practice. Stressing how such an approach is informed by the study of ‘real life’, Getty assesses the ‘persistence of tradition and personalization of rule’ (pp. 2–3). What results is a series of essays united by their interest and engagement with the theme of personal rule in Russian politics. There is, however, also a strong onus on the mechanisms of rule and the creation of a Stalinist political system: across eight tightly-argued chapters and an intriguing epilogue, Getty assesses how bureaucratic everydayness and personal relations combined to create a system reliant on informal patronage networks at the expense of the rule of law or civil rights, concepts weakly embedded in Russian political culture

Art · Bureaucracy · Corporate governance · Literature · Management · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theme (computing · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · History · Law