How succession in authoritarian regimes was less a competition of visions for the future and more a settling of scores „Joseph Torigian’s stellar research and personal interviews have produced a brilliant, meticulous study. It fundamentally undermines what political scientists have presumed to be the way Chinese Communist and Soviet politics operate.”-Dorothy J. Solinger, University of California, Irvine The political successions in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao, respectively, are often explained as triumphs of inner-party democracy, leading to a victory of „reformers” over „conservatives” or „radicals.” In traditional thinking, Leninist institutions provide competitors a mechanism for debating policy and making promises, stipulate rules for leadership selection, and prevent the military and secret police from playing a coercive role. Here, Joseph Torigian argues that the post-cult of personality power struggles in history’s two greatest Leninist regimes were instead shaped by the politics of personal prestige, historical antagonisms, backhanded political maneuvering, and violence. Mining newly discovered material from Russia and China, Torigian challenges the established historiography and suggests a new way of thinking about the nature of power in authoritarian regimes.
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- Reevaluation of Succession in Authoritarian Regimes: Joseph Torigian’s research suggests that political successions in China and the Soviet Union were driven more by personal rivalries, prestige, and violence rather than institutional processes like inner-party democracy.
What is the main argument of Joseph Torigian’s research on succession in authoritarian regimes?
Joseph Torigian argues that political successions in China and the Soviet Union were primarily influenced by personal rivalries, prestige, historical antagonisms, and violence, rather than institutional processes such as inner-party democracy.
