The collapse of communism was widely heralded as the dawn of democracy across the former Soviet region. However, the political outcome has been much less uniform. The post-communist states have developed political systems from democracy to dictatorship.
Using examples and empirical data collected from twenty-six former Soviet states, Graeme Gill provides a detailed comparative analysis of the core issues of regime change, the creation of civil society, economic reform and the changing nature of post-communism. Within these individual cases, it becomes clear that political outcomes have...

This book, written by three of the West's leading scholars of Soviet and post-Soviet affairs, traces the politics of transition in the late 1980s and early 1990s from its origins to its uncertain post-communist future. Detailed but clearly and accessibly written, The Politics of Transition provides an ideal guide for students and specialists to the changes that have been taking place in the politics of the newly-independent nations that together constitute a sixth of the world's land surface.

In this book Graeme Gill traces the disintegration of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The first book to follow the debates in the party over the implications of Gorbachev's reforms and how the party should respond to them, this study is also an in-depth analysis of the institutional dynamics of a party under pressure, showing how Gorbachev's reforms and the new political forces that grew up in their wake created disunity and fragmentation that ultimately led to the collapse of the most powerful single-party state in...

This book examines the course of official criticism of republican leaderships in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Stalin's death until the collapse of central control in the late 1980s. It focuses upon five republics, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belorussia. The extraordinary power of the central leadership to replace particular republican leaders is contrasted with the continuing dominance of elite politics in these republics by local cliques with substantial and increasing autonomy from Moscow.

This is the study of the failure of democracy in Russia after the collapse of the USSR. It traces the origins of that failure into the Soviet period, and shows how Russian political elites built a system which was more about maximizing their own power than opening the system up to popular control.

One of the key questions in social science is the role of the bourgeoisie in creating a democracy. An important issue in contemporary international politics is the trajectory of the current Russian political system. This book brings these questions together by exploring the role played by the bourgeoisie in shaping political outcomes in five countries: contemporary Russia, industrial revolution Britain, France, Germany and the USA. Its main focus is the way the different new business classes have been integrated into the political system, and the implications this had for the political...

Symbols and Legitimacy in Soviet Politics analyses the way in which Soviet symbolism and ritual changed from the regime's birth in 1917 to its fall in 1991. Graeme Gill focuses on the symbolism in party policy and leaders' speeches, artwork and political posters, urban redevelopment, and on ritual in the political system. He shows how this symbolism and ritual were worked into a dominant metanarrative which underpinned Soviet political development. Gill also shows how, in each of these spheres, the images changed both over the life of the regime and during particular stages: the Leninist era...