History of the Soviet Regime (1945-1991)

Author: (Russian) R.G. Pyhoy
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: The mechanism of a regime's existence typically requires close coordination among numerous administrative departments (ministries, the Council of Ministers and its subordinate departments, Central Committee of the Communist Party, Secretariat, and Politburo). However, once the need arises for rapid decision-making, or when these decisions hold high political value, the seemingly perfect consultation systems and pre-expert review protocols are discarded. Instead, decisions are hastily made by a small group of top political leaders (usually composed of party leaders, heads of the Council of Ministers, the KGB, and military commanders) based on what they deem politically reasonable (to be precise, politically reasonable at a given moment). Many leaders often firmly reject expert opinions and defy previously passed resolutions. The highly centralized power and pursuit of self-aggrandizement characteristic of the Soviet regime's organization led to well-known management problems: the "information flow" from below could not be used for decision-making. The task of this book is to study who made what decisions in the post-war history of the country, how these decisions were formed, how the state regime exercised power in its various forms, and why the system considered effective and possessing vast resources ceased to exist. The subject of this book is the post-war history of the Soviet regime (1945–1991). The main task is to study who made what decisions in the post-war history of the country, how these decisions were formed, how the state regime exercised power in its various forms, and so on.